The AFT president called out the duties that individual union activists accept on a daily basis—from volunteer organizer and building rep to ER&D leader and precinct walker in a political campaign. “You and your colleagues who do this work each and every day, you are the power of this union,” McElroy said. “You fight the fights, you win the victories. We all need to go out and enlist more members into your kind of activism because so much depends on the members of their union saying, ‘Count me in!’”

McElroy detailed many of the immediate and long-term threats facing the AFT, its members and the children and adults who depend on the services provided by AFT members. The current administration’s economic policies, he said, “have led to a widening gulf between the very rich and the very poor—and they have left many in the middle class teetering toward the latter.” The White House also is behind plans to destabilize and privatize Social Security, and “now there is another threat to retirement security—the collapse of pension promises,” McElroy added.

NCLB needs improvements
The AFT president drew particular attention to the federal No Child Left Behind Act. AFT officers have traveled the country, listening to members, and the “same major problems and concerns” have come up again and again: too much testing, much of it not aligned to the curriculum; no credit for school improvements; narrowing of the curriculum; low morale and high stress.

“From the beginning, the AFT has worked to improve this law,” McElroy pointed out. “We have been able to get through a number of significant changes made to NCLB, but it is not anywhere near enough.

“We have given this law a four-year test—and NCLB is not making the grade.”

Volunteers and activists built the AFT, and they still hold the key to the union’s future, McElroy said. “Frankly, we have lost some of that activism as we have relied less on members and volunteers and become bigger, more structured and dependent upon union staff. We have to make sure that members don’t look at union membership more as a service than as a way to be part of a cause.”

He mentioned several projects begun over the past two years that exemplify this spirit: the “Let’s Get It Right” campaign to fix NCLB; the Activists for Congressional Education (ACE) network, which builds long-term relationships between rank-and-file members and their Capitol Hill representatives; and the AFT e-Activist program, which uses new technology to quickly connect members to Congress. “We are going to continue to develop this grass-roots political mobilization,” McElroy pledged. “There is no other way to achieve what our union needs to do.”

LaCour: AFT initiatives will advance ‘culture of organizing’
AFT secretary-treasurer Nat LaCour gave convention delegates a crucial take-home assignment, asking them to return to their locals prepared to launch efforts that will generate a new spirit of unionwide member activism. As he recognized organizing successes in state after state and reported overall membership gains, LaCour also told the delegates that our mobilization efforts must be expanded to ensure the union’s continued clout and effectiveness.

“Those of you here today are already doing so much, but if you can do just a little bit more, the effect will be magnified a hundred times,” LaCour said. This means volunteering for organizing or political action campaigns or for local union activities to make the “culture of organizing” in the AFT a reality. By engaging all members at the grass roots, he said, “we must turn nonmembers into members, members into activists and activists into leaders.”

LaCour encouraged AFT leaders and activists to use every activity of a local—from contract negotiations to political races—as an opportunity to get members involved. “We seek an ‘organizing way’ to do everything,” he said, so that members begin to talk about the union as “we and us, not it and them.”

The AFT secretary-treasurer outlined several projects the union is undertaking to help affiliates in this endeavor, including directing more resources to affiliate organizing and working with the AFL-CIO in a volunteer mobilization program.

He also urged delegates to jump into the AFT’s Count Me In program by completing pledge cards promising to participate in one or more union-building activities. “Count Me In is more than a chant, it’s a commitment to member involvement,” LaCour said.

To sign up or learn more about the program, visit aft.org/CountMeIn.