Topic: Labor History

Article lecturers librarians
UC-AFT President Mia McIver

Retrospective: Organizing to win in tumultuous times
Reflecting on five years of union gains for UC librarians and lecturers

By Mia McIver, President, University Council-AFT

When I was elected president of University Council-AFT in 2017, I never could have predicted that the next five years would be as tumultuous as they turned out to be. I also could never have foreseen how our union of University of California lecturers and librarians would organize, build power, win contracts, and accomplish gains that far exceeded my hopes and expectations.

Article retiree chapters
Retirees comb the local filesRetiree Chapter President Ann KillebrewLocal President Malaika Finkelstein at a white boardretirees walking on San Francisco Bay

Elders Speak! project preserves union history for future generations
AFT Local 2121 marks 50th anniversary with oral history

By Bill Shields

Janitors organize live onstage, in multiple languages. A domestic worker ponders the meaning of life as she mimes ironing clothes. Dancing hotel workers tell how they won a good contract. These stories emerged from an oral history project called Work Tales produced by the Labor and Community Studies Department at City College of San Francisco. I spent 25 years teaching in this department.

Article
For All Para Todos book cover

Teaching social justice and labor history: A how-to for K-12 educators
Kids' Book Reviews

Reviews by Bill Morgan

It used to be hard to find quality non-fiction, especially history, for kids. It was dumbed-down, or poorly formatted, or biased, or written in dry adultese, or some combination of these. Thankfully, that has changed.

A new generation of high-interest, attractively packaged kids’ books dealing with social justice issues and using leveled vocabulary are now available. This is a group of some of the best recent ones that I have used in my years teaching social studies for social justice.

Article AFT Classified Conference
New York paraprofessionals join together, circa 1970sAFT Archivist Dan GolodnerLorretta Johnson with AFT President Al Shanker. Lorretta Johnson

A brief AFT history of paras, classified employees, and social justice
VIDEOS: How paraprofessionals and support staff became an integral part of AFT

In the early summer of 1919, when the American Federation of Teachers found out that the Boston Men Teachers’ Union were intent on ensuring that the Boston Women Teachers’ Union would never achieve equal pay to them, the AFT sent a stern letter telling the men that is not what unionism is about and to stop their actions. The men left the union and even though the AFT knew losing members was dire in 1920, it was the right thing to do.

Article Local Action CFT 100

State’s oldest AFT local shares 100th Birthday with CFT
United Educators of San Francisco, 1919-2019

Editor’s note:  With uniquely linked histories, the CFT and AFT Local 61 both celebrate their 100th Anniversaries in 2019. What follows is a capsule history of the oldest local union in the California Federation of Teachers. From the search for true union representation in 1919 to the quest for affordable housing for union members 100 years later, the history of AFT Local 61 — the United Educators of San Francisco — is one of proud support for educators, their unions and students.

Article labor art

Movie Review: American Factory
Community as union, union as community

By Bill Morgan

I know, you’ve seen them before: hard-hitting documentaries about workplaces, filled with candid interviews and tough, unstinting footage of workers organizing and management tactics to forestall them. The problem is, the unions usually lose these days, one way or another. We are left with those fleeting moments of courage and solidarity as our only inspiration.

Article labor solidarity

Unions weather the storm and look to build a brighter future
Happy Labor Day 2019

FIRST PERSON | Jim Miller

These last few years have been particularly challenging times for the American labor movement as we’ve faced everything from a host of anti-labor policies coming from Washington to a Supreme Court decision designed to gut public sector unions. The good news is that despite all of that, the union movement has persevered and the number of Americans who support unions and say they would like the opportunity to join one is the highest it has been in decades. 

California Teacher CFT 100

Commemorating 40 years of collective bargaining
The difference one law makes for teachers and classified employees

Editor’s note: California Teacher published this article in 2015, 40 years after K-14 teachers and classified staff won collective bargaining rights in California.

By Elaine Johnson

On May 20, 1976, I cast the first vote for teachers’ collective bargaining in the state of California. TV cameras recorded the event at Redwood High School in Larkspur, and in those pre-DVR times, the family watched it that evening on the 6 o’clock news.

California Teacher CFT 100

Memoir of a Union Lobbyist: 50 Years Looking Back

Editor’s note: This memoir was originally published as “30 Years Looking Back” in August 1999 by the Institute of Industrial Relations in CPER, A Periodical of Employee Relations in the Public Sector. 

By Mary Bergan

I begin with Robert Reich’s admonition that a memoir is not a history. It chronicles events as the writer remembers them. This is a memoir.

California Teacher CFT 100 strikes

What To Do Between Strikes
An essay by Raoul Teilhet

Editor’s note: This essay was presented to CFT Convention on March 9, 2002. Because of Raoul Teilhet’s Parkinson’s disease, it was read by then-Vice President Greg Camacho-Light, a drama teacher from the Gilroy Federation of Teachers and Paraprofessionals. Gov. Gray Davis attended convention that day and officially named it Raoul Teilhet Day. 

California Teacher CFT 100

The birth of a statewide Federation
A piece of our history is revealed for the first time

By Dennis Kelly, United Educators of San Francisco

On May 16, 1918, J.P. Utter wrote to the president of the AFT to remind him that a year earlier Utter had asked about chartering a local. In that year, the Vallejo teachers had organized 57 of 58 teachers and principals, had elected two officers, created a salary committee that delivered a raise, demanded and won 12 monthly paychecks, and had created a temporary organization. Utter enclosed $10 for the charter fee. 

Article CFT 100

California Senate honors CFT’s 100th Anniversary

On May 16, the California Senate presented CFT leaders a resolution in honor of the Federation’s 100th Anniversary. The text of the resolution follows.

Whereas, The CFT was founded in 1919 to provide a labor union alternative for classroom teachers and celebrates its 100th year anniversary on May 31, 2019;and

Whereas, the CFT is a union of professionals affiliated with the more than 1.7 million member American Federation of Teachers, and through it with the AFL-CIO; and