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 program, participants will learn best practices for building a massive force through demonstrations, rallies, marches, door knocking, social media campaigns, elections and non-violent civil disobedience, other 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 acts of civil disobedience, ensuring the health and safety of participants is crucial. Direct Action, Direct Care is a 3-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 cover:

1. The role of street medics and how you can assist participants in a medical emergency
2. Understanding the Good Samaritan Law and legal considerations
3. Emergency planning before, during, and after actions
4. Adult First Aid* for common protest injuries, including trauma, burns, bleeding control, heat exhaustion, sprains, allergic reactions, breathing emergencies, and chemical exposure
5. Triage and patient assessment under challenging conditions
6. Teamwork, buddy systems, and scene safety for effective

Conference Workshops (Check back regularly as we reveal more workshops we will offer at the conference)

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 and mobilizing members and community to support initiatives and actions that will help defeat or build power to combat schemes that would weaken accountability, cut services, or threaten the quality of work we perform in our communities.

Handling Objections, Redirection to Building Power 

Presenters will discuss the potential objections that come from either existing or potential members to take various actions as part of organizing campaigns to build union power, how to overcome those by answering, redirecting and build power.

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:

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

Using union meetings to strengthen your union

Too often union meetings default to simply an exchange of information. They can become perfunctory and thus missed opportunities to build power. When approached differently, however, union meetings can be an effective organizing opportunity to engage and invigorate members and give members mobilize and engage with our union and 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 that we serve. And 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 has said, “fight forward and fight back.”  

Identifying Our Preferred Behaviors and Working with Others

Identifying our preferred behaviors and the preferred behaviors of those 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 those who have different worksite behaviors from our own. You will leave this workshop with a number of ideas as to how to build teamwork, become more effective at delegating and checking-in and, in general, engage more productively with your colleagues. 

Time management 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 more about the tips and techniques you can use to more effectively manage your time – allowing for taking care of your work and taking care of yourself.

Thursday, May 29

Friday, May 30

Saturday, May 31