McElroy, LaCour Stepping Down From Top AFT Posts

by James Parks, Feb 12, 2008

Edward McElroy
Nat LaCour

AFT President Edward McElroy and Secretary-Treasurer Nat LaCour today announced their plans to retire in July. Both will continue to lead the 1.4 million-member union until the July 2008 AFT national convention in Chicago, where delegates will choose their successors. 

The two men have long careers as champions of working people and quality education. McElroy has served as AFT president since 2004. He was secretary-treasurer for 12 years prior to that. LaCour was the first person to hold the post of AFT executive vice president, a position to which he was elected in 1998. He was elected secretary-treasurer in 2004. 

Says McElroy:  

From my time as a newly minted junior high school teacher, I knew that being a part of the AFT would help me make a difference. And it has–from improving conditions for teaching and learning, to lobbying for issues important to AFT members and those they serve, to giving professionals a voice on the job, the AFT makes a difference. It has been a tremendous honor to serve my entire career as part of this fine union.  

McElroy began his career as a social studies and English teacher in Warwick, R.I., and was elected president of the Warwick Teachers Union in 1967. At the age of 30, he became president of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and president of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO, two positions he held until 1992, when he came to AFT headquarters.  

During McElroy’s 16-year tenure as a national officer, the AFT has added more than 500,000 new members nationwide and expanded its member-to-member political outreach efforts. McElroy also chairs the AFL-CIO Department for Professional Employees. 

LaCour led the United Teachers of New Orleans for 28 years prior to coming to Washington, D.C. As chair of the AFT Organizing Committee, LaCour led the development of a new organizing model based on specific benchmarks that can be adapted to virtually any type of organizing campaign. The model stands at the forefront of the AFT’s national labor organizing efforts.  

LaCour says:  

I have seen what can be achieved through the union under the most difficult of circumstances.  I started my career trying to surmount the lack of collective bargaining for school employees, and I end it working to overcome the devastation of a natural disaster made worse by human indifference. With my brothers and sisters in the AFT, we have moved mountains, and I know the AFT will continue this good work. 

LaCour chairs the AFL-CIO Civil Rights Committee and co-chairs the Special Committee on Diversity. Both McElroy and LaCour serve on the AFL-CIO Executive Council. McElroy was elected in 2001 and LaCour in 2004.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney praised both men, saying:  

Ed and Nat are outspoken and effective champions for their members. But what sets them apart is their unselfish concern for members of other unions, workers without the benefit of union representation and people for whom every day is a struggle. Ed McElroy and Nat LaCour are leaders for whom solidarity is not a slogan; it is a guiding principle that orders their priorities.  

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