Posts tagged AFT
Teacher unions sue Trump over $400 million Columbia University research cuts
March 26, 2025 // The AFT has also sued Trump over his efforts to dismantle the Department of Education. Trump and AFT President Randi Weingarten have long clashed over the rule of unions in the education system, dating back to Trump's first presidency, when the two fought over return-to-class plans during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Teachers sue Trump admin for stopping affordable student loan repayment plans
March 24, 2025 // The teachers' union, however, says the Education Department's decision to interpret the 8th Circuit's decision on Feb. 18 "in such a maximalist way" has "wreaked havoc" on the system. The union claims in its filing that paper applications are not currently being processed as well.
US teachers union sues education agency for shutting student loan repayment plans
March 20, 2025 // AFT “brings this lawsuit to compel the Department to abide by Congress’s command and provide borrowers with the ability to re-pay their loans through the affordable, income-driven repayment plans to which they are entitled,” says the complaint. The education department has cited a court ruling over an income driven repayment plan introduced under Joe Biden, the Saving on a Valuable Education (Save) plan, in their decision to stop all IDR applications and processing.
Dual enrollment students’ classes could be disrupted by looming community college strike in Philly
March 19, 2025 // Over the weekend, 97% of the community college’s staff and faculty union members voted to authorize a strike, should their union and the college’s administration fail to reach a contract agreement. The union is demanding pay raises that keep pace with inflation and class size reductions, the return of a child care center on campus, and subsidized transit passes for staff and students. The vote means union members agreed to allow their leadership to call a strike at any time, but the faculty are not on strike.
Act 10, Scourge of Wisconsin Teachers, Faces Uncertain Future in Court
March 4, 2025 // According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the proportion of union members in Wisconsin’s workforce fell by nearly half, from 14.2% to 7.4%, between 2010 and 2023 (since that figure includes workers from all sectors, the drop for government employees is likely much steeper). A report from the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, a right-leaning think tank, showed that the total number of unions holding annual recertification votes across the state declined from 540 in 2014 to 369 in 2018. The largest teachers’ union in the state, the Wisconsin Education Association Council, experienced a dizzying loss of manpower and organizing heft. A 2019 study conducted by a pair of researchers at the University of Wisconsin found that WEAC was forced to restructure and cut its staffing by about two-thirds. The retrenchment was made necessary by a freefall in the collection of dues, the payment of which was made voluntary by Act 10. The loss of paid organizers could be offset, in part, by the efforts of teacher volunteers. But the union had no ready replacement for the millions of dollars in government relations funds that had suddenly evaporated; WEAC went from being one of the biggest lobbying forces in Madison to a second-tier player virtually overnight.
Ending the free ride: How school tax dollars subsidize union activity and politics in Missouri
February 26, 2025 // In 2018 and 2020, the NEA and MNEA together spent more than $3.2 million bankrolling high-profile Missouri ballot campaigns over legislative redistricting and government ethics. A component of their effort — which remains on the books to this day — was an amendment to the state constitution that strictly prohibits Missouri state lawmakers and candidates from engaging in political fundraising on state property. Despite seeking to enforce this principle on others, however, teachers unions like the MNEA are one of the few — if not the only — special interest groups that regularly abuse it by routinely taking advantage of taxpayer-funded school resources to support their own political agenda.
UTAH: Unions consider strikes, referendums on bill banning public employee collective bargaining
February 25, 2025 // "This is a statewide issue," he told FOX 13 News in an interview on Monday. "And if the Salt Lake Education Association is the only organization that walks out? It’s not going to be effective." Meanwhile, other labor unions are exploring a referendum on House Bill 267, which bans collective bargaining among public employee unions.
Analysis: 93% of Idaho teachers union political spending benefited Democrats in 2024
February 19, 2025 // In short, the IEA may endorse GOP candidates that it finds ideologically compatible if those candidates are going to win anyway but, in competitive races where its support might make a difference, the IEA consistently backs Democrats while simultaneously throwing moral support behind the Democrat candidate in any race involving a Republican it doesn’t think it can work with.
Sanders and Hawley’s Interest Rate Cap Would Ban Their Union Allies’ Credit Cards
February 10, 2025 // They should have checked with their union boss pals before taking such a position. Many major labor unions have deals with banks to offer branded credit cards as a member benefit. Some of them can charge interest rates in excess of the 25 percent rate Sanders finds extortionate, and nearly all of them charge higher than 10 percent. One of the most common credit card partnerships for unions is with Capital One, which offers a Union Plus Mastercard. It is marketed as “Built for Union Members. Backed by Union Members,” and accounts are limited to active or retired union members or their families.
Commentary: Who Is Big Labor, Anyway?
February 5, 2025 // If the Current American Plurality wants to hold together, it will need to find ways to support workers as a whole, not cheaply chase the union members that BLS and other data reveal to be unripe for recruitment by throwing more traditional members of the coalition under the bus. The Taft-Hartley Consensus approach to labor relations, which Republicans have advanced for 80 years, offers the opportunity for those workers who freely choose to organize unions to continue to do so while protecting the rights of workers who choose not to form unions or choose to work independently. It should not be cheaply abandoned in service to myths about whom the conservative movement is seeking to court.