|
|
| |
| AFT Home > Publications > Inside AFT |  |
| |||||||
|
|
|
Inside AFT
Week of May 01, 2000
AFT members and leaders are urgently requested to join a national "call-in" day on May 4 to oppose legislation now before the U.S. Senate that would convert crucial federal programs into block grants and vouchers. During the week of May 1, the Senate is expected to consider S.2, legislation reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The AFT is strongly opposed to this bill, called the Educational Opportunities Act. S.2 turns important federal programs like Title I, professional development and class size into block grants and vouchers through the "Straight A's" and "Teacher Empowerment Act" block grants included in the bill. Straight A's will allow states to divert attention and resources from our nation's disadvantaged students and use Title I funds for other purposes, including vouchers. The Teacher Empowerment Act would put school districts at a disadvantage also by turning the current class-size reduction and professional development programs into block grants. Schools should not be forced to choose between reducing class size and providing high-quality professional development: these critical objectives must go hand in hand. In addition, S.2 includes a "portability" voucher proposal under Title I that will allow needed Title I funds to be taken out of the public schools and used elsewhere, including private and religious schools. The AFT, along with many other national, state and local education organizations, are working to defeat S.2. Please contact your senators on May 4 to express opposition to the bill. You can do this online through the AFT's "Contact Congress."
A "watershed" for both the nation and the union is how AFT president Sandra Feldman described the upcoming November elections in an April 27 speech to AFT leaders in Washington, D.C. If George W. Bush wins the presidency and Congress remains under the control of the current GOP leadership, they will team up and press hard for massive tax cuts and tax credits that will strangle investment in programs that benefit the neediest, the AFT president warned participants at the union's local presidents' conference. The GOP nominee also will step up attacks on union involvement in politics, push for privatization and vouchers, and attempt to weaken federal programs that serve the neediest communities. Al Gore, on the other hand, has a strong pro-labor record, is unflinching in his opposition to vouchers, and believes strongly that the public investments begun in the Clinton administration must continue. The 2000 primaries showed the voting power of union households, said Feldman. Looking to November, "the single most important thing is how our affiliates turn out voters," she noted. The AFT president also updated local leaders on several positive developments in the union, including 1999's banner year for organizing, and ongoing discussions with the National Education Association and the AFL-CIO that will build labor cooperation and ultimately could lay the groundwork for a merged teacher union. Feldman also commented on substantive, ongoing discussions among several affiliates about new contract models that could offer flexibility to educators while preserving their bedrock rights; she also discussed the recent report of a K-16 AFT task force on teacher preparation that received national attention.
Just a few months after winning a historic collective bargaining election for teachers and other professionals on the island, the AFT-affiliated Federacion de Maestros de Puerto Rico has ratified its first contract. The contract, which deals only with non-economic issues--bargaining on economic issues begins January 2001--includes a number of important breakthroughs. In addition to a whole array of union rights, including release time for union work-site stewards and payroll deduction of dues, the Federacion won a streamlined three-step grievance procedure with binding arbitration, preparation time for all elementary and secondary teachers, strong language on availability of adequate supplies and equipment, and a very important set of provisions on health and safety conditions. Safe drinking water, adequate ventilation and the general state of school buildings have been important issues for teachers, and a joint labor-management health and safety committee will be formed to focus on the problems. The Federacion leadership toured the entire island as part of the ratification campaign, which drew 80 percent support from the more than 30,000 people who voted. AFT president Sandra Feldman is set to attend a signing ceremony on May 1 with the governor and commissioner of education of Puerto Rico.
The AFT organizing bandwagon continues with another string of successes. On April 26, teachers and PSRPs in El Paso, Texas, voted for the El Paso Federation of Teachers and Support Personnel as their exclusive representative. Public sector collective bargaining is illegal in Texas, but through organizing and political action, the AFT has managed to win "exclusive employee consultation" policies and recognition in Corpus Christi, San Antonio, Dallas (teachers and PSRPs vote for a single "coordinating organization"), Austin (a merged AFT/NEA local) and now El Paso. This was far from an easy campaign, reports AFT organizing director Phil Kugler. In addition to our local, there were three other organizations involved--an NEA affiliate and two independent organizations, one of which (Association of Texas Professional Educators) is dominated by administrators, opposes collective bargaining and has ties to the national Right-to-Work Committee. These three competing groups formed a coalition, announced they would not be on the ballot and began a campaign for a "No" vote. Not surprisingly, the vote turned out to be close: 2,736 for the AFT and 2,470 for "No Organization." The total unit is 7,664. Kugler notes that this victory pushes the AFT's representation wins this school year up to a total of nearly 70,000--our best organizing year since the NYSUT merger in the early 1970s.
The Nurses United for Improved Patient Care celebrated its first victory on April 14 when nurses at Lee's Summit Hospital in Lee's Summit, Mo., voted 55 to 43 for representation by the AFT's health care division, the Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals. "This is the best thing that could possibly have happened for our patients and our profession," says LuAnn Riddle, a 13-year veteran nurse from Lee's Summit Hospital's recovery room. Nurses United, based in Kansas City, Mo., is a grassroots organization of nurses from throughout the Health Midwest system--the area's largest health care provider--as well as from non-Health Midwest hospitals. The group was formed to address concerns by nurses over the quality of patient care and the future of the nursing profession. FNHP's organizing director John August calls the vote a "decisive win for nurses," and the group is now calling upon Lee's Summit and Health Midwest to recognize the union and bargain a fair contract as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the National Labor Relations Board has issued a second "consolidated complaint" against Health Midwest, this one for 61 violations of nurses' rights to engage in union activity without management interference, restraint or coercion. A trial is scheduled for May 23. For details, visit the Nurses United Web site.
Barbara Bowen, a 44-year-old associate professor of English at Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, is the new president of the Professional Staff Congress, the AFT union of faculty and professional staff at CUNY. Initial results from an April 24 vote count show that she and 15 other members running on her slate won a majority of 21 seats on the PSC executive council. Bowen will replace Richard Boris, who has been acting president of the PSC since Irwin Polishook retired in February. CUNY has taken a political buffeting in the past decade as the city and state have slashed its budget and Mayor Guiliani has incessantly attacked its mission. The new leadership's first priorities will be negotiating a contract that deals with salary losses workload issues, says Bowen. Next, the union will turn its attention to lobbying for more full-time faculty lines and adequate funding for instruction.
The United Teachers of Wichita joined other AFL-CIO affiliates last month to help secure passage of a $285 million school construction and modernization bond. The April 4 vote marked the first time in 24 years that residents of Wichita have approved a bond that will improve school facilities. Spurred by labor's get-out-the-vote efforts, turnout was much higher than in previous years, and voters backed the bond by an almost 2-to-1 margin. Key allies were the machinists union, the business community and Wichita superintendent Winston Brooks. United Teachers of Wichita vice president Paul Babich says the campaign also received a boost from the work of a community-based steering committee set up by the superintendent and the school board in the months preceding the vote. The panel conducted an extensive examination of school facilities and made specific recommendations for improvement--assuring voters that their money would be spent well. The bond revenues will help the school system build enough additions to eliminate 280 portable classrooms, provide air conditioning, and address wiring and plumbing concerns.
Contributors and sources for this week's edition of "Inside AFT" include Jane Meroney, Mike Rose, Phil Kugler, Dan Gursky, Priscilla Nemeth, Barbara McKenna, Barbara Bowen, Chris Cage, Paul Babich, Dawn Krusemark, Rita Freedman, Barbara Perry and Catherine Mason. Trish Gorman, editor; Mary Boyd, copy editor.
| ||||
| |||||||
|
American Federation of Teachers, AFL•CIO - 555 New Jersey Avenue, NW - Washington, DC 20001 Copyright by the American Federation of Teachers, AFL•CIO.
All rights reserved. Photographs |
