Newsroom
Classified Conference highlights staff as partners in student success
Attendees hear how co-workers educate, mentor kids
For Esmeralda Grubbs, success starts when a Local 1475 member takes a preschool boy or girl by the hand and begins to build a foundation for lifelong learning.
Grubbs works with the Early Childhood Federation, a Los Angeles County local representing preschool workers, from faculty and teaching assistants to custodians and kitchen staff. Challenges can be daunting, especially in low-income communities. In October, a drive-by shooting threatened a Head Start program in a Watts housing project.
Classified rise to the challenge of passing Prop. 30
Threat of more furlough days spurs community outreach and response
Classified employees had a lot to lose if voters rejected Prop. 30 on November 6. Staff swung into action across California, racking up victories in state and local campaigns that will go a long way toward saving public education.
Gilroy paraprofessionals in AFT Local 1921, for example, resisted pressure to take 10 furlough days until the need was clear, even though district teachers represented by CTA and classified employees represented by CSEA had agreed beforehand to give up the days.
How and why Mexico’s City University came to be
Q&A with Manuel Perez Rocha, founding president of the university
Q&A by David Bacon, Labor Journalist
Manuel Perez Rocha was the founding president of the first major university established in Mexico City in decades, the Autonomous University of Mexico City. Mexico doesn’t have the equivalent of two-year community colleges, but the UACM is very close to the ideas on which our community college system is based.
CFT celebrates election victory with Progressive Convening and looks forward
Courage Campaign Chair Rick Jacobs and CFT President Joshua Pechthalt hold up a cake painted with California map frosting before Progressive Convening attendees in Los Angeles celebrated the Prop 30 victory by consuming it.
The meeting included representatives from the Reclaiming California’s Future coalition and dozens of other organizations. The group analyzed the election results and began to plan for the next steps in making California a better place to live.
CFT members lead in passing Prop 30, defeating Prop. 32
Working with coalition partners, the union helps reach millions of Californians
Voters in California sent a powerful message on Election Day, passing Proposition 30 which raised income taxes on top earners to support public education — the first major tax increase since passage of the revenue-cutting Proposition 13 almost 35 years ago.
Nearly nine in ten CFT members, 87 percent, voted for Prop. 30, the merger of CFT’s Millionaires Tax and Gov. Brown’s original initiative, according to a post-election poll commissioned by the California Labor Federation.
Who’s spying on you? Protecting your privacy in the age of servers and social media – 6 Maxims for your digital work life
Protecting your privacy in the age of servers and social
media
By Robert J. Bezemek And David Conway
Almost everyone uses social media. Whether it’s emailing, surfing the web, sending text messages, tweeting or tumblr, we are treating social media as an extension of our personal conversations with family, friends and co-workers. And we do it from every imaginable location — public transit, automobiles, restaurants, parks, sidewalks, the office, and throughout the campuses where we work.
The Fight for California’s Future
Our campaign for better education funding and fair taxation
With the passage of Proposition 30 in the November 2012 election, California is finally looking at improved prospects. Prop 30 begins the process of reversing the massive redistribution of wealth upwards that has taken place over the past thirty years. By imposing a 1–3% increase on the wealthiest Californians’ income taxes, and a modest sales tax increase of one-quarter of 1%, the state budget will gain some relief and programs in education and social services will not face further savage cuts.
Yes on Prop. 30: Tax the wealthy to raise money for schools and colleges
In the last four years, our schools and colleges have been hit with $20 billion in cuts, have lost 30,000 faculty members, and now have class sizes that are among the largest in the country.
Legislature fails to pass meaningful teacher evaluation bill
Opponents don’t care about validity of test scores, only scapegoating teachers
How could a bill that would have improved the teacher evaluation process die in the California Legislature? Assembly Bill 5, “A Best Practices Teacher Evaluation System,” fell victim to faulty assumptions and reasoning that defies logic. And our schools are poorer for it.
Governor Brown signs bill to improve reporting for adjuncts
The governor signed CFT-sponsored SB 114. Authored by Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco), this bill helps correct misreporting of part-time faculty work to ensure the right amount of retirement service credit.
Tonkovich teaches and organizes with humor, joy and irony
UC Irvine lecturer and author credits mentors, and Ronald Reagan, for his activism
Q&A with Andrew Tonkovich
Andrew Tonkovich is a lecturer in the English department at UC Irvine and president of UC-AFT Irvine, Local 2226. He edits the literary magazine Santa Monica Review, and hosts Bibliocracy Radio, a weekly books show on KPFK 90.7 FM in Southern California. Recent short stories, essays and reviews of his have appeared in Faultline, The Rattling Wall, OC Weekly and the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Chicago strike models winning political strategy for California election victory
By Joshua Pechthalt, CFT President
The Chicago Teachers Union strike gave a shot in the arm to education unions and all of labor. CTU reawoke a labor movement lacking confidence that it could take a militant stand and win.