News from AFT PSRP Archive

How the AFT fights for affordability

Working people join our union for a simple, powerful reason: We deserve to thrive. We need to be able to care for our families without high prices bleeding us dry. We deserve access to good, affordable healthcare. And we deserve to retire with dignity. Yet, the AFT’s Fight for Affordability campaign grew out of a harsh reality: In a survey taken earlier this year, thousands of AFT members—educators, healthcare workers and public service employees—said they’re resorting to debt to cover the skyrocketing costs of everyday life. Read about how your union stepped in to help.

Stay hydrated. Stay cool. Stay alive.

As temperatures soar across the country, millions of working people are at risk of developing heat-related illnesses like heat exhaustion and heat stroke. We can keep ourselves and our loved ones safe by knowing the signs of heat-related illness, staying hydrated, taking breaks in cool areas and keeping an eye out for signs of distress. Whether you work in the school kitchen, on the school bus or outdoors on campus fields and grounds, learn more from the AFT Health Hub, and share these key graphics with your co-workers and loved ones on Facebook, Threads and Bluesky.

We aren’t safe yet from the SAVE Act

President Donald Trump hasn’t given up on his hope of suppressing votes in the midterm elections. Despite resistance from members of the Senate, he is still needling them to pass the SAVE America Act and the Make Elections Great Again Act—together known as SAVE 2.0. These bills are designed to silence people’s voices at the ballot box. Specific measures would abolish safe, reliable vote-by-mail systems; impose restrictive photo ID requirements to cast a ballot; and create a centralized voter surveillance system in every state to intimidate voters. We can’t let our vote be taken away. Remind your senators that they must stand strong against any reappearance of SAVE 2.0.

A new vision for America

Live from the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., this episode of the AFT’s “Union Talk” podcast features AFT President Randi Weingarten giving a major speech that lays out a new vision for how America can boost education in the era of artificial intelligence. Its “devices-down, eyes-up, hands-on” strategy for learning focuses on the wave of technology in our schools, while leaning into strategies that engage kids and set them up for success. Weingarten shares how she drew on many of the conversations she’s had in schools and communities across the country.

Labor champion Beatrice ‘Bea’ Lumpkin dies at 107

Bea Lumpkin, a lifelong champion of workers’ rights whose activism spanned nearly nine decades, died in Chicago on June 14 at the age of 107. Her fight for workers’ rights began as a teenager in a New York City laundry. At just 19, she was hired by the newly formed CIO to organize her fellow workers—a role that launched an extraordinary 88-year career in the labor movement.

Unions and allies score a win on student debt relief

A federal court has ordered the Trump administration to stop its unlawful rewriting of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program as a way of silencing local governments and nonprofit groups at odds with the administration’s political agenda. The ruling comes in National Council of Nonprofits et al. v. McMahon, a case brought against the U.S. Department of Education by a broad coalition of more than a dozen cities, labor unions and nonprofits. The case sought to stop a new rule that would allow the secretary of education to disqualify from the PSLF program any government and nonprofit employers that disagree with the Trump administration.