Carl Williams tapped to co-chair AFT PSRP Program and Policy Council
Demystifying the acronyms, from AFT and CFT to PPC and CCE
The AFT groups classified employees, support staff, and paraprofessionals together in its Paraprofessionals and School-Related Personnel (PSRP) division, representing more than 370,000 workers in public and private preK-12 schools, colleges, and universities across the nation.
AFT resolution asks U.S. Department of Education to conduct higher ed study
Calls for national data about adjunct/contingent pay and benefit inequities
CFT once again demonstrated its commitment to adjunct/contingent faculty by submitting and winning unanimous passage of its resolution “Calling for Department of Education Study of Pay and Benefit Inequity” at the AFT Convention July 15 in Boston.
In our voices: The state of our schools, workers, and students
Educators report staff shortages, mental health issues are ubiquitous
Yajaira J. Cuapio has been a social worker in the San Francisco Unified School District for eight years. With the pandemic, she says the last couple of years have been challenging.
“Students have been isolated for so long that it’s having an impact on their social skills. They’re arguing and fighting, and it leads to unsafe interactions,” she said. “Then academically there have been disruptions. For one thing, a positive COVID case would cause students to have to quarantine for 10 days, and if they’re out that long, truancy is established.”
AFT task force tackles national staff shortages in education
CFT seeks to set minimum salaries and hourly pay
COVID didn’t create the national staffing crisis we face, but the pandemic has stretched classified and certificated members so thin that some schools have been forced to shut their doors.
AFT has stepped up to the challenge and created an Education Staffing Crisis Task Force co-chaired by Carl Williams, head of the CFT Council of Classified Employees and an AFT Vice President, and Michael Mulgrew, leader of AFT’s largest local union, New York City’s United Federation of Teachers.
Leadership Conference focuses on racial and social justice
Thurmond, Weingarten address delegates
About 200 CFT members from around the state converged at San Francisco’s Hyatt Regency for a Leadership Conference — the first time they’d been able to join together for such an event since the state shut down for COVID on March 13, 2020.
Seeming excited to see one another in person, attendees went to workshops, many dealing with racial and social justice issues, and heard from speakers including JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion) Organizer Cynthia Eaton, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, and AFT President Randi Weingarten.
New AFT report shows pandemic wreaked havoc on nation’s adjunct faculty
Transition to remote learning, impact of virus lead to declines in job security, increased reliance on public assistance
WASHINGTON — A new national adjunct faculty survey from the AFT underlines the brutal economic reality faced by millions of contingent and adjunct faculty at the nation’s colleges and universities — and illustrates how the pandemic further eroded job security and bolstered the need for public help.
A brief AFT history of paras, classified employees, and social justice
VIDEOS: How paraprofessionals and support staff became an integral part of AFT
In the early summer of 1919, when the American Federation of Teachers found out that the Boston Men Teachers’ Union were intent on ensuring that the Boston Women Teachers’ Union would never achieve equal pay to them, the AFT sent a stern letter telling the men that is not what unionism is about and to stop their actions. The men left the union and even though the AFT knew losing members was dire in 1920, it was the right thing to do.
Another round of federal stimulus signed into law
$900 billion COVID relief package extends unemployment benefits
On December 21, Congress passed a long-anticipated additional round of COVID relief legislation as part of the Bipartisan-Bicameral Omnibus COVID Relief Deal. The legislative package — the result of last-minute frantic negotiations — provides more much-needed relief to individuals, education, hospitals and businesses in response to the economic distress caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Contingent faculty team up, pass national shared governance policy
AFT Convention adopts resolution crafted by UC and community college faculty
While the COVID-19 pandemic meant that this summer’s AFT Convention had to go virtual, and in turn, resulted in format changes which made schedules tighter, and the work of those attending harder in many respects, one of the great achievements for CFT was the passage of a resolution calling for the right of contingent faculty to participate in shared governance.
The patient is on the table — Higher Education in America is sick
Opinion
By Geoff Johnson, AFT Guild, San Diego and Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community Colleges
Higher education in America is sick. Its classrooms and campuses have been largely shuttered, save but for students taking lab courses, or practicums, ironically in hospitals. Students and instructors are now confined to the domains of their computers and laptop screens in the educational netherworlds of Zoom or Cranium. With the exception of online instruction developed prior to the crisis, what is being delivered, more so than taught, is a curriculum of coping under the duress of the coronavirus pandemic.
Q&A with Carl Williams: First classified AFT vice president from California
“We are essential and this work cannot be done without us”
On September 1, Carl Williams was elected to join 39 other AFT Vice Presidents from across the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Williams joins two other vice presidents from California, a group that has included former CFT Presidents Mary Bergan and Joshua Pechthalt over the years, and now current President Jeff Freitas.
Tell Congress to pass the HEROES Act!
Invest now to get America safely back to school and back to work
COVID-19 is triggering state and local budget crises across the nation. State and local governments are incurring huge new costs as they seek to contain and treat the coronavirus and respond to the virus-induced spike in joblessness and related human needs. At the same time, they are projecting sharply lower tax revenues due to the widespread collapse of economic activity brought about by efforts to contain the virus’ spread.
AFT guidelines call for safe reopening of schools and communities
National union defines five key tenets for reopening
The AFT on April 30 released a detailed road map that, in the absence of a COVID-19 vaccine, charts a path to safely and responsibly reopen school buildings and other institutions crucial to the well-being and economic vitality of our communities.
The 20-page, science-based “Plan to Safely Reopen America’s Schools and Communities” sprung from an intense collaboration of public health professionals, union leaders and frontline workers to prepare for what happens next in the period between flattening the curve and truly eradicating the virus.
“An Army of Temps” — AFT’s call to action
New AFT report attaches numbers to the human crisis in higher education
Part of the tragedy of the COVID-19 pandemic is that for those who were already at risk, it has laid their situation bare. This is a part-timer reality.
“While it may seem like an odd time to be putting out the “Army of Temps: AFT Contingent Faculty Quality of Worklife Survey,” frankly, it’s about as good a time as ever to show the fragility of this workforce.”
The CARES Act — federal stimulus becomes law
What you need to know about COVID-19 pandemic relief
The new bipartisan federal stimulus legislation, known as the CARES Act, was signed yesterday. The $2.2 trillion bill — the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act — is the third piece of federal coronavirus response legislation passed in recent days and contains significant new resources to assist in COVID-19 recovery.
Freeway Flyers: Local action & quick news
Salary comparison, part-timer conference, celebrity part-timers
Los Angeles adjunct becomes chair of California Democratic Party
Rusty Hicks, known to the larger California public as the newly elected leader of the California Democratic Party, is known to the students of the Los Angeles Community College District and the Los Angeles College Faculty Guild, Local 1521, by another title since 2016 — Adjunct Instructor of Labor Studies.
AFT resolution supports $7,000 per three-credit course for adjuncts
One of the more talked about resolutions passed by the biennial AFT Convention this July was Resolution 15, which calls for AFT to support City University of New York adjuncts in their quest to achieve through “actions, demonstrations, and advocacy,” a minimum of $7,000 per three-credit class.
The resolution, which passed with resounding support and no opposition, also supports this minimum in “all other AFT locals’ campaigns for fair adjunct pay.”
AFT honors San Diego organizer, Lawndale Federation
Tina Solórzano Fletcher of the AFT Guild, which represents nearly 6,000 employees at San Diego and Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community Colleges, was honored with the Talking Union Award at the annual AFT Paraprofessional and School-Related Personnel conference in April. Fletcher is a member-organizer for AFT Local 1931.
This year, the local prioritized one-on-one contact with non-members, and from September 1 through May 31, signed up 506 new members.
The first 100 years of the AFT
From eight local unions to 3,000 locals and 1.6 million members
World War I and the Depression: The American Federation of Teachers was founded in Chicago, with eight locals signing on as AFL President Samuel Gompers welcomed the union into its fold in 1916. The union operated from one room of AFT Financial Secretary Freeland Stecker’s five-room bungalow in Chicago. President Charles Stillman lived next door.
Randi Weingarten: You bend the arc toward justice every day
You have created a mighty, mighty union with mighty, mighty values,” AFT President Randi Weingarten told attendees of the CFT Convention. “You bend the arc towards justice every day. Now we have a fight like never before, a fight to the finish, and we must win.”
AFT Convention forms Part-Time Caucus
Part-time and contingent faculty throughout the United States now have a stronger voice in our national union with the formation of a Part-Time Caucus at the AFT Convention in July.
Several California part-timers are helping shape this tool to influence AFT priorities and connect part-timers nationwide.
Small AFT locals get big attention from new task force
By the Numbers | AFT local unions
3,370 Number of locals chartered by the AFT
3,019: Locals with fewer than 600 members
(90 percent)
1,819: Locals with fewer than 100 members
(54 percent)
One in four of AFT’s 1.56 million members belong to a small local, and 90 percent of AFT local unions are considered small, defined as having fewer than 600 members.
While belonging to a small local can foster a sense of teamwork, small locals often come up short of the resources, training and volunteers to effectively represent members, according to a new AFT task force.
AFT President continues to champion issues of California educators
From helping pass Proposition 30, which raises billions of dollars for education, to fighting back against Vergara v. California, a lawsuit filed on behalf of nine student plaintiffs which seeks to dismantle teachers’ rights, AFT President Randi Weingarten stands up for California educators and students.
AFT aims to ‘reclaim the promise of public education’
Remarks of AFT President Randi Weingarten at TEACH 2013
Introduction: The year that was
This year, there were many reminders of the role that educators play in the lives of America’s children.