AFT Vice President
Mary Astrid Bergan was elected president of the California Federation of Teachers in April 1991 with a pledge to renew the organization’s commitment to excellence in education, to reinforce its efforts to increase education funding and to raise the organization’s profile in the media and public eye.

Bergan received her Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of California at Berkeley in 1965. Upon graduation she signed up with the Peace Corps, and was sent to Tunku Kurshiah College in Seremban, Negri Sembilan, Malaysia, where she taught English language and literature and coached athletics.

When she returned to the United States in 1968, she earned her teaching credential, and that fall began teaching English at Hillview Junior High School in Pittsburg, California. After teaching there for three years, and serving as local AFT president, she accepted a staff position (field organizer) with the California Federation of Teachers. She became Legislative Director in 1972, with the distinction of being CFT’s first full-time Sacramento lobbyist. Bergan held that position for 19 years, earning a reputation as one of the capital’s most skilled advocates. In 1978 California Journal conducted a poll of lobbyists; she was named by her peers as and by legislators one of the five most effective lobbyists in Sacramento (out of several hundred).

During these nearly two decades Bergan represented the CFT on various task forces and committees through both the California Department of Education and Chancellor’s office of the California Community Colleges. She served on the Chapter 2 Advisory Committee, the Advisory Committee on Student Assessment, and task forces on educational finance, credential requirements, school restructuring and higher education reform. She also wrote and secured passage of most key legislation ensuring the rights of female students and staff in California schools and colleges.

In 1990 Bergan was elected a vice-president of the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO.

In 1991 Bergan was elected CFT president. At the 1992 national AFT convention Bergan was elected a vice-president of the American Federation of Teachers and participates on several AFT committees. She is a member of the AFT Teachers program and policy council, serving on the council’s working group on early childhood education. She is a member of the organizing committee, the Task Force on Health Care Reform, and the State Federations Advisory Committee.

During the 1980s, Bergan chaired the California Democratic Party’s Labor Caucus. She was a delegate to the Democratic National Conventions in 1976 (Jerry Brown), 1992 (Clinton), 1996 (Clinton), 2000 (Gore), and 2004 (Kerry).