Sneak Preview: Previous AFL-CIO and NEA Partnerships Built Strength

Yesterday’s announcement by the AFL-CIO Executive Council approving an unprecedented new partnership between the AFL-CIO and the 2.8-million-member National Education Association (NEA) means “a solidarity we’ve not had before,” says Illinois AFL-CIO President Margaret Blackshere, who also is a former teacher.
 
She told the Chicago Tribune she plans to begin an immediate outreach to NEA groups in the state. 
 
Blackshere is among union leaders across the nation who see the partnership as a significant move toward increasing the strength and growth of the union movement.
 
“We’ve built strong alliances with other unions, and it works,” says California Teachers Association (CTA)/AFT President Barbara Kerr.  

“The only way to get things done is to do it together. We showed that last year in California and it’s the right thing to do,” Kerr says. The CTA joined with other unions last year to defeat several anti-union intiatives pushed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzanegger.

Under the terms of the AFL-CIO/NEA Labor Solidarity Partnership, local affiliates of the NEA can affiliate with the national AFL-CIO and join the AFL-CIO at the local and state levels. Directly affiliated NEA locals will have the same rights as any direct affiliate of the AFL-CIO—including jurisdictional protections and representation and voting rights.

Edward McElroy, president of the AFT, a member of the AFL-CIO for 90 years, welcomed the NEA locals:

The AFT and NEA have become partners on many education endeavors. Having the support of NEA affiliates inside the AFL-CIO’s local and state labor bodies will give educators an even stronger voice inside the labor movement and will help our unions become more powerful advocates for quality education and for an economy that works for all Americans.

The AFT and NEA already have worked together at the state level in Florida, Minnesota and Montana, where they have merged their unions—a step Judy Schaubach, president of Education Minnesota, says has been “a very positive opportunity for locals,” and one that has made “an enormous impact” in political action.

“We actually took 13 seats in the (state) House of Representatives and that was largely attributed to work labor did and that happens at the local level,” says Schaubach.  

More than 220,000 NEA members already are affiliated with the AFL-CIO through local and state joint affiliations with the AFT.
 
“Our [NEA] members have found that their relationship with the AFL-CIO and with central labor councils in particular has been a very positive experience. It helped them understand a lot of different issues that workers are facing. They found a lot of commonality. Education Minnesota was founded in 1998 through a merger of the Minnesota Education Association  (an NEA affiliate) and the Minnesota Federation of Teachers (an AFT affiliate).  
 
In Ohio, leaders of the AFT and NEA state affiliates praised the new alliance in the comments to The [Cleveland] Plain Dealer.

Rhonda Johnson, president of the 5,000-member Columbus Education Association, said the 2004 presidential election highlighted the kind of political edge that could be gained from ties between the AFL-CIO and NEA locals such as hers: “Here in Franklin County,” she said, “the AFL-CIO had very good information that I would have loved to have our members get.”

Joanne DeMarco, president of the AFT-affiliated Cleveland Teachers Union, said political bonding was critical—”particularly now and particularly in Ohio, because of the governor’s race and the Senate race and school funding issues.”

Back in San Diego, where members of the AFL-CIO Executive Council continue to meet today, discussing union organizing campaigns, Terry Pesta, president of the San Diego Education Association, which represents some 9,000 teachers, counselors and other credentialed nonmanagement workers in San Diego, told The San Diego Union-Tribune her union welcomed the NEA partnership with the AFL-CIO.

“We worked with the AFL-CIO last year to defeat Gov. Schwarzenegger’s measures and enjoyed that very much,” he said. “This is brand new and I haven’t had a chance to discuss it with my board, but I think it’s a good idea that we have the opportunity to join the AFL-CIO if we wish.”

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