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 Newly elected CFT president Joshua Pechthalt, right, and CFT Classified Council president Velma Butler, flank Bryan Kennedy, president of the Wisconsin Federation of Teachers. Moments earlier Kennedy had electrified the convention with his fiery speech recounting the Battle of Wisconsin, during which he slept with hundreds of others on the floor of the state Capitol in Madison for many nights while protesting, with tens of thousands, the union-busting policies of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. Fred Glass photo
March 18-20, Manhattan Beach—From the instant outgoing president Marty Hittelman gaveled the sixty ninth annual California Federation of Teachers convention into existence on Friday morning, March 18 in Manhattan Beach, the six hundred elected delegates from across the state knew they were in for an extraordinary event. With the election of new union officers, presentations by distinguished guests, floor debate and policy decisions on the burning issues of the day, awards and honors for members and friends, and emotional retirement celebrations for the CFT’s president and executive director, there was more than enough going on to keep everyone engaged non-stop for three days.
One highlight in a convention overflowing with them was the election of the new CFT president, Joshua Pechthalt of United Teachers Los Angeles, and secretary treasurer Jeff Freitas, former Carpinteria local AFT president and CFT lobbyist. With a strong mandate for their call for fair tax policies to fund public education and education policies that make sense, rather than “blame the teachers” attacks masquerading as reform, their election by the largest number of delegates ever to attend a CFT convention signaled a strengthening of the statewide union’s direction initiated by Hittelman over the past four years.
Pechthalt noted in his acceptance speech on Sunday morning that the record attendance at the convention represented a heightened interest by the membership in building a movement against attacks on public education and the public sector, and pledged his commitment to building a strong coalition of unions and community allies to achieve that end and to restore the promise of the state’s public education system. He also thanked Dennis Smith, the incumbent secretary treasurer unseated by Freitas, and Mary Alice Callahan, the CFT’s senior vice president, whom Pechthalt defeated, for their principled campaigns and years of service to the membership.
Historical context for attacks on public employees
Friday morning featured an historical review of events behind the convention theme, “Stand Up, Stand Together, Speak Out,” which framed the delegates’ understanding of current attacks on education and public employees. But more importantly, the morning program revealed how union members have responded to similar attacks before and won.
Following a short video marking the 100th anniversary of the Industrial Workers of the World’s landmark free speech fights in San Diego, a panel with former state Assemblymember Jackie Goldberg, CFT attorney Larry Rosenzweig, and CSU Sacramento professor Stan Oden recalled the birth of the Free Speech Movement in the University of California system in 1964. The panelists, all of whom participated in the events they described, made clear the lines of continuity between these historical moments and the attacks on public education in California and across the country, in particular the fightback unfolding today in Wisconsin and elsewhere in the Midwest.
The convention theme, “Stand Up, Stand Together, Speak Out” found its outlet in a number of quite different but complementary ways.
Even before the convention officially began, at a press availability for Hittelman and Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, the union president and state education official emphasized the dire need for adequate funding for public education after years of budget cuts, and chastised Republicans standing in the way of allowing voters to decide on the tax extension proposed by Governor Brown. Torlakson told reporters, “It's time for California to address the financial emergency in our schools, by investing in them again. The first step is for the Legislature to give voters the chance to have their voice heard and extend the temporary tax measures currently in place—dollars our schools can't afford to lose.”
United purpose
Floor debate at a CFT convention can be and often is long, loud and contentious. But a number of delegates remarked on a difference this year. Peter Brown, a community college instructor from the Peralta Federation of Teachers in Oakland noted, “There seems to be a higher and more positive level of energy. People at previous conventions were aware of and concerned about challenges and attacks on education. Now, both those feelings remained, but they seemed more active and thirsty for understanding and concrete direction.” The delegates made their way through dozens of resolutions in record time, allowing the convention to end an hour early.
Among the most significant resolutions passed was one establishing a task force to further develop the CFT’s progressive tax advocacy. Another calls on the State Teachers Retirement System to divest from the corporation that produces methyl iodide, a toxic chemical used in strawberry production that threatens schools and communities in the Watsonville area. Yet another resolution asks the Legislature to restore funding for Adult Education programs, which have been decimated across the state over the past few years.
Elaine Merriweather from United Educators of San Francisco, reelected to a term as one of CFT’s 24 vice-presidents, was impressed by how fast the cards were signed at the Diversity Pledge table she was staffing. Standing in front of a photo display of the CFT’s membership, and calling for members to sign a pledge form and wear a button that read “I took the pledge: Ethnic diversity matters,” she said, “We brought 300 cards, and they were gone really quickly. It shows the commitment of the members to honor the diversity of the organization.”
Honors
No CFT convention is complete without showcasing the members and friends of the organization who have given time and energy to the causes of public education and unionism. Receiving the CFT Legislator of the Year award for her tireless work on Proposition 25, and her advocacy for fair tax policies that would allow the state to invest in the future instead of provide tax loopholes for the rich and corporations, was state senator Loni Hancock of Berkeley.
Hancock told the delegates, “It is especially meaningful to me to receive this award from an organization that I honor for its commitment to achieving excellence in higher education, equity in our schools and better education for all Californians. Over many generations we have worked together to build a state with great schools and a thriving economy. Public education remains the key to rebuilding our state and restoring our economy.”
It was a big convention for the East Bay community as long-time Berkeley teacher, union officer, and current member of the Alameda County Board of Education Jacki Fox Ruby accepted the CFT’s highest member honor, the Ben Rust Award. And at the Early Childhood/K-12 Council Awards Breakfast, retiring CFT Executive Director Margaret Shelleda was honored with the Raoul Teilhet “Educate, Agitate, and Organize” award.
The convention also paid tribute to the six individuals who marched last year in the “March for California’s Future.” Jim Miller, Irene Gonzalez, David Lyell, Jenn Laskin, Gavin Riley, and Manny Ballesteros were given a standing ovation while they received trophies commemorating their epic journey across the central valley for education, jobs, and fair tax policies.
We are all Wisconsin
Perhaps the most exciting moment of the convention came on Sunday morning with the presentation by Bryan Kennedy, president of the Wisconsin Federation of Teachers. Kennedy took us through the now-familiar story of Scott Walker’s election and how he plunged the state into a supposed fiscal crisis with tax cuts for businesses, and then used the crisis to attack not only the compensation of public employees but their right to bargain collectively.
Kennedy punctuated his narrative with a refrain about the unions and their relationship with Walker: “We offered him our hand, and he slapped it away.” By the third time he said it, the crowd was chanting the second part of it for him. His first hand account of the growth of a huge movement to save collective bargaining, complete with mass demonstrations, civil disobedience, the flight of Democratic legislators across state lines to stymie passage of the union busting “budget repair” bill, the court order staying implementation of the bill, and finally the transformation of the mass direct action movement into a coordinated effort to recall 8 anti-union Republican legislators, brought the house to its feet in a prolonged standing ovation.
Marty Hittelman retirement
If the Wisconsin presentation was the fire-em-up high point of the weekend, the testimonials to outgoing president Marty Hittelman provided the most moving moments. Following Hittelman’s state of the union speech, the convention planners caught Marty off guard with a parade of family members brought in to sit in the front row, including his 98-year old father and 96-year old mother, three grandchildren, and others in between. The tribute included comments by convention chair Laura Rico, OPEIU staffers Josie Gloria and Annette Eisenberg, CFT field rep Terry Elverum on behalf of the CFT professional staff, Carl Friedlander for the Community College Council, Velma Butler for the Classified Council, and Art Pulaski, secretary treasurer of the California Labor Federation, on the executive board of which Hittelman has served for CFT.
Everyone got off some good lines, but Eisenberg brought down the house with her dry remark that “We in the Burbank office will especially miss his bubbly personality.” Hittelman topped that when, rising after the presentations, he leaned into the microphone and said of the entire testimonial, “That was out of order."
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Convention resolutions |
