The Pulse

For many months, our members along with our AFT siblings around the country have spent many hours writing post cards, making phone calls, knocking on doors and talking to friends, family members, neighbors and their union siblings. AFT spent two months on the road, visiting 20 states and hosting local events in support of our endorsed candidates and the communities they seek to represent. Organized labor and progressive groups have worked tirelessly to counter the destructive goals, the disinformation campaign and the hostile, violent and dehumanizing messaging of the Trump campaign.

Election day is nearly here, but there is a great deal of work to be done between now and then to achieve the best possible outcomes at every level. Here in Washington we have some tough races, including getting Marie Gluesenkamp Perez re-elected in congressional district 3 in Southwest Washington. Elon Musk just threw $380,000 into MAGA candidate Joe Kent’s campaign, but Congresswoman Gluesenkamp Perez is fighting hard to keep her seat in DC with the support of Labor and other Progressive groups. Our endorsed candidates in several legislative districts are also in close races, including LD 10, LD 26, and LD 14 to name a few. Please consider joining us for canvassing and phone banking for these and other candidates – see our endorsements here.

Well, this school year is off to a hot start! We have a huge election just weeks away – did you watch the debate? It feels like we’ve shifted from the Mariners’ second half of the season back to the first half! (For clarity – the M's are 3.5 games behind the Astros right now, but they went into the all-star break 10 games ahead!) We have a robust legislative agenda despite the fiscal concerns expressed by legislators worried about a revenue crisis when they begin working to set the biennial budget in a few short months.

We have, unbelievably, reached the end of another school year. I hope that your summertime plans include fun, relaxation, rejuvenation and, of course, a bit of union building activity! Our in-person Powerful Locals Conference is scheduled for July 31 – August 2 at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma – there is still time to get your team registered, so please register soon.

As I look ahead to what comes after summer the election is top-of-mind, as I’m sure it is for many of you as well. I know I’ll be hitting the doors to turn out the vote for our endorsed candidates; please create a little space in your calendar when you get the call to join us in that work. We’ve got some terrific legislative candidates and want to help get them elected so they can support our legislative agenda. After the legislative session, we come to convention in May of 2025, capping the school year and setting our course for the next two years.

May 2024

No letter from Karen this month!

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.

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.

As 2023 wraps up I’m thinking about our achievements alongside our challenges; we’ve seen significant union organizing followed by big wins across the country and here at home. Last year, we saw a Supreme Court decision take away women’s rights to bodily autonomy and healthcare, and we saw voters in several states push back hard and protect those rights. We saw re-energized UAW workers demand their employers restore concessions made in earlier years and get creative with Stand Up strikes, resulting in winning far more at the table than they otherwise would have. Academics at Temple, Rutgers, University of Chicago and elsewhere have walked out to get what they need; right now, contingent faculty at Columbia College in Chicago are walking the line for the 49^th day, the longest strike of contingent faculty ever! PreK-12 staff and teachers have also stood firm for better wages, smaller class sizes and more support staff. The message of Workers is loud and clear: Enough is Enough! And it’s working.