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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.

A torrent of censorship

Nearly 250 years since our country’s founding, some Americans are still attempting to restrict others’ basic freedoms. In Florida and elsewhere, censoring books is part of larger efforts to exert greater control over and undermine education.

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Voting for democracy and a better life

In the leadup to the midterm elections, pundits predicted a red wave, even a tsunami, based on polls, historical precedent, and steep gas and grocery prices. But I had my doubts. I spent the weeks before the elections talking to voters and traveling on the AFT Votes bus, rolling through a dozen states with more than 50 stops. In a year when kitchen table issues, democracy and our freedoms were on the ballot, many people told me that the elections came down to a choice between, on the one side, election deniers and extremists stoking fear, and on the other, problem-solvers working to help the country move forward. Many races were close, but Americans turned the tide from a red wave to a swell of support for progress and problem-solvers. Read the full column here.

KU Faculty and Academic Staff Announce Union Organizing Effort

Congratulations to the faculty and academic staff at KU who today have officially announced the organizing campaign to create the United Academics of the University of Kansas (UAKU)!

UAKU would represent over 1,500 full-time and part-time tenured and nontenure-track faculty; teaching, research, clinical and online professors; lecturers; curators; librarians; scientists who conduct grant-funded research; and other categories of faculty and academic staff. The union would be affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers and the American Association of University Professors.

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2022 AFT-Kansas Candidate Endorsements

We are pleased to announce our candidate endorsements for the 2022 General Election in Kansas on Tuesday, 8 November.

We will continue to update this page as we complete our evaluations of candidates in the upcoming election.

The last day to register to vote in Kansas is 18 October.

You can register online here and you can check to see if you are registered by looking here.

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Sharing more pathways to student debt relief

As the landscape of student debt shifts, and more and more opportunities allow borrowers to have their debt relieved, the AFT is using every avenue to ensure that the word is out. In affiliate meetings, telephone town halls, media coverage and social media, the union is spreading the news, and at a student debt clinic at AFT headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 31, AFT President Randi Weingarten vowed to reach as many people as possible with information that could save them tens—and sometimes hundreds—of thousands of dollars.

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Big News for Higher Ed! Welcome to the AFT, AAUP Members!

This summer, delegates to the American Association of University Professors Biennial Association Meeting voted to affiliate with the AFT. On July 15th at the AFT Convention, AFT President Randi Weingarten and AAUP President Irene Mulvey signed the historic affiliation agreement, which went into effect on August 1, 2022. If you weren't able to make the Convention to see it in person, you can watch the recording of the livestream here:

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Celebrating student loan relief

“It was like waking up and learning you won the lottery.” That’s just one of the comments flooding the AFT offices from members who are elated to be free of student debt at last. After relentless advocacy, including an AFT lawsuit against former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program that was so broken is finally doing what it is supposed to do: delivering relief from student debt for thousands of borrowers. So far, $6.2 billion in student debt has been forgiven for 100,000 public service workers like teachers, nurses and professors.

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