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Retirees

Retirees attend conference

Oregon Organizing

Oregon nurses unions are on a winning streak.

Cleveland behavioral health nurses say ‘Union Yes’

In a decisive victory, 60 Metro Behavioral Health nurses in Cleveland have voted overwhelmingly to join the Ohio Nurses Association/AFT, sending a powerful message: Frontline caregivers are ready to unite for safer staffing, stronger workplace protections, and a real voice in decision-making.

This win comes at a pivotal moment. Healthcare workers across the nation are grappling with chronic understaffing, rising workplace violence and dwindling resources. For Metro Behavioral Health nurses, the need for change was undeniable.

“With nurses and health professionals facing understaffing and

Retirees learn to become an organizing force

More than 100 retired activists eager to learn more about organizing and mobilizing their fellow retirees gathered in Orlando, Fla., on April 17-20 for the first organizing conference hosted by the AFT Retirees Program. The participants were from each AFT constituency and hailed from 19 states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. They came from retiree chapters big and small, but all had the same goal: to discover techniques to help them build their retiree power.

Randi Weingarten at a Massachusetts high school

Smears vs. solutions

Summer is upon us, and parents, children and teachers are winding down from what has been an exhausting and fully operational school year—the first since the devastating pandemic. The long-lasting impact of COVID-19 has affected our students’ and families’ well-being and ignited the politics surrounding public schools. All signs point to the coming school year unfolding with the same sound and fury, and if extremist culture warriors have their way, being even more divisive and stressful.

What unions do

In AFT President Randi Weingarten’s latest New York Times column, she describes what it is exactly that unions do. Though unions are the most popular they have been in decades, anti-union sentiment still thrives in red states and across the nation. “Several years ago, The Atlantic ran a story whose headline made even me, a labor leader, scratch my head: ‘Union Membership: Very Sexy,’” Weingarten writes in the column. “The gist was that higher wages, health benefits and job security—all associated with union membership—boost one’s chances of getting married. Belonging to a union doesn’t actually guarantee happily ever after, but it does help working people have a better life in the here and now.” Click through to read the full column.

March Newsletter

Adjuncts at Temple University are organizing for a collective bargaining agreement right now with Temple Association of University Professionals (TAUP) and United Academics of Philadelphia (UAP)!

Randi Weingarten and NYC teacher Tamara Simpson

In defense of public education

Attacks on public education in America by extremists and culture-war peddling politicians have reached new heights (“lows” may be more apt), but they are not new. The difference today is that the attacks are intended not just to undermine public education but to destroy it.