American Federation of Teachers

History

AFT was founded in Chicago, Illinois, on April 15, 1916. Charles Stillman was the first president and Margaret Haley was the national organizer. On May 9, 1916, the American Federation of Labor chartered the AFT. By 1919, AFT had 100 local affiliates and a membership of approximately 11,000 teachers, which amounted to 1.5 percent of the nation's teaching force. In its early days, AFT distinguished itself from the National Education Association (NEA) by its exclusion of school administrators from membership. Facing opposition from politicians and boards of education, membership in AFT declined to 7,000 by 1930. During this period, the organization had little impact on local or national education policy.

AFT membership climbed during the Great Depression, reaching 33,000 by 1939. During the 1930s, AFT, whose members had historically been primary school teachers, saw influential college professors join the union. Also during the 1930s, the Communist Party gained influence within the AFT. In 1941, under pressure from the AFL, the union ejected three local unions in New York City and Philadelphia (including its prominent early member, the New York City Teachers Union, AFT Local 5) for being communist-dominated. The charter revocations represented nearly a third of the union's national membership.

The 1940s were marked by a series of teacher strikes, including 57 strikes that occurred from 1946 through 1949. By 1947, AFT had a membership of 42,000. The 1960s and 1970s also saw numerous teacher strikes, including 1,000 strikes involving more than 823,000 teachers between 1960 and 1974.

AFT membership was 59,000 in 1960, 200,000 in 1970, and 550,000 in 1980. In 2017, membership was around 1.6 million, and the union had due income of $35 million.

Since 1977, AFT has published a quarterly magazine for teachers covering various issues about children and education called American Educator. In 1998, the membership of the NEA rejected a proposed merger with AFT. The AFT's membership is half that of the NEA.

Presidents of the AFT

;Albert Shanker In 1974, Albert Shanker was elected president of AFT. He served in this role until his death on February 22, 1997. For 27 years, Shanker wrote a weekly column entitled "Where We Stand" that ran as an advertisement in The New York Times. Shanker was an early advocate of charter schools. During his tenure as AFT president, Shanker was jailed twice for leading illegal strikes.

;Sandra Feldman Sandra Feldman served as AFT's president from 1997 to 2004. Feldman helped craft the No Child Left Behind Act.

;Edward J. McElroy Edward J. McElroy, the AFT's secretary-treasurer since 1992, was elected president of the AFT in 2004, replacing Feldman. On February 12, 2008, McElroy announced he would retire at the union's regularly scheduled biennial convention in July. On July 14, 2008, Randi Weingarten was elected to succeed him.

;Randi Weingarten On July 14, 2008, Randi Weingarten, then the president of the United Federation of Teachers, was elected to succeed McElroy as AFT president. In September 2008, she announced the launch of the AFT Innovation Fund, a union-led, private foundation-supported effort to provide grants to AFT unions to develop and implement innovations in education. In 2014, Weingarten announced that AFT was ending a five-year funding relationship between the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the AFT Innovation Fund.

Political activities

Since 1980, AFT and the NEA have contributed nearly $57.4 million to federal campaigns, an amount that is about 30 percent higher than any single corporation or other union. About 95 percent of political donations from teachers' unions have gone to Democrats.

In 2008, AFT provided a campaign contribution of $1,784,808.59 to Hillary Clinton and $1,997,375.00 to Barack Obama.

In July 2015, AFT endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race. Clinton and AFT president Randi Weingarten are longtime friends. AFT's official endorsement of Clinton caused controversy among some AFT members who felt that the endorsement came too soon and did not reflect the wishes of rank-and-file AFT members, some of whom supported Bernie Sanders.

Members' dues underwrite much of AFT's political activities. In 2015, four California teachers sued AFT and its California unit, the California Federation of Teachers, over the use of member dues for political activities. The plaintiffs argued that unions were violating their constitutional right to free speech by forcing them to either support union-favored causes and candidates or lose access to important job benefits such as disability and life insurance.

In 2018, the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Janus v. AFSCME resolved this matter, concluding that public-sector union fees violate the First Amendment, compelling nonmembers to "subsidize private speech on matters of substantial public concern". Unions will, subsequently, need to gain the affirmative consent of individual teachers before enrolling them in the union.

Activities

Race relations

The AFT was one of the first trade unions to allow African Americans and minorities to become full members of their trade union. In 1918, the AFT called for equal pay for African-American teachers, the election of African Americans to local school boards and compulsory school attendance for African-American children. In 1919, the AFT called for equal educational opportunities for African-American children, and in 1928 called for the social, political, economic, and cultural contributions of African Americans to be taught in the public schools.

In 1951, the union stopped chartering segregated locals. It filed an amicus brief in the 1954 US Supreme Court desegregation case Brown v. Board of Education. In 1957, the AFT expelled all locals that refused to desegregate. This resulted in the loss of over 7,000 members. In 1963, the AFT actively supported the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

Collective bargaining

By the late 1940s, AFT was slowly moving toward collective bargaining as an official policy. By the end of the 1970s, collective bargaining agreements covered 72 percent of public school teachers.

Active shooter drills

In 2020, the union along with the National Education Association issued a report expressing opposition to active shooter drills being held in schools, calling on the drills to be revised or eliminated.

Share My Lesson

In 2012, AFT partnered with Britain's TES Connect to create a curriculum sharing website called Share My Lesson. The AFT and TES invested $10 million to develop the site.

Criticism

In 2010, four American film documentaries, most notably Waiting for Superman, portrayed the AFT as hurting children by opposing charter schools and protecting incompetent teachers.

Leadership

Presidents

:1916: Charles Stillman :1923: Florence Rood :1925: Mary C. Barker :1931: Henry R. Linville :1934: Raymond F. Lowry :1936: Jerome C. Davis :1939: George S. Counts :1942: John M. Fewkes :1943: Joseph F. Landis :1947: John M. Eklund :1952: Carl J. Megel :1964: Charles Cogen :1968: David Selden :1974: Albert Shanker :1997: Sandra Feldman :2004–2008: Edward J. McElroy :2008–present: Randi Weingarten

Secretary-Treasurers

:1916: F. G. Stecker :1926: Florence Curtis Hanson :1935: George Davis :1936: Irvin R. Kuenzli :1953: Post vacant :1963: Robert Porter :1992: Edward J. McElroy :2004: Nat LaCour :2008: Antonia Cortese :2011: Lorretta Johnson :2020: Fedrick C. Ingram

Notable AFT members

• J. Quinn Brisben, Socialist Party USA candidate for President of the United States in the 1992 US presidential election
• Ralph Bunche, former United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Nobel Peace Prize winner
• Tony Danza, film and television actor
• Paul Douglas, US Senator from Illinois
• John Dewey, educator
• Albert Einstein, scientist
• Michael Harrington, political activist
• Hubert Humphrey, US vice-president and US Senator from Minnesota
• Mike Mansfield, former United States Senate Majority Leader and US Ambassador to Japan
• Frank McCourt, Pulitzer Prize-winning author
• Robert Oppenheimer, scientist
• Donna Shalala, former US Representative from Florida and former United States Secretary of Health and Human Services
• Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize winner
• Kshama Sawant, socialist activist and member of the Seattle City Council

Notable AFT locals and federations

Current

• Chicago Teachers Union
• Cincinnati Federation of Teachers
• Education Minnesota
• Florida Education Association
• Health Professionals and Allied Employees
• Montana Federation of Public Employees
• New York State United Teachers
• Ohio Federation of Teachers
• Professional Staff Congress (City University of New York)
• Public Employees Federation (New York state)
• Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals
• Temple University Graduate Students Association
• United Federation of Teachers (New York City)
• United Teachers Los Angeles
• United Teachers of New Orleans
• University Health Professionals (Connecticut state)
• Washington State Nurses Association

Former

• Chicago Teachers Federation

References

Archives

• American Federation of Teachers Local 200 Photograph Collection. approximately 1964-1975. 69 photographic prints (1 box); various sizes, 12 negatives.
• AFT Antecedents to Historical Reform, a digital library project to host primary resources from the AFT historical collections in the Walter P. Reuther Library that document various education reform initiatives that union and school boards have collaborated on from 1983 to present.

References

1. (1918). "Report of the Commissioner of Education Made to the Secretary of the Interior for the Year". US Government Printing Office.
2. (June 25, 2013). "Building Teachers: A Constructivist Approach to Introducing Education". Cengage Learning.
3. (1968). "American Flint".
4. (2010). "Encyclopedia of Educational Reform and Dissent". SAGE.
5. Golodner, Daniel. (2006). "Margaret Haley (1861–1939)". Indiana University Press.
6. {{Cite OLMS
7. (2007). "Encyclopedia of U.S. Labor and Working-class History, Volume 1". Taylor & Francis.
8. (2014-09-08). "Financial Statements". American Federation of Teachers.
9. (August 30, 2014). "The Original Charter School Vision". The New York Times.
10. (February 24, 1997). "Albert Shanker, 68, Combative Leader Who Transformed Teachers' Union, Dies". The New York Times.
11. (November 5, 1989). "Albert Shanker: Where He Stands". The New York Times.
12. (September 20, 2005). "Sandra Feldman, Scrappy and Outspoken Labor Leader for Teachers, Dies at 65". The New York Times.
13. (February 13, 2008). "Teachers' Union President to Step Down; New Yorker Is Seen as Successor". The New York Times.
14. (July 14, 2008). "Obama Tells Teachers Union He Opposes Vouchers". New York Sun.
15. (May 4, 2009). "American Federation of Teachers Announces Innovation Fund". The Washington Post.
16. (March 10, 2014). "Exclusive: AFT shuns Gates funding". Politico.
17. (May 17, 2010). "The Teachers' Unions' Last Stand". The New York Times.
18. "Independent Expenditures Supporting/Opposing 2008 Presidential Campaigns". FEC.
19. (July 13, 2015). "The American Federation of Teachers Endorsed Hillary Clinton—and Not Everyone's Happy About It". Slate.
20. (July 11, 2015). "American Federation of Teachers endorses Hillary Clinton for president". Politico.
21. (July 16, 2015). "Unions seethe over early Clinton endorsement". Politico.
22. (July 13, 2012). "National Education Association And American Federation Of Teachers Give Millions To Various Outside Causes, Political Campaigns". Huffington Post.
23. (July 12, 2012). "Teachers Unions Give Broadly". Wall Street Journal.
24. (April 7, 2015). "California teachers unions face new legal challenge over dues". Washington Post.
25. (1973). "The American Federation of Teachers and Desegregation". Journal of Negro Education.
26. Eaton, ''The American Federation of Teachers, 1916–1961,'' 1975, p. 61-72.
27. (2004). "Justice, Justice: School Politics and the Eclipse of Liberalism". Peter Lang.
28. (2007). "Battleground Schools". Greenwood Publishing Group.
29. (February 12, 2020). "Teachers unions express opposition to active shooter drills". WCPO.
30. Rich, Motoko. (June 19, 2012). "Teachers' Union to Open Lesson-Sharing Web Site". The New York Times.
31. Richard Whitmire, ''The bee eater: Michelle Rhee takes on the nation's worst school district'' (2011) p. 126. John Wiley and Sons, 2011 {{ISBN. 0-470-90529-8, {{ISBN. 978-0-470-90529-6
32. (1955). "Organizing the Teaching Profession The Story of the American Federation of Teachers". American Federation of Teachers.
33. (1973). "Notable Names in American History". James T. White & Company.
34. Herken, ''Brotherhood of the Bomb: The Tangled Lives and Loyalties of Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence, and Edward Teller,'' 2002, p. 30.
35. (September 15, 2015). "Kshama Sawant: Teachers have come under 'ferocious assault'". MyNorthwest.com.