The AFL-CIO/NEA Labor Solidarity Partnership was unveiled Feb. 27 at the federation’s executive council meeting in San Diego, Calif. AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, AFT president Edward J. McElroy and NEA president Reg Weaver were at the meeting and offered comments on the benefits of the new affiliation structure.

The partnership, crafted in consultation with the AFT, establishes a procedure for affiliation in which locals must apply through the NEA. Once approved, locals may participate in the AFL-CIO’s central labor councils and state bodies.

The agreement is one of “several historic steps that bring fresh solidarity to the labor movement,” said Sweeney. This includes issuing more than 850 “solidarity charters” to locals of international unions that last year disaffiliated with the AFL-CIO. It also includes chartering two new, previously independent unions as AFL-CIO affiliates: the 65,000-member United Transportation Union and the 10,000-member Farm Labor Organizing Committee.

Sweeney extended a special thanks to McElroy for his “active and creative role” in putting the Labor Solidarity Partnership together, noting that the AFT president “sensed that the time was right” for bringing the NEA closer to labor. There are approximately 220,000 members in dual affiliates of the AFT and NEA.

NEA locals that win approval for affiliation from both the NEA and the national AFL-CIO will gain the regular rights and responsibilities of affiliation. These include union jurisdictional protections, representation and voting rights of AFL-CIO affiliates.

The NEA is not affiliating with the AFL-CIO at the national level.

Federal support needed to rebuild New Orleans and reopen schools
UTNO member tells lawmakers about shameful treatment

“Katrina destroyed so many lives and homes,” said Adams, a 25-year veteran teacher and member of the United Teachers of New Orleans (UTNO), “but we cannot allow post-Katrina policies to destroy the hope and opportunity that public schools represent.” Adams and other educators and students who testified at the hearing urged the lawmakers to get more federal money to New Orleans to help rebuild and reopen schools, buy new equipment, rehire staff and cover healthcare costs for laid-off employees.

The hearing was part of a tour of the area led by Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), the committee’s ranking Democrat. The lawmakers visited schools in St. Bernard Parish, as well as Southern University in New Orleans. Adams told them that many critics of the New Orleans school system “have never stepped foot in our schools” and have favored “quick fixes over long-term reform and resources.” While schools in neighboring parishes reopened quickly after Katrina, only five noncharter public schools are open in New Orleans. “There’s no excuse why we’re not reopening more schools in New Orleans,” she said, adding that the school where she taught suffered only minor damage.

She also told the representatives about the “shameful” treatment of New Orleans school employees. In February, the vast majority of the school system’s 7,500 teachers, paraprofessionals and  and other employees were laid off. Adams said she found out by word of mouth and never received an official termination letter. One of the biggest hardships has been the lack of health coverage, which most former employees can’t afford now that they lack jobs.

“We cannot truly bring New Orleans back to life until we bring her schools back to life,” Adams said. “My colleagues and I desperately want to help in this effort but cannot do so under the current circumstances.”

In an op-ed piece in the March 6 edition of USA Today, UTNO president Brenda Mitchell called for immediately reopening more of New Orleans’ public schools. “The New Orleans community currently is spread throughout the nation, with hundreds, even thousands, of families holding off on returning to their beloved city until the essential elements of daily life are in place, including viable housing and a neighborhood school for their children,” Mitchell wrote. “We strongly believe that the pulse of the city will return to a sense of normalcy when schools reopen and neighborhoods are re-populated with families.”

UTNO and parent groups have been calling for the reopening of more public schools, she noted. “But we are not asking for more of the same. We need tested, successful programs, not an agenda that turns New Orleans schools into a laboratory for educational experiments on students.”

AFT organizing agenda stresses growth and member activism
Organizing committee's plan envisions shift in resources and energy

“The long-term health of the AFT and its affiliates necessitates a much greater attention to organizing,” says AFT secretary-treasurer Nat LaCour, who chairs the organizing committee. He believes the plan will enhance the “culture of organizing” called for in the AFT’s 2000 “Futures II” report, and will help the AFT remain one of the fastest-growing unions in the labor movement.

At the heart of the systematic, strategic organizing plan is “a concerted, long-term vision to create a more active, involved membership that wants to participate in the union as part of a movement, not just an organization that provides services,” LaCour says.

Essential to the success of the plan is “a real partnership” with state and local affiliates and increased training opportunities for organizers, says Phil Kugler, assistant to the AFT president for organization and field services.

This is the first time in decades that the AFT has talked about rethinking its organizing strategies, Kugler says. “We have not looked to building organizing capacity in affiliates since the 1960s and 1970s” and the original fight for collective bargaining.

This revitalized focus on organizing, educating and mobilizing members is essential to countering an increasingly hostile environment that threatens the salaries, benefits and pensions of union and nonunion workers alike. A successful organizing plan is also expected to reap benefits in the political arena and make the AFT and its affiliates an even more forceful and influential voice on behalf of members and the institutions in which they work.

The carefully structured program builds on proven strategies for increasing membership, such as the AFT’s membership consolidation/internal organizing program, which targets the recruitment of employees the union represents but who have yet to become members. It also highlights the need to organize early childhood educators, charter school teachers, and part-time and adjunct higher education faculty.

The plan recognizes the need for more training and the development of a new image and message to appeal to younger employees.

The AFT will be reaching out to its state and local affiliates, asking them to buy into the plan by making organizing a larger part of their agendas, LaCour says. “We know the national AFT cannot do this alone.”

AFL-CIO healthcare campaign picking up steam
Maryland victory gives boost to labor's 'Fair Share' campaign

Maryland is the first state to hold companies such as Wal-Mart accountable for paying their fair share of workers’ healthcare costs. A recent report by the AFL-CIO, “The Wal-Mart Tax,” says that “by refusing to pay decent wages and provide affordable health insurance to its workers, Wal-Mart is directly contributing to the nation’s Medicaid crisis.”

Fair Share Health Care legislation, which is being pursued by AFL-CIO activists and lawmakers in 33 states, will reduce the bill taxpayers pay to cover profitable corporations’ employee expenses, ease the financial strain states face in growing Medicaid costs, and help level the playing field between companies that provide good jobs and benefits and those that don’t.

“What the Maryland victory shows is that the tide is turning because working people are not just fed up—they are ready to get active to set our country in a different direction, one state at a time,” says AFL-CIO president John Sweeney.

The Maryland bill requires private companies with more than 10,000 employees in the state to spend at least 8 percent of payroll on employee health benefits or make a contribution to the state’s insurance program for the poor. Wal-Mart is the only known employer in Maryland that does not meet that requirement.

Legislation has been introduced in several states including Florida, Michigan, Washington and Wisconsin. An effort is also underway in Oregon, where the state AFL-CIO has filed a ballot initiative to put Fair Share Health Care on the November ballot.

“It’s irresponsible and costly when nonunion businesses boost their profits by denying healthcare to their employees and then letting taxpayers pick up the slack,” says Oregon AFL-CIO president Tom Chamberlain.

While Fair Share Health Care legislation will differ slightly in each state, in general the legislation will require large corporations to spend a certain percentage of their payroll to provide healthcare benefits for their employees or pay into a state Fair Share Health Care fund. The percentage level either would be set by the state legislature or based on the average percentage paid by large employers in the state.