Anti-racism Resources

The Anti-Racism in Collective Bargaining Project began in 2021 at the direction of President Karen Strickland and the AFT Washington Executive Board. Both Kimberly McRae and David Ortiz became Co-Managers who, along with Karen Strickland, recruited member contributors to the project.

The first report's scope of work was to develop guiding equity principles for crafting and promoting anti-racist language in CBAs, evaluate CBAs to identify language with a potential racist impact, and provide examples of anti-racist language. Ten locals submitted their contracts for review. This first report addresses career attainment and development; recruitment; hiring for equity, diversity, and inclusion practices; and promotion and retention. You can read the report here.

The second report of the project focused on safe workplaces, faculty feedback and course surveys, and complaints against faculty. All three are, in the consideration of the workgroup, contract subjects rife with the presence or possibility of systemic bias against BIPOC and other historically marginalized workers in educational settings. The workgroup has outlined recommendations and principles to consider in order to protect against this harm. The report is available for review and use here.

The ARC-B project is currently at work on the next report.

This collection of anti-racism links and resources may be of use to locals as they work to also become anti-racist. We will add to the collection regularly.

Links and Articles

From a 2023 convention workshop on the Anti-Racism In Collective Bargaining Language tool, this slide deck illustrates the connection between the public health crisis of racism and building anti-racist language and ideas into our CBAs. 

The Diversity & Equity in Hiring and Professional Development team have created a document examining DEI at Washington state's 34 community and technical colleges. 

In 2020, King County joined many other counties across the nation in declaring racism a public health crisis. You can read more about that on the King County Executive's website.

The pandemic ushered in a dramatic increase in anti-Asian violence; AFT member Tracy Lai (AFT Seattle Local 1789) wrote about how she fights it in a powerful and thought-provoking essay that identifies the white supremacy underlying America's historical and contemporary relationship with AAPI people and communities and serves as a crucial reminder that racism is not "only" anti-Blackness.

White supremacy takes some very subtle forms. You may have read the 1999 article by Tema Okun, White Supremacy Culture. She has updated it with White Supremacy Culture - Still Here, and a longer book, hosted on her website.