Statement by AFT President Randi Weingarten, Labor Day 2008

WASHINGTON— Labor Day in 2008, as it is every year, is an opportunity to acknowledge our nation’s workers, celebrate the gains America’s laborers have made over past generations and refocus on the challenges we face to sustain those gains.

I am profoundly proud of the union I became president of last month—the American Federation of Teachers. Since the organization was founded in 1916, we have grown to more than 1.4 million members strong and evolved into a union of professionals who work in our schools, colleges and universities, hospitals and healthcare facilities, and in our state and local government agencies. Our members are your child’s teacher, your aging parent’s caregiver and the person who inspects the bridge you drive over every day—professionals who support one another in an effort to strengthen our workplaces and communities. We are workers who strive to improve the quality of life for the individuals we serve, as well as those we go home to every day.

The labor movement is about lifting up people from generation to generation, pulling people out of poverty and building a middle class. Even in this sluggish economic climate, we must persist. As we adjust to the 21st century, we must change with the times but retain our core values. On this Labor Day, we look to our past to how unions have effected great change. For example, the AFT was the first to fight for collective bargaining and the first to unite teachers with all employees in our schools. In the 1950s, the AFT disaffiliated scores of locals that refused to desegregate. Today we hold firm to the notion that access to an excellent education is a basic civil right. In all we do, the AFT works to make this basic right a reality for all our children.

The AFT and the trade union movement have traditionally been beacons of innovation, and we will continue in that role by supporting the programs, policies and above all—the people—that bring about positive change and are revitalizing our society.

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