AFT’s LaCour Elected to AFL-CIO Executive Council

WASHINGTON, D.C. — American Federation of Teachers secretary-treasurer Nat LaCour has been elected to the AFL-CIO executive council. LaCour, elected by acclamation at the council’s Aug. 9-11 meeting in Chicago, joins AFT president Edward J. McElroy, 47 other vice presidents and three AFL-CIO officers on the council.

LaCour, who was elected AFT secretary-treasurer at the AFT’s convention in Washington, D.C., in July, previously served as the AFT’s executive vice president. He is the former president of AFT’s New Orleans affiliate, the United Teachers of New Orleans (UTNO). During that period, he also served as a vice president on AFT’s executive council.

LaCour chairs the AFT’s organizing committee, which has helped establish the AFT as one of the fastest growing unions in the nation. During his tenure as UTNO president, LaCour was instrumental in bringing about a merger between the New Orleans affiliates of the AFT and the National Education Association. Under LaCour’s leadership, and without the aid of a state public employee collective bargaining law, UTNO became the first teachers union in the Deep South to obtain a collective bargaining agreement with a school district.

The AFL-CIO executive council also paid tribute to Sandra Feldman, who retired in July as AFT president and who also had served on the AFL-CIO council since 1997.

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