Posts tagged American Federation of Teachers
A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
October 24, 2022 // As it turns out, Pastors for Children should be renamed Pastors for AFT. As the Capital Research Center found out, “The evidence suggests that Pastors for Texas Children is beholden to special interests and would better be called “Pastors for Texas Teachers Unions.” The organization has taken at least $25,000 in funding from the American Federation of Teachers, but that may not be all. The group put on a “virtual fundraiser” in October 2020 headlined by Diane Ravitch, a onetime school reformer who “now toes the teachers union line.”
Top Unions Lost Nearly Quarter of a Million Members After Court Struck Down Mandatory Membership
September 30, 2022 // Report shows powerful public sector unions have stepped up lobbying efforts amid member exodus In the four years since the landmark Janus v. AFSCME ruling, the National Education Association, American Federation of Teachers, Service Employees International Union, and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees lost almost 219,000 union members. The report, published by the Commonwealth Foundation, found that the Supreme Court decision escalated a decades-long decline in dues-paying members at the public sector unions. Despite the drop in membership, labor groups have scored legal and political victories that are buoying their political power. Union bosses scored a major victory last year in Virginia, where they attained collective bargaining rights for government workers for the first time through the then-Democratic-controlled state house. The Missouri Supreme Court last year voided a law that would have required unions to have regular recertification votes and annual reports on political activity. Colorado, meanwhile, passed a law in 2020 that unionized its 30,000 state government employees. Jennifer Stefano, Rebecca Friedrichs, California Teachers Association,
Union Takes Credit For Biden Forgiving Unlimited Student Loans For Teachers — One Teacher Wrote Off $450,000
September 12, 2022 // In a Labor Day message, union president Randi Weingarten said the union’s lobbying — which was also a leading cause of keeping schools closed due to coronavirus — was also responsible for the giveaway, which largely benefited the union’s members. The union played a role in helping elect Joe Biden. “We worked directly with the Biden administration on the latest PSLF fixes and the recent game-changing announcement on student debt cancellation.
MAJORITY OF IFT SPENDING GOES TO CHICAGO
August 29, 2022 // 2021, IFT spent 190 times more money on Chicago-area affiliates than it did on affiliates south of Interstate 80.2 In fact, IFT reported directing money to only one affiliate south of I-80.3 That isn’t all. IFT and AFT admit in their reports that most of the spending was not on representing members, but on politics, overhead and other union leadership priorities.
REPORT: Pennsylvania Teachers Vote to Kick Union Out of Their School
August 23, 2022 // Westinghouse Arts Academy Charter School in Wilmerding, Pennsylvania As a result of tens of millions of dollars of political spending, heavy resistance to reopening schools during the COVID-19 pandemic, and repeated efforts to label concerned parents as domestic terrorists, teachers unions have come under increasing public scrutiny. And that scrutiny is not limited to the general public, as teachers at one Pennsylvania charter school have decided that they want nothing to do with their union. Hunter Tower
Opinion: Can Unions Still Transform the Workplace?
August 18, 2022 // Starbucks workers across Buffalo created a citywide account on the GroupMe app, which enabled them to track corporate executives as they moved from café to café—and alert one another to be prepared. “What you’re seeing is organizing evolving with the times,” Eisen says. Soon after the successful union vote at her store, Eisen hopped on a Zoom call with workers at a Starbucks café in Mesa, Arizona, to share what she had learned with her counterparts on the other side of the nation. Bill Fletcher Jr, geriatric millennial, Shaun Richman, Jane McAlevey, people of color,
American Federation of Teachers gives Charlie Crist a $500K boost
August 17, 2022 // AFT, which boasts more than 1.7 million members across 3,000 local affiliates nationwide, is donating $500,000 to help him win the upcoming Democratic Primary and then defeat Gov. Ron DeSantis in November. That’s the biggest check Crist’s campaign accepted this election cycle, according to his fundraising filings with the Division of Elections. It follows $50,000 worth of contributions since June from the Florida Education Association, which has endorsed Crist along with United Teachers of Dade, Democratic Public Education Caucus of Florida and other such unions throughout the state. United Teachers of Dade, Democratic Public Education Caucus of Florida
EDUCATORS IN ILLINOIS’ LE ROY SCHOOL DISTRICT REPLACE NEA WITH INDEPENDENT UNION
August 12, 2022 // Nicole Gaddis, Danielle Cooley, paraprofessional Kim Wohlwend, professional liability insurance,
Opinion: DO TEACHERS REALLY NEED A UNION?
August 11, 2022 // After wading through all the leftwing blather, I can’t help but wonder why any conservative, libertarian, right-leaning, centrist or apolitical teacher would continue to belong to a teachers union. In California, when a teacher joins a local union, she typically forks over about $1,200 yearly. If the union is an NEA affiliate, $768 will go to the California Teachers Association and $204 will be sent off to NEA command central in D.C. The remaining $200 or so stays at the local level. Much of the money that goes to CTA/NEA is spent on leftwing politics, and every penny of the unions’ income is tax-free. Barack Obama, Becky Pringle, Robert Pondiscio, RJ Martin, OpenSecrets.org, Caroline Hoxby, Mike Petrilli, Fordham Institute,
Dems, union leaders responsible for school lockdowns face few repercussions, despite evidence that kids harmed
August 3, 2022 // According to data released last month by the National Center for Education Statistics, 70% of U.S. public schools have reported an increase in students seeking mental health services since the start of the pandemic. A study published by the conservative think tank Just Facts reported that the mental stressors brought about by school closures will destroy seven times more years of life than lockdowns saved. A study by the American Enterprise Institute also found that nearly 1.3 million students have left public schools since the pandemic began, and schools that stayed remote longer saw even more students leave. The World Bank reported last month that the school closures will cost this generation of students $21 trillion in earnings over their lifetimes, which is far more than the $17 trillion estimated in 2021.