Hundreds gather for memorial tribute to
Sandra Feldman

Hundreds of union colleagues, politicians, labor leaders, friends and family gathered at the United Federation of Teachers headquarters in New York City in December to pay tribute to former AFT president Sandra Feldman, who died Sept. 18 at age 65 after a three-year battle with breast cancer.

The memorial event brought together noted politicians from Feldman’s years at the UFT and as president of the AFT, including former president Bill Clinton, members of Congress and former New York City mayors Ed Koch and David Dinkins.

“America gave her a chance to live her dream,” said President Clinton, referring to Feldman’s modest roots and rise to success though public education. “She spent her life trying to give every other child that chance.”

AFT president Edward J. McElroy, who opened the proceedings, said that Feldman recognized the transforming power of education and trade unionism. These two pillars, he said, “were of one piece for her, for together they both meant that ordinary people’s lives, and therefore our society, would be improved.”

Underlying Feldman’s strong union principles was her early commitment to the civil rights movement that informed her lifelong passion for social justice. Two longtime friends, former AFT COPE director Rachelle Horowitz and D.C. delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives Eleanor Holmes Norton, described their early days of activism together under the mentorship of civil rights pioneer Bayard Rustin and of passionate discussions on literature, politics and philosophy late into the night. Most compelling to those around her, Horowitz said, was “Sandy’s belief that she could remake the world—and her insistence that you be there to help.”

Among those who recounted Feldman’s leadership skills was AFL-CIO president John Sweeney who described her as “serious beyond her years.”

In the international arena, Feldman was a strong advocate for human rights and trade union rights abroad, noted Fred van Leeuwen, general secretary of Education International. “She not only made a difference for the children of New York and America, she also made a difference for children around the world,” he said.

The tribute ended with Feldman’s husband, Arthur Barnes, who noted that of the more than 1,000 messages of condolence he received, one in particular stood out for him—from a teacher who included the poem “Death Is Nothing at All,” by 19th-century theologian Henry Scott Holland, which Barnes read aloud. “Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped away into the next room … . Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without effort, without the ghost of a shadow in it.”

Thousands mobilize for human rights and
workers Rights

AFT members and leaders joined thousands of trade unionists, civil rights and religious leaders, elected officials and others in cities across the country to commemorate International Human Rights Day, Dec. 10, and to draw public attention to the fact that here in the United States, the basic right to form a union can no longer be taken for granted.

From Sacramento to Boston, rallies, town hall meetings and other events put a spotlight on the increasing assaults on worker rights by corporations and anti-union politicians, aided and abetted by the White House. The protesters took particular aim at the policies of the Bush administration, including the attack on employee overtime rights, efforts to strip union representation rights from thousands of federal employees, and opposition to labor law reform that would crack down on employer intimidation and harassment of workers trying to organize.

In Boston, AFT president Edward J. McElroy spoke at the Workers’ Freedom Trail Rally and March, one of the largest events of the week. Even though the right to organize is not a radical idea and has been a “settled matter for generations,” McElroy told the crowd, “most Americans would be shocked to find out what nonunion workers go through trying to organize, and that union workers often can’t get a contract.”

In Milwaukee, hundreds of union activists gathered for a town hall meeting to hear workers testify about efforts to unionize their workplace. AFT Healthcare member and physical therapist Jaci Ranft told the audience about the anti-union campaign waged at St. Francis Hospital in Milwaukee when workers decided to organize with the Wisconsin Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals.

“The hospital hired Management Science Associates to create a chilling atmosphere, filled with fear and tension,” said Ranft. “The consultants trained managers to harass us and intimidate, to bully us out of standing up for safe patient care and good working conditions.”

Despite the hospital’s efforts to turn the workers away from the WFNHP, “we stuck together, we survived the bullying, and we won,” said Ranft.

 In Washington, D.C., more than 200 AFT members and staffers were among the nearly 3,000 unionists and others who gathered Thursday for a rally at AFL-CIO headquarters and then marched to the White House, chanting slogans and carrying signs.

At the Washington rally, AFT executive vice president Antonia Cortese said that workers should be able to decide for themselves whether to join a union, “free from threats and intimidation.” But the Bush administration has set a “malicious anti-worker tone” that has emboldened the governors of Indiana, Missouri and Kentucky to strip bargaining rights of public employees in those states, she said.

The overriding message on International Human Rights Day was to urge Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, which would ensure that a majority of employees in a workplace could form a union without facing crippling anti-union tactics.