AFT Utah, working with LinkedUnion, has created the AFT Utah App for Apple and Android platforms. The AFT Utah App will alow members to access union information, benefits, and assist them in signing up their colleagues for the union. Members will receive notifications on their phones or devices of important union events and legislation during the Utah Legislature General and Interim Sessions. Our members have been asking why AFT Utah didn't have a union app, well we do and it's fantastic!
On July 15th, 2019 the AFT Utah Executive Board approved the affiliation of AFSCME Local 1004 (American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees) under the AFT Utah State Federation. AFSCME Local 1004 serves state, county, and municipal public employees across Utah. Standing together, AFT Utah and AFSCME 1004 form a powerful union alliance to be the voice of public employees at the bargaining table, the Utah Legislature, and in our communities.
“Teachers have always had power,” AFT President Randi Weingarten told the crowd at the TEACH opening plenary Thursday afternoon. “We need to own our power. And we need to build our power so we can move our agenda—for our students and our families; for safe, welcoming and well-funded public schools; for affordable higher education; healthcare that is a right, not a privilege; a living wage; a decent retirement; a healthy climate and a strong democracy.”
In AFT President Randi Weingarten’s latest column in the New York Times, she writes that, despite President Trump’s claims that we have the “best economy ever,” his policies are harming working and middle-class Americans, many of whom are struggling just to get by. “Our political and economic systems are so weighted toward the wealthy that opportunity will only come through the power of collective action,” she writes, using “the surest vehicles to increase opportunity for ordinary Americans”—public education, labor unions and voting. Read the full column.
Some of education’s biggest problems come with its littlest students. At a working breakfast for paraprofessionals in prekindergarten, early childhood and Head Start, members swapped strategies for solving problems. Their discussion came during the AFT PSRP conference last week in Las Vegas, where paras from all over the country zeroed in on professional development and adequate classroom coverage.
The AFT’s long-time advocacy for public schools has just been turbo-charged, with a sweeping, multi-pronged campaign to fund the future of American public education. Amid the continuing wave of teacher activism shining a spotlight on massive shortfalls in education investment, the Fund Our Future initiative aims to take the teachers’ megaphone into Congress, statehouses and communities nationwide.
