Newsroom
Los Angeles County closes Kedren Head Start
After months of mobilizing staff, parents and community allies from Watts and Koreatown to East Los Angeles, Early Childhood Federation President Ruben Siguenza recently sent supporters some bad news. “I regret to inform you that our fight is over,” Siguenza wrote in an April 18 email. “We have lost Kedren Head Start.”
San Francisco security aides fight for return of hour
Four years ago, school security aides in San Francisco gave up an hour from their eight-hour day when their supervisor told a roomful of the workers it would save the jobs of two young women. The hours were to be restored in two years.
Along with the hour-a-day layoff, the safety workers — known as “T-10s” for their job designation — also endured five furlough days per year.
Your local union values your work all year long
By Paula A. Phillips, President, Council of Classified Employees
Every May, districts from San Diego to Susanville take time to recognize the contributions of their staffs. Classified School Employees Week is the third week of the month and pays tribute to staff members who play key roles in creating environments that promote student achievement, safety and health.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson described classified employees as “hard-working and devoted school employees who exemplify what commitment to school and student really is,” and as workers “who make the extra effort to support their students, schools and communities.” Torlakson is right. Annual recognitions are wonderful.
Legislation would bring reporting of pesticide use
Staff to receive training, schools to develop pest management plans
Legislators are debating measures to ensure that pesticides at California schools don’t become a bigger concern than the pests they are meant to exterminate.
Under Senate Bill 1405, schools that use pesticides must designate someone to maintain a complete record of all pesticide use at the site, and submit it to the Department of Pesticide Regulation at the end of each calendar year. Current law requires only professional exterminators to report their use.
Small AFT locals get big attention from new task force
By the Numbers | AFT local unions
3,370 Number of locals chartered by the AFT
3,019: Locals with fewer than 600 members
(90 percent)
1,819: Locals with fewer than 100 members
(54 percent)
One in four of AFT’s 1.56 million members belong to a small local, and 90 percent of AFT local unions are considered small, defined as having fewer than 600 members.
While belonging to a small local can foster a sense of teamwork, small locals often come up short of the resources, training and volunteers to effectively represent members, according to a new AFT task force.
Staff seek fair unemployment compensation
Bill to bring equity stalled in Legislature
Linnette Robinson has worked with special needs students at Berkeley High School for four years, after two years in the district’s elementary and junior high schools.
Yet every winter and summer, Robinson and tens of thousands of other classified employees across California scrape by during involuntary “vacations” the best they can. Because while other workers receive unemployment benefits during seasonal breaks, school staff do not.
CFT President to Reps. Pelosi, Speier, and Eschoo
"Thank you for critique of ACCJC"
Editor’s note: The following is a letter written to Congressional Representatives Nancy Pelosi, Jackie Speier and Anna Eshoo
Accrediting commission sticks foot in mouth, then jams it in farther
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is furious with the ACCJC
May 29, 2014—In recent weeks the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior College (ACCJC) leadership has claimed in a number of public settings that City College of San Francisco can withdraw its own accreditation and reapply for “candidacy status” and keep its federal and state funding, including student financial aid. It has also claimed repeatedly that it has no authority to give the college more time to address accreditation issues, and the commission’s July 2014 closure order for the college will stand.
Neither claim is true.
Raoul Teilhet: Delegates celebrate life of courageous former president
Raoul Teilhet, president of the CFT from 1968 to 1985, who oversaw the successful struggle for a collective bargaining law for education employees, was “a rock star,” said AFT Vice President and United Educators of San Francisco President Dennis Kelly. CFT President Emeritus Miles Myers read a poem and thanked Teilhet for the good times. Long-time CFT staffer Annette Eisenberg told of Teilhet leaving a registration form on her desk after finding out she had never voted, and how he made everyone feel they mattered.
State of the Union highlights: CFT succeeds with a vision of social justice
By Joshua Pechthalt, CFT President
The super wealthy and their swollen circle of reactionary think tanks and echo chamber conservative media are committed to eradicating what remains of the labor movement and giving corporations unlimited power over every aspect of American life. Public education stands as an obstacle to such a corporate world committed to keeping wealth and education in the hands of a few.
Local Wire, April-May 2014
LOCAL 1078
Raise the wage…Educators are joining the fight to raise
poverty-level wages. The Berkeley Federation of
Teachers is a leading participant in the campaign
to raise the minimum wage in Berkeley and securing a better
economic future for the city’s families.
Los Angeles mayor allies with CFT and educators
In some cities, the education unions and the mayor engage in battle. But that’s not the case in Los Angeles where Eric Garcetti was elected mayor in May 2013 with early support from the CFT. He welcomed Convention delegates Friday morning by saying he always keeps his education background in mind.