LaCOUR ELECTED TO AFL-CIO COUNCIL

AFT secretary-treasurer Nat LaCour has been elected to the AFL-CIO executive council, joining AFT president Edward J. McElroy as an AFL-CIO vice president.

The AFL-CIO executive council is an important policymaking body, which meets at least twice a year to consider union business and resolutions.

LaCour, who was elected AFT secretary-treasurer at the AFT convention in Washington, D.C., in July, had previously served as the AFT’s executive vice president. Over the past four years, he chaired the AFT’s organizing committee, charting a course for unprecedented membership growth for the union. During that time, the union grew by nearly 230,000 members.

LaCour is the former president of the AFT-affiliated United Teachers of New Orleans (UTNO). In 1974, without the aid of a state public employee collective bargaining law, UTNO became the first teachers union in the Deep South to obtain a collective bargaining agreement with a school district.

LIBRARIAN EARNS FIRST AMENDMENT AWARD

When Trina Magi organized librarians to protest the threat the USA Patriot Act posed to the privacy of library patrons, she never thought it would result in a phone call from her congressman, a press conference and a bill proposed to Congress. She never expected attention from Playboy, either.

Magi’s grass-roots efforts not only earned her the Vermont Library Association’s Sarah C. Hagar Award and Librarian of the Year from the New England Chapter of the Association of College and Research

Libraries—they also landed her the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award in Education. She shares the award with bookshop owner Linda Ramsdell.

The two women rallied booksellers and librarians to fight Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, which gives the FBI expanded access to records that could track Internet use. Magi, a reference librarian at the University of Vermont and a member of the United Academics/AAUP/AFT, maintains that such access would be used to track patrons’ borrowed or purchased material, as well as the Web sites they visit.

“For me, these sections are a real violation of our Constitution and our Bill of Rights,” says Magi. “That’s the most important thing to fight for in a democracy.”

The law allows retrieval of records without probable cause.

AFT RELIEF FUND HELPS FLORIDA MEMBERS

The AFT Disaster Relief Fund is collecting money to provide small grants to individual members who have suffered personal property losses as a result of the hurricanes and tropical storms that have ravaged the state of Florida.

“We want to let these members know they are not alone and that they can count on the AFT and their fellow union members across the United States,” says AFT secretary-treasurer Nat LaCour.

The United Teachers of Dade in Miami already has collected a truckload of school supplies donated by UTD members to help colleagues affected by the storms.

Donations should be sent to the AFT Disaster Relief Fund, 555 New Jersey Ave. N.W., Washington, DC 20001-2079.

NEW REGULATIONS STRIP OVERTIME PAY

Hundreds of labor activists gathered in front of the U.S. Department of Labor in Washington, D.C., Aug. 23 to voice opposition to new regulations that redefine which workers may be denied overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Two AFT members whose rights to overtime pay have been revoked by the Bush administration’s changes to the FLSA regulations spoke at the AFL-CIO-sponsored rally, which also featured Sens. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.). Similar protests were held in Cincin-nati, Cleveland and Dayton, Ohio; Lansing, Mich.; Miami and St. Louis.

“Instead of helping Americans who are still looking for jobs, the Bush administration has given employers another reason not to hire new employees while requiring current workers to work overtime without receiving fair compensation,” says AFT president Edward J. McElroy.