Two of the most aggressive Clinton advocates today on the rules committee work for the American Federation of Teachers. One, Liz Smith, is the political director of AFT, while the other lady (sat next to Harold Ickes) is an assitant to the AFT President. Both of them were fervent on Saturday in their declaration for democratic votes. If that's the case, why didn't they let their own members vote to endorse a candidate?

As a leader of one the largest and most politically active locals in all of AFT, and as a pledged delegate for Barack Obama, I can tell you, they don't represent our membership on this committee.

Hillary’s backers reportedly are planning to fund a Swift Boat-style 527 assault on the favorite for the Democratic nomination, Barack Obama. If we act now in a concerted way, perhaps we can head off Hillary’s Swift Boats before they slime the "change" candidate and tear down his winning coalition. I don’t think Hillary can win this anymore, but she could damage Obama’s chances in the general and hurt a wide mandate for progressive action.

Three groups conducting independent expenditure campaigns in behalf of Clinton - Emily's List, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) - have explored the possibility of trying to put together a multi-million dollar effort privately dubbed the Anybody-But-Obama 527 Committee...

I am going to write or call the leadership of these organizations and tell them them not to Swift Boat Democratic candidates for president. I thought I’d share my letter.

Flip it...

Who's afraid of Barack Obama? Well it seems as if the high priests of the progressive blogosphere are all in a huff about Senator Obama's counterattacks on his many critics in the democratic establishment. Could it be that Markos, Jerome, Atrios, Digby, et al, feel threatened. I love them all - I read them daily - but they seem to be the new Broders of the left. They are shocked that any candidate would not bow down to the power brokers within the party, such as union leaders, trial lawyers, and of course the leaders of the netroots.

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) has endorsed Hillary Clinton for president:

Acting on behalf of its more than 1.4 million members, the AFT executive council on Wednesday endorsed Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination for president, citing her proven ability to advance our nation's key priorities, and her bold plans for a stronger America.

"Our members have told us that they want a leader they can trust to strengthen public education, increase access to health care, promote commonsense economic priorities and secure America's place in the world," said AFT president Edward J. McElroy. "Hillary Clinton is that leader."

Chris Bowers at Open Left calls it, "the biggest endorsement of the campaign for me so far."

I know AFT people, both the teachers and the organizers. They are friends, family and colleagues. They are smart, extremely hard working, and also very progressive. I trust the decisions they make. If they decide to endorse Hillary Clinton, that means a lot to me . . . The AFT endorsement of Hillary Clinton improves my image of Hillary Clinton.

  (This is the fourth installment of an occasional update on where the labor movement is ending up in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination)

  At this point, this is really not a surprise: the Service Employees International Union has chosen not to endorse, at the national level, any one candidate, freeing up its individual locals to support the candidates of their choice.

Yesterday the American Federation of Teachers, with over 1.4 million members endorsed Hillary Clinton for President.  Thus it seems an appropriate time to examine what Hillary has to offer about education on her website.  When one goes to her issues page, there is no specific link to education, but if one goes to the link entitled SUPPORTING PARENTS AND CARING FOR CHILDREN one finds a number of items pertaining to education.  In addition, one find a number o educational items on the various INITIATIVES AND FACT SHEETS which are available as links under the list of HILLARY ON THE ISSUES.

Acting on behalf of its more than 1.4 million members, the executive council of the American Federation of Teachers today endorsed Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination for president, citing her proven ability to advance our nation’s key priorities, and her bold plans for a stronger America.

This now swells the ranks of members of unions endorsing Hillary to 2,747,000 of our nation's finest workers; pushing her clearly way out front in terms of total number of endorsing unions and total number of union members.

Here is the list of union support:

UNIONS
American Federation of Teachers (1,400,000)
International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers (100,000)
Public Employees Federation (57,000)
National Association of Letter Carriers (300,000)
Transportation Communications Union (65,000)
International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (700,000)
United Transport Union (125,000)
International Union of Operating Engineers Local 324 (Michigan)
United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1500 (New York)
Dolores Huerta (United Farm Workers Leader)

In 1973, I was in a movie theater near Philadelphia watching the new Woody Allen film "Sleeper." A man name Miles Monroe awakens after 200 years to a world that has been devastated by nuclear war. When Allen’s character inquires what caused the war he is informed that is was caused "when a man named Albert Shanker got hold of a nuclear device." As someone who lived in New York during the period of major school conflict, I was laughing so hard I came out of my seat as others, not as familiar with Shanker, stared at me. And for far too many, that line from Woody Allen encapsulates their knowledge of and reaction to Albert Shanker, which is perhaps why Richard Kahlenberg begins his remarkable biography of Shanker by reminding the reader of how that clip represents the attitude of many New York liberals toward Shanker: that he was "a hothead and union thug" (p.1) for his part in the New York City school strikes of 1967 and 1968.

That is the opening paragraph of a review I did of a new biography of Al Shanker, longtime leader of the American Federation of Teachers. In this posting I will explore the book and the man about which it is written.

crossposted from unbossed

Forget those stereotypes of professors. If your professor seems absent-minded, maybe it's because she is trying to keep straight which of the four or more courses she is teaching at which campus it is today . . . while figuring out how to keep the wolf from the door with the woeful wages she gets paid . . . while trying to damp down her rage at the way she is treated . . .  because she is a freeway flyer. In fact, it is far more likely these days that your professor is an adjunct, non-tenure track, contract, disposable, ill-treated  teacher than not.

Staff in these schools struggle to educate students in conditions that few corporations, much less building inspectors, would tolerate.  Mold, leaking ceilings, extreme temperatures, raw sewage seeping into hallways, mice droppings, severely overcrowded classrooms - these unhealthy and/or unsafe conditions plague tens of thousand of old and new school buildings where millions of Americans age 5 and older must study and work.  For the most part, officials have been unwilling to adequately confront this serious situation, which is affecting teaching and learning.

That is the second paragraph of an important new report.   Please keep reading so that you will understand.  You WILL be moved to take action.

The union rights of employees in higher education have been under assault for much longer. Back in 1980, the Supreme Court denied the right to organize to most college professors, ruling that if they sat on advisory and recommendatory committees, and had a say in recruitment, policies and curriculum, then they were de facto management. The decision put an abrupt halt to a modest wave of faculty organizing in the crazy, radical 70's.

I have a response to a question from the Chalkboard's Joe Williams: "What do you make of job actions aimed at kids who desperately need every ounce of education we can give them?"  Joe, it is dishonest to frame a labor-management dispute as a conflict between service providers and the recipients of those services. That's management's way of using the people receiving the services as hostages.  Of course, you do blog for a management organization.

In Englewood, New Jersey, AFT represents nurses who are on strike.  The hospital is seeking large pension givebacks.  The union has offered a compromise that includes a diminishment of retirement benefits for its members.  Management refused the compromise and the nurses went out.  Management brought in strikebreaking nurses from a temporary staffing agency.

This is a post from the Edwize, the blog of the United Federation of Teachers in New York City. (AFT Local 2, AFL-CIO). The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) also has a rundown on their blog on union busting efforts from forces inside the charter school movement.

Do charter schools need unions?

Ask Nichole Byrne Lau. Ask her former students.

A second career teacher with a M.A. from Teachers' College, Nichole taught English for the last two years at the Williamsburg Charter High School in Brooklyn. She received laudatory evaluations and recommendations from the principal, from the school's director of instruction and from the school's director of special needs and academic support. They commended her "hard work and dedication," and described her as "a passionate, high energy teacher" and "a dedicated and caring teacher." They praised her work with "special needs students to help them make great gains in their reading and writing ability."

Unfortunately, link is password protected, so here is text below fold.

Apologies for simply linking to announcement, but this one is big and not yet picked up by MSM.

This is a crosspost from AFL-CIO Now.

The extremist Republican congressional subterfuge machine is at it again. (Does it ever stop?)

Here's the latest. Congressional Republicans are tooting their horns about voting for a $100-per-student increase in the amount available for Pell Grants, the federal financial aid program for students with family incomes up to $45,000.

Raising the individual grant sounds good―and it is good. But what the Republican-led Congress is not announcing is that the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies recently voted to cut overall funds for Pell for fiscal year 2007. That means fewer students will get financial aid or more people will get less money, as a smaller pool of money is spread over a larger pool of applicants.