The Pulse

I was pretty thrilled a couple of weeks ago when I went to the fifth Mariners’ game of the season with my son, daughter-in-law and a couple of friends, scored a Julio bobblehead, and witnessed a win! But wait, those weren’t even the highlights of the evening! The real highlight was when Vicky, my son’s friend, greeted me with a big hug and “I have a great report for you on our contract!” The last time we spoke was in July when she and her city librarian co-workers were in a struggle to get a respectable COLA … at that time it seemed the struggle might go on for a while. And it did, given this was on April 1st and they had just ratified a contract with meaningful retroactive raises. I was happy with their win but thrilled by Vicky’s display of pride and satisfaction with the collective power of her and her co-workers. The fact that it was the first thing she wanted to tell me about put me over the moon!

When I sat down to write my column this month, several topics came to mind - this summer’s conventions, resolutions on climate, workplace respect, and investments in the common good, our newest local’s ratification of their first contract and our two soon-to-be new locals. As I reflected on the commonalities among the list, I thought about Vicky and the theme was obvious – the power of the collective and the uplifting effect it has on all of us in the labor movement when we achieve and share those wins that make jobs, and our lives, better.

Along with local presidents Donna Maher, Renton Federation of Teachers 3914, and Carlea McAvoy, South Puget Sound Federation of Teachers 4603, as well as Richard Burton, State Affiliate Political Organizer, I spent last weekend in rainy Las Vegas at AFT’s Western Regional Leadership Meeting. The meeting was filled with valuable information and resources, along with inspiring stories of how individuals and our members have better lives because of the collective efforts of our union, whether at the local, the state or national level.

Within the last year or two AFT has launched two campaigns you may have heard of: Real Solutions for Kids and Code Red campaigns. They’re designed to generate more robust attention to the challenges and opportunities our PreK – 12 and healthcare membership faces. The former connects well with our school-related personnel focused Respect campaign, which is driven by resolution 2024-02, passed at last year’s convention. We mobilized members throughout the legislative session to make sure our legislators know that bus drivers, paraeducators, nutrition services workers, and all the others who keep our schools running truly are essential. The school-related personnel workforce’s working conditions are students’ learning conditions, and when the policies and funding that govern those working conditions aren’t sufficient to meet the need, students and workers alike pay the price. This work will continue with a petition to be launched this Saturday at ClassCon 2024, calling on Superintendent Reykdal to do right by our members. We’ll also urge school boards, teachers, principals and other stakeholders to sign on to our petition and to pass a resolution like the one Senator Markey (MA) introduced to the U.S. Senate in November, calling for better wages, benefits, hours and, overall, better jobs that show the respect school-related personnel deserve.

It’s still winter (at the moment, anyway), but I’m ready for spring! Baseball season is fast approaching, and just as exciting, so is our second annual bicycling fundraiser! I’m not making any bets on the Mariners’ season, but I’m willing to wager that this year’s fundraiser will surpass last year’s remarkable success. Key point: we did great last year with just a few people – we can knock it out of the park (pun intended) this year with a few more riders and more locals contributing to the fund. There are three elements to a successful bicycling fundraiser:

1. Get on your bike or inspire other members to do so and ride for dollars during the month of April!
2. Ask your board to pledge an amount per mile or per ride for members who ride.
3. Spread the word to your members that they and their family members can apply for a $1500 scholarship.

The end of the school year has arrived ... perhaps more significantly, another COVID-school year! Whatever your summer looks like - working as usual, working part-time, travelling, or enjoying a slower pace of life - I hope that you're able to take some time to rest, reflect and re-energize. As for your AFT Washington team, we'll be here to support our locals and continue moving our state-wide programs.

In July of 2020, our executive board passed resolution 2020-04, Becoming an Anti-racist, Unified and Inclusive Union. Leading up to and since then we have initiated new programs and implemented several strategies. In the midst of the divisive political and cultural climate and aggressive efforts to reinforce racist and sexist institutions throughout our sociiety, I’d like to provide a snapshot of the work we’re doing and ways we’re looking at continuing to advance our racial equity goals.

2024 has started out with a burst of challenges and opportunities. We already knew this would be an enormously significant election year and Tuesday’s Iowa primary outcome reinforces that reality. The ongoing lack of effective functioning of the Republican-led House of Representatives offers a tiresome déjà vu, where passage of the federal budget is held hostage to extreme right-wing efforts to wreck our democracy and ignore the needs of people. Here in Washington, we have a solid state budget and have finally moved out of our first place position as the most regressive tax system in the country to a still embarrassing second-worst place, with wealthy interests doing all they can to push us back to first by fighting the capital gains tax that has raised $900 million for education and early learning. Even though the Supreme Court declined to hear the challenge against the capital gains tax, one of the six “Let’s Go Washington” initiatives repeals the tax, and this tiresome fight is not over.

We’ve had an eventful first six months of 2023, kicking the year off with Lobby Day in February, ClassCon (our classified workers annual conference) in March, a Day of Action in April and Convention in May. All but ClassCon involved in-person activities and the consensus is that it feels really good to talk face to face to get re-acquainted or to meet for the first time IRL! We look forward to continuing our work in ways that take advantage of tech tools while maximizing the opportunities to build relationships through human contact. As I said in my remarks at our Friday evening convention celebration, I want to have those conversations on the way to the bathroom or making our way through the buffet line that may seem minor, but which open up possibilities.

Greetings Friends, I wish I could greet you with a “whew, aren’t we glad we’ve vanquished our foe COVID and have moved into a new year!” Instead, I will convey my appreciation for the work each of you is doing to provide what our students, families and communities need in spite of the tumultuous conditions – the opportunity to learn and grow through education. Thank you! At the state federation, 2022 is starting off fully staffed for the first time in nearly a year. After significant changes in the last few years, we have a commanding Organizing Team with many years of collective experience, a newly-formed, ambitious and dedicated Advocacy Team, and an Administrative Support Team operating like a finely oiled machine … with the human qualities that bring out the best in all of us. Put it all together and the result is a very busy winter, with trainings, Lobby Day, the Contingent Faculty Issues Conference and ClassCon 2022 (our school related personnel conference) scheduled between now and mid-March.

The legislative session is winding down just as we’re gearing up for convention – suffice it to say we’re juggling a lot of balls in the air! Our labor movement is seeing big wins at both the national and state level and we’re presented with the opportunity to capitalize on the momentum built by people who are saying, we can do better and we must do better! Workers deserve better jobs, young people deserve to grow up without fear of gun violence (and we all deserve to live without it), and students and educators alike deserve well-supported schools and colleges in which they thrive.

You may have seen in the news that several Seattle Central College professional-technical programs, aka workforce development programs, were on the chopping block – the administration’s “solution” to their budget woes. It is true that the community and technical colleges are hurting due to a significant decline in enrollment across the system during this pandemic, though that decline is not reflected overall in the programs in question. The need to increase enrollment makes the decision to close programs that bring in enrollment all the more troubling, on top of the impact on the people working in the programs, the resulting lack of access to affordable choices to develop a career, and the disregard for the decades of investment in and storied pasts of the program. Read more about that here.