Retiree News | April 2025

President Donald Trump has declared war on America’s colleges and universities, demanding they bow to his demands on what they can teach and whom they can admit or hire. Trump’s illegal and autocratic actions are tantamount to a war on knowledge intended to make schools bend the knee to his ideology and chill free speech and academic pursuit. In her latest column, AFT President Randi Weingarten debunks the lie that Trump's punitive behavior toward universities and students has anything to do with fighting antisemitism. Read it here.  

 

After a decades-long nursing career, including 19 years as a beloved school nurse, Donna Rehm was shocked to learn her Social Security benefits would be cut in half due to the Windfall Elimination Provision/Government Pension Offset. Unaware of the policy until retirement, she feared financial insecurity and losing her home. In her AFT Voices post, Rehm shares how she turned her fear into action and became an advocate, mobilized others, and helped push for reform.

 

A federal court granted a preliminary injunction blocking Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency from further accessing sensitive personal data stored within the Social Security Administration’s systems. The ruling comes in response to a motion filed by the AFT; American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees; AFL-CIO; and the Alliance for Retired Americans, all represented by Democracy Forward. “This is an important ruling that upholds our grave concern that millions of Americans have had their private information and retirement security violated by Elon Musk’s illegal actions,” says AFT President Randi Weingarten.

 

On April 5, protesters flooded the streets in more than 1,300 “Hands Off!” peaceful protests in cities across all 50 states. The message was clear and thunderous: Enough is enough. Protesters demanded an end to the escalating authoritarianism and attacks on everyday Americans led by President Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Turnout signaled a growing, powerful movement ready to defend democracy, civil rights, public education and the working class. AFT members turned out in force, joining rallies from coast to coast. A national day of action is being organized for May Day (Thursday, May 1) and the weekends around it, with a series of actions slated to take place across the country.  

 

 

This month, President Donald Trump announced the highest and most wide-ranging tariffs—taxes on goods that Americans buy—since President Herbert Hoover’s Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which made the Great Depression worse. Trump’s tariffs apply to all of our nation’s trading partners. And the chaos has come quickly: stock markets in freefall, business confidence at the lowest level since the 2008 financial crisis. What explains this seemingly self-destructive attack on our nation’s economy? This AFT Voices post by AFT President Randi Weingarten and Damon Silvers, director of policy and special counsel at the AFL-CIO, provides understanding and a way forward.

 

 

Join AFT President Randi Weingarten and MSNBC’s Ali Velshi for the May meeting of the AFT Book Club, featuring his new book Small Acts of Courage: A Legacy of Endurance and the Fight for Democracy. In this conversation on May 18 at 6 p.m. EDT, Velshi will share how everyone can have an outsized impact on democracy and civil society. This book club event is a call to action.  

 

After historic floods swept through McDowell County, W.Va., in February, the community looked like a war zone. For students, the disaster means recovering from yet another traumatic event. For AFT-West Virginia, it means mobilizing, again, to fill soup bowls, distribute brand-new books free of charge, and do what unions do—show up where they are needed most.

 

AFT President Randi Weingarten sent a letter on April 2 to more than 75 state and city chief fiduciary officers who oversee most major U.S. public pension funds, requesting that they reach out to money managers to ask them to review their current holdings in struggling electric-car maker Tesla. Tesla’s first-quarter production and delivery report shows a devastating decline in demand for the carmaker’s vehicles in the U.S., in line with disappointing European results. Weingarten says that Tesla’s drop in sales endangers the retirement savings of millions of nurses, teachers and other workers.