AFT Pennsylvania's Executive Council has voted to endorse the following candidates in the 2022 General Election:
To find which legislative (General Assembly) district you live in, visit: https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/findyourlegislator/
To find which Congressional district you live in, visit: https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative
U.S. Senate
In AFT President Randi Weingarten’s latest New York Times column, she describes what it is exactly that unions do. Though unions are the most popular they have been in decades, anti-union sentiment still thrives in red states and across the nation. “Several years ago, The Atlantic ran a story whose headline made even me, a labor leader, scratch my head: ‘Union Membership: Very Sexy,’” Weingarten writes in the column. “The gist was that higher wages, health benefits and job security—all associated with union membership—boost one’s chances of getting married. Belonging to a union doesn’t actually guarantee happily ever after, but it does help working people have a better life in the here and now.” Click through to read the full column.
AFT Pennsylvania
President Arthur Steinberg
Nearly 250 years since our country’s founding, some Americans are still attempting to restrict others’ basic freedoms. In Florida and elsewhere, censoring books is part of larger efforts to exert greater control over and undermine education.
In the leadup to the midterm elections, pundits predicted a red wave, even a tsunami, based on polls, historical precedent, and steep gas and grocery prices. But I had my doubts. I spent the weeks before the elections talking to voters and traveling on the AFT Votes bus, rolling through a dozen states with more than 50 stops. In a year when kitchen table issues, democracy and our freedoms were on the ballot, many people told me that the elections came down to a choice between, on the one side, election deniers and extremists stoking fear, and on the other, problem-solvers working to help the country move forward. Many races were close, but Americans turned the tide from a red wave to a swell of support for progress and problem-solvers. Read the full column here.
As the landscape of student debt shifts, and more and more opportunities allow borrowers to have their debt relieved, the AFT is using every avenue to ensure that the word is out. In affiliate meetings, telephone town halls, media coverage and social media, the union is spreading the news, and at a student debt clinic at AFT headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 31, AFT President Randi Weingarten vowed to reach as many people as possible with information that could save them tens—and sometimes hundreds—of thousands of dollars.
On Tuesday, along with the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers and March for Our Lives, we held a vigil in front of Senator Pat Toomey's office to demand commonsense action on gun safety policies.
“It was like waking up and learning you won the lottery.” That’s just one of the comments flooding the AFT offices from members who are elated to be free of student debt at last. After relentless advocacy, including an AFT lawsuit against former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program that was so broken is finally doing what it is supposed to do: delivering relief from student debt for thousands of borrowers. So far, $6.2 billion in student debt has been forgiven for 100,000 public service workers like teachers, nurses and professors.
Plymouth Meeting, PA, January 7, 2022—On behalf of 36,000 educators, paraprofessionals, and school staff across Pennsylvania, AFT Pennsylvania President Arthur G. Steinberg issued a statement on Friday imploring the Pennsylvania Department of Education to mandate enhanced COVID-19 mitigation or pause in-person learning until the current surge subsides.
Testimony to the PA House Democratic Policy Committee Hearing on Toxic Schools
Thursday, April 8, 2021 | Virtual
Thank you, Chairman Bizzarro, Vice Chairperson Fiedler, and distinguished members of this committee for allowing me to testify today.