AFT Vice President
Randi Weingarten is president of the United Federation of Teachers, representing more than 140,000 active and retired non-supervisory educators in the New York City public school system.  She is also a vice-present of the million-member American Federation of Teachers, the UFT’s national affiliate; and a member of the board of directors of the New York State United Teachers.

Weingarten also heads the city Municipal Labor Committee, an umbrella organization for some 100 city employee unions.  The MLC negotiates citywide collective bargaining issues including health, welfare and pension benefits on behalf of the unions’ 365,000 members.  In addition, she is a vice-president of the New York City Central Labor Council of the AFL-CIO.

From 1986 to 1998, Weingarten served as counsel to UFT President Sandra Feldman, taking a lead role in contract negotiations and in lawsuits in which the union fought for adequate school maintenance and funding.  She was elected as the union’s assistant secretary in 1995 and treasurer two years later. In1998, after Feldman became AFT president, Weingarten assumed the UFT presidency.  She was elected to her first full term the following year and re-elected in 2001.  In 2002 she negotiated a landmark contract for UFT members with the City of New York and the Board of Education.

Weingarten also is a certified, appointed teacher of social studies and American history.  She taught full and part time at Clara Barton High School in Brooklyn from 1991 to 1997 while holding down her union posts.

Weingarten holds a BS degree in industrial and labor relations from Cornell University and a JD degree (cum laude) from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, where she later became an adjunct instructor. She belongs to the New York State and City Bar Associations and worked as a litigator and labor lawyer for the New York firm of Stroock & Stroock & Lavan from 1983 to 1986, where the UFT was among her clients

In earlier years, Weingarten served as legislative assistant for the New York State Senate Labor Committee and as a mediator for disputes originating in the City of New York Criminal Court.  She was a member of the board and then chairperson of the Health Insurance Plan (HIP) of Greater New York and a board member of the New York City Independent Budget Office.  She recently served on Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s transition committee following his November 2001 election.

Currently, Weingarten represents the City Council Speaker on the New York City’s Financial Control Board.  She is on the boards of directors of the Justice Resource Center and Council for Unity (both student-related groups) as well as boards of the New York Committee on Occupational Safety and

Health (NYCOSH); the Anti-Defamation League, New York Region; the United Way of Greater New York; and the International Rescue Committee.  She is also a Democratic National Committee member.

Born in 1957, Weingarten was raised in Rockland County, New York, where she attended public schools.  She learned the value of unions from her mother, a 29-year suburban elementary school teacher who walked a picket line for seven weeks when Randi was a teenager.  A resident of Brooklyn, she is an avid runner, music collector, theater-goer and gardener.