Three Women Elected to Top AFT Offices

by James Parks, Jul 14, 2008

Randi Weingarten
Antonia Cortese
Lorretta Johnson

Following a historic vote, three women will hold the top offices in a major AFL-CIO union. Delegates to AFT’s convention in Chicago today elected Randi Weingarten as president, Antonia Cortese as secretary-treasurer and Lorretta Johnson as executive vice president.

“The three of us are committed to improving schools, hospitals and public institutions for children, families and communities,” Weingarten said in a statement.

“We will build on this union’s great tradition of confronting injustice, embracing the excluded, questioning conventional wisdom, challenging the status quo—and working 24/7 to improve the institutions where our members work.”

They replace President Edward McElroy and Secretary-Treasurer Nat LaCour, who both retired. Cortese, the new secretary-treasurer, served as AFT executive vice president for the past four years. 

A former social studies teacher and lawyer, Weingarten served for the past decade as president of the United Federation of Teachers UFT/AFT. Johnson is president of AFT-Maryland and also serves as president of the Baltimore Teachers Union’s paraprofessional chapter.

Their elections mark the first time three women hold top positions in AFT, whose membership is more than 70 percent female. Weingarten becomes the only woman to head a major union. Johnson, who began her career as a teachers aide in Baltimore, is the first paraprofessional to be elected an officer of AFT. Delegates also elected 39 AFT vice presidents.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says the election is an “important step.”

All three have repeatedly shown their passion, commitment and success in improving the lives of working families. The election of three women to the top offices of this great union is a new milestone and an important step for the labor movement.

In her first address as president, Weingarten said today she will fight for a national reform agenda that protects and improves the institutions where AFT members work, while bettering the lives and prospects of those they serve—particularly those in need.

Let’s proudly present our vision of an America that offers all our children a fair start, a healthy start and a hopeful start in their journeys in life—the vision that inspires our ideals for community schools, health care for every family, college opportunity and career training for every American, and a strong and growing labor movement that empowers every worker and dignifies all work.

Weingarten also argued that the No Child Left Behind Act is, in fact, leaving behind the very children it was intended to help and has outlived its usefulness.

We need to prepare students for 21st century jobs. Employers say that they are looking for workers who can devise new solutions. But how will kids who have spent 12 years learning to keep their pencil marks inside the bubbles ever be able to think outside the box?

A key aspect of Weingarten’s proposed solution is expansion of the community school model—schools that serve the neediest children by bringing together all the services and activities they and their families need under one roof.

Imagine schools that are open all day, and offer after-school and evening recreational activities and homework assistance; high schools that allow students to sign up for morning, afternoon or evening classes. And suppose the schools included child care and dental, medical and other services the community needs.

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