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John Tarka

AFT Vice President John TarkaAFT Vice President
John Tarka has been president of the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers (PFT) since 2005 and is executive vice president of the PFT’s statewide organization, AFT Pennsylvania. He was recently reelected as a vice president of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO and, at the national level, is a member of the AFT’s No Child Left Behind Task Force and the AFT Teachers program and policy council.

Tarka began his career in Pittsburgh as a teacher at Westinghouse High School, where for 15 years he taught English and Speech. He also served as an instructional teacher leader and football and track coach. Recognized as an excellent teacher, he was recruited to teach at Schenley High School when it was a teachers’ center and worked there until he was appointed as a staff representative for AFT Pennsylvania. Tarka served as a building representative at Westinghouse and Schenley High Schools and was a long-time member of the PFT executive board, a member of the PFT negotiations teams and chair and member of numerous PFT committees and task forces. Prior to being elected president of the PFT, Tarka was executive director for AFT Pennsylvania.

As president of the Pittsburgh federation, the union expanded opportunities for member participation through the establishment of grass-roots committees, the expansion of the PFT political action committee and the Educational Research and Dissemination (ER&D) program, and improvement of the contract ratification and strike authorization process. He recently worked with the school district to secure a $40 million dollar grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for Pittsburgh’s “Empowering Effective Teachers Project.” The project established the framework for the historic five-year collective bargaining agreement ratified by an almost three-to-one margin on June 14, 2010.

He also works steadfastly to improve union communications and unity through the PFT’s building representatives workshop program and through strengthening ties to the broader labor community. Tarka was honored as Allegheny County Labor Council’s Man of the Year in 2009.