AFT Public Employees 2008 Compensation Survey
Salaries for state government professionals registered a modest 2.4 percent increase from 2007 to 2008, according to the ninth annual AFT Public Employees Compensation Survey. The increase was less than the inflation rate, 4 percent, and significantly less than the previous year’s 5.7 percent increase. The survey also shows that most state employees earn far less than their private sector counterparts.

Mending Healthcare
Our system needs reform, and it needs it now. In the past decade, healthcare premiums for employer plans have risen six to eight times faster than wages. To bring down costs, employers have increased workers' premiums, co-payments, co-insurance and deductibles.

Retirement: A career-long plan
Profiles the defined-benefit pensions of three public employee retirees and the threat to the future of public sector defined-benefit retirement plans. (Public Employee Advocate, April/May 2009)

Main Street not Wall Street
Are you worried about your job security? Are you worried about the quality of public services in your community? If so, are you laying low, keeping quiet and hoping things will get better? Or are you speaking out about how efforts to control spending on public services will cost communities far more than government can save? (Public Employee Advocate, Feb./Mar. 2009)

Budget Options: Expanding the revenue pie
"Difficult times ahead demand bold action. The boldest action that you can take now is the simplest: Invest in the foundations of our country's strength—jobs, education and healthcare." That was the message AFT president Randi Weingarten delivered to members of the U.S. House of Representatives' Ways and Means Committee during an October 29, 2008, hearing on economic recovery, job creation and investment in America. (Public Employee Advocate, Dec. 2008/Jan. 2009)

Government and the Common Good
Delegates to the AFT convention in Chicago unanimously adopted this resolution on upholding the fundamental mission and purpose of government and ensuring that we have the public structures necessary to keep America prospering for generations to come.

New AFT president vows to build on union's great traditions
The August/September 2008 issue of Public Employee Advocate spotlights the new slate of national officers, elected by delegates at the national convention in July. Also featured in this issue is the collective bargaining process, giving public employees input in workplace decisions.