AFT Public Employees Professional Issues Conference 2025

Pre-Conference Workshops

Organizing for Mass Mobilization

Turbulent times often result in an increased necessity and demand for mass mobilizations by our union, our members and our allies both in our communities and at the national level. To effectively resist attacks on our democracy, democratic institutions and economy, and to organize working people and strengthen our communities, in this workshop, participants will learn best practices for demonstrations, rallies, marches, door knocking, social media campaigns, elections, nonviolent direct-action tactics and self-protection strategies.

Direct Action, Direct Care: A Street Medic Workshop

In moments of collective action, whether at protests, marches or nonviolent direct-action events, ensuring the health and safety of participants is crucial. This session is a three-hour hands-on workshop designed to equip activists, organizers and street medics with the essential skills to provide emergency medical care in high-stress environments.

This session will include a primer on how to protect yourself and others.

* Upon workshop completion, participants will earn an Adult First Aid Certification valid for 2 years.

Conference Workshops

From Librarians to Lifeguards: Organizing Nontraditional Public Employees

Presenters will discuss the unique challenges and opportunities that come with organizing in these nontraditional workplaces and will offer tips on building strong unions so that lifeguards and library workers can find the collective power to fight for the dignity of their work and public service at large.

Organizing Membership for Mass Mobilization

Presenters will discuss strategies for organizing union members for mass mobilization events such as rallies, marches and protests. Participants will learn best practices for developing comprehensive campaigns designed to build power and combat schemes to weaken our democracy or cut the services we provide our communities.

Handling Objections, Redirection to Build Power

We will discuss how to handle objections that arise when current or potential members are asked to take action to support their union. Participants will learn how to affirm the feelings of their colleagues and answer their questions and concerns, while always redirecting back to building union power.

Mapping to Mobilize Members for Action

For mass mobilization actions to be effective, we must engage our members in direct actions. How do we organize our locals to ensure larger participation with coalition groups that take to the streets? In this session, participants will review the organizing skills of mapping and charting, when mobilizing members for collective action. Participants will have the opportunity to apply mapping and charting in a scenario for member action.

Organizing for Pension Power

Pensions are a critical source of retirement security for AFT members, and they play an important role in the global economy. Our pensions are part of what powers the labor movement; but too often, pensions face attacks from anti-union forces, and risk losing money by investing in companies that privatize public jobs, disregard labor rights or harm communities where public employees live and work.

This workshop will share innovative ways AFT affiliates can organize and activate members around their pension investments, including:

• Popular education strategies for training members on the power of pensions, how pensions are invested and the importance of protecting our pensions;
• Connecting pension fights to our current political moment; and
• Tools for members to take action. 

Protecting Our Workplaces and Mobilizing Our Power

How do we confront power? How can we teach our members to use mass mobilization and nonviolent direct action to protect our ideals and values? In this hands-on workshop, participants will get up and move around, exploring how to effectively use our numbers as strength when marching and using our First Amendment rights. These lessons will involve standing up and moving around, learning effective nonviolent direct-action protest and resistance techniques, and demonstrations of how marches and protests can be managed effectively.

Learning Lessons from Resistance Leaders in Our Past

Our country is at an inflection point, the most recent of many such points in our history. The presenter will lead a discussion on some of these events (including the Women’s Suffrage Movement, Civil Rights Movement, and Labor Rights Movement to examine the threats these movements faced and the varied strategies and responses each used to propel their beliefs into the mainstream. We will take these lessons and examine the issues we face today to generate ideas the AFT can pursue to protect our members and our ideals.

Creating an Activist Pipeline

Effective unions ensure leadership responsibilities are spread throughout the membership. When union members become more active in their unions, more power is built. How do we identify members who are willing to step up and lead at their work site, in their agency, or in their community? This workshop will discuss tactics leaders can use to build an activist pipeline for engaging members in organizing, mass mobilizations, union leadership and community fights.

Using Union Meetings to Strengthen Your Union

All too often, union meetings default to simply an exchange of information. They can become perfunctory and thus miss opportunities to build power. When approached differently, however, union meetings can be an effective organizing opportunity to engage and invigorate members and give them an opportunity to mobilize and become active in the union and our communities. Learn more about how you can use your union meetings to empower members and build our union.

Leadership and Building Union Power

We care, we fight, we show up, we lead. As union leaders you have the tremendous ability and power to make a difference in the lives of our members and the communities we serve. As we face extreme challenges today that few could have imagined, it is more important than ever that our union realize our power, build our power and use our power to confront these challenges. We will examine and discuss how we as leaders build power within our unions and then how we use that power to, as AFT President Randi Weingarten says, “fight forward and fight back.”

Identifying Our Preferred Behaviors and Working with Others

Identifying our preferred behaviors and the preferred behaviors of the people we work with can give us insights into ways in which we can more effectively communicate with each other, while building a culture of teamwork and collaboration. This workshop provides an opportunity to delve into your workstyle preferences and what drives your behavior choices in different situations. We also will have an opportunity to explore how we can more effectively work with people whose work-site behaviors are different from our own. You will leave this workshop with ideas about how to build teamwork, become more effective at delegating and checking in, and, in general, engage more productively with your colleagues.

Managing Time and Building Power

Too many leaders do not take an opportunity to pause and reflect on how they manage what is perhaps our most important, precious and fleeting resource: time. Looking at how we spend our time, and then practicing and planning time management skills can make our increasingly frenetic work more effective and efficient. Learn tips and techniques you can use to more effectively manage your time—allowing you to take care of both your work and yourself.

Thursday, May 29

Friday, May 30

Saturday, May 31