American Federation of Teachers

Campaigns

• Tell DeVos: Arm Schools with Resources, Not Guns

  I pray that there will never be another school shooting like the one we lived through in Parkland, Fla. Even just earlier this year, it never occurred to me that we’d be in a situation where we might have a secretary of education consider diverting resources that are used to support poor kids in order to flood schools with more guns. However, that’s exactly what we’re up against right now, since the news broke that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is considering a plan that would allow states to use federal funds to purchase guns for teachers. As the New York Times reported, such a move would reverse a long-standing position taken by the federal government that it should not pay to outfit schools with weapons. And it would also undermine efforts by Congress to restrict the use of federal funding for guns. As recently as March, Congress passed a school safety bill that allocated $50 million a year to local school districts but expressly prohibited the use of the money for firearms. The $1 billion student support program, part of the Every Student Succeeds Act, is intended for academic and enrichment opportunities in the country’s poorest schools, and it calls for school districts to use the money toward meeting three goals: providing a well-rounded education, improving school conditions for learning, and improving the use of technology for digital literacy. Instead of after-school programs or counselors, which are critical for creating safe and welcoming schools and addressing the mental health needs of kids, DeVos wants to turn schools into armed fortresses and make kids and educators less safe. Educators, students and parents have made clear that they don’t want more guns in schools; teachers want to teach and students want to learn. Rather than disregard the demands and needs of the people who know what our schools require, the Department of Education should use Title IV funding to: ● Provide a well-rounded education (examples include expanding AP courses and access to such courses, arts education, civics education, more college and career counseling, environmental education, expanding foreign language options, STEM, and social-emotional learning); ● Ensure safe and healthy students (including asthma management, bullying prevention, drug and violence prevention, indoor air quality, safe schools, mental health, and suicide prevention); and ● Provide effective use of technology. Arming teachers is a bad idea. We know that states with the strongest gun laws see less gun violence. And we know that educators, students and parents want a safe, welcoming place for students to learn, with adequate resources to make this a reality. Stand with the education community now. Send a message to Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos that this plan is reckless, dangerous, and will have long-lasting effects on our students and our schools.

  79,948 of 100,000 Signatures

  Created by Anna Fusco, Broward Teachers Union president
• Tell Detroit Public Schools: Our Kids Deserve Better

  For too long, Detroit students and educators have been learning and teaching in deplorable conditions. From serious health and safety hazards such as mold, asbestos and mice infestations, to classrooms with no heat, these unacceptable conditions have been ignored. The floor of the gym at one school has buckled from water damage and is covered in black mold. In at least one school, classrooms even have bullet holes in the walls. Teachers and support staff are expected to teach in overcrowded classrooms without textbooks or support. Students with health issues are suffering due to the lack of school nurses. Educators in Detroit’s public schools come to school every day despite these disgusting conditions and do the best we can to give our students a great education. Enough is enough. Students, parents, educators and the Detroit community are demanding real answers from Gov. Rick Snyder and Emergency Manager Darnell Earley. It’s time to fully fund Detroit’s public schools. Our students deserve nothing less.

  31,825 of 35,000 Signatures

  Created by Detroit Federation of Teachers
• Tell the White House: Revoke Gateway Pundit's Press Credentials

  In the aftermath of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Broward Country, Florida., students who survived the attack have bravely stood up to demand action for safe schools and safe communities. But now, right-wing blogs are pushing wild conspiracy theories about the students who survived, claiming they are plants, are actors, or are being manipulated by politicians. I know these students. I have worked with these students. These courageous young people survived a horror beyond what any person should have to face, and now they stand with moral courage and strength to call us all to action. It is outrageous enough that outlets like the Gateway Pundit are spreading these lies and driving attacks on these students. But it is even more outrageous that an outlet that peddles lies and conspiracy theories holds a White House press credential and the authority that carries. By giving the Gateway Pundit press credentials, the White House is validating the site and these attacks. President Trump and this administration must make it clear that these attacks are unacceptable by pulling the Gateway Pundit’s credentials and permanently banning the site and its publishers from the White House. These students deserve our praise and our support. Their advocacy in the face of horror and violence is what makes America great. Instead, the Gateway Pundit is driving vicious personal attacks by peddling conspiracy theories. The White House must show that there are consequences for this kind of behavior. Jim Gard has been a math teacher for 36 years. During the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, he shielded his students in his classroom.

  76,616 of 100,000 Signatures

  Created by Jim Gard, Stoneman Math Teacher
• Center for Individual Rights: Stop Attacking Working People

  The Koch brothers are once again attacking our freedom to join together in unions to improve the lives of all working people, and we want them to stop! In my over 20 years of teaching, I’ve seen America’s economy swing out of balance in favor of corporate CEOs and wealthy special interests who manipulate the rules to benefit themselves at the expense of the rest of us. It’s already way too hard for many Americans to get by, let alone get ahead. Now there’s a new case before the U.S. Supreme Court that threatens to make things even worse. A group called the Center for Individual Rights, which the American Prospect recently revealed has been funded by the Koch Brothers, other right-wing one-percenters, and even white supremacists, is trying to make it even harder for public service workers – teachers like me, as well as nurses, social workers, firefighters and others -- to band together at work in order fight for benefits and wages we can use to provide for our families This Koch Brothers-backed group is asking the Supreme Court to impose the same kind of radical agenda we’ve seen hurt everyday people in states like Wisconsin and every state in the country. Worse yet, just like in Citizens United, this all-out attack on everyday Americans would be enshrined in the Constitution. When I began teaching at a California community college in 1992, it never even crossed my mind not to join a union, and it’s a decision I’ve never regretted. We’ve all seen the research showing that strong unions benefit the middle class. Being a union member has allowed me to speak in one voice with my fellow teachers for things that matter and benefit the community – better training, smaller classes, and wages and benefits that can sustain families. But if the groups behind this case get their way, it will be another major blow to the middle class. Tell the Center for Individual Rights: Enough is enough! It’s time to stop attacking working people -- the teachers like me and other public service workers who work to make our communities better. Sign this petition and join us as we tell the Center for Individual Rights that we will not let corporate CEOs and the wealthy special interests stop us from banding together and forming unions to make our lives better. Lacy Barnes, College Instructor, California Federation of Teachers, Local 1533

  40,997 of 45,000 Signatures

  Created by Lacy Barnes
• Healthcare Workers Need Protective Equipment Now

  I’m a nurse in Alaska. Nurses and other healthcare professionals are on the frontlines of fighting the COVID-19 outbreak and caring for our patients, but we're running out of personal protective equipment (PPE) in states across the nation. We don’t have the right kind of N95 respirator masks to keep us and you safe. We don’t have enough ventilators to keep the very sickest patients alive. We don’t have the ear or the attention of the president, who make promises and then walks away does nothing. This is scary. Our job is to treat and care for people, and we will not leave our patients behind. If we run out of equipment, healthcare providers and the patients we care for will die. Let's be clear: If we get sick and if people die, it’s because policies that go all the way to the top have failed us. We should have been producing the needed respirators, masks and ventilators long before this. The administration should have taken the outbreak seriously when it started three months ago. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention keeps lowering the guidelines for healthcare workers to be safe; the CDC just said that we can use bandanas as masks. The CDC is putting my life and the lives of other nurses at risk by telling us to use scarves rather than producing enough masks that will keep us safe. And it’s not just respirators, masks and ventilators we’re running low on. Hospitals are reporting shortages of gowns, gloves and other PPE that we need to keep ourselves safe as we care for the sick. Trump has said he’ll use the Defense Production Act to make masks and tests, after weeks of us pressuring him, but he has not said he’ll use it to ensure there are enough ventilators to keep patients from dying. And he’s still not releasing the stockpile of PPE that he has, which could fill the gap until enough n95 masks are made. Here's what we need right now: • The administration must make the production of N95 respirators and other PPE a top priority. • The President must use the Defense Production Act to make ventilators for patients. • The federal government has a stockpile of personal protective equipment, but has released less than 10 percent of the stockpile: We’re still running low. The federal government must release more of it immediately to keep us safe. • All healthcare workers should have immediate, free access to being tested to ensure that we are safe and not endangering non-infected patients. • The federal government needs to stop watering down guidelines that keep us safe. The minimum standard should be N95 respirators. Telling us to use bandanas puts our lives at risk. Will you please help us by telling the administration that we need this now.

  164,732 of 200,000 Signatures

  Created by David Walrod
• Fox and Facebook: Ask the GOP Candidates Why They Advocate for Profits, not Students

  Fox News and Facebook, in preparation for the Republican presidential debate they are holding Aug. 6, are taking questions for the moderators to ask the candidates. Sign the petition below if you want Fox and Facebook to ask the candidates to discuss their support of for-profit colleges, which leave too many students out in the cold with useless degrees and unsustainable debt, and raise nearly all of their revenue—and make most of their profits—through taxpayer-financed federal student aid.

  13,485 of 15,000 Signatures

  Created by Gerardo Sandoval
• Tell Northside: Stop Attacking Your Nurses

  I am a nurse at Northside Medical Center. As a nurse, I care deeply for my profession and for my patients. I take pride in the care I give patients and am proud of the reputation Northside has because of the work I do as a nurse. We’ve been working without a contract for 15 months. Northside and Community Health Systems, the for-profit corporate owner of the hospital, have proposed terms that could undermine my ability as a nurse to speak out in the future about issues including safety and patient care. And I’m very concerned that CHS proposals could lead to rationing of nursing care at the hospital. Nurses deserve a fair contract, fair pay and the right to advocate for the safety of patients and their caregivers. We went on a one-day strike yesterday because negotiations were not moving along and we needed to bring attention to our concerns. But today, when we returned, we were locked out. They have paid strikebreaking nurses taking our place in the hospital. We provide our patients with award-winning, quality care: How can out-of-town nurses match our record? Northside management is keeping me and my colleagues out while letting in nurses who have 24hrs of experience at Northside: who would you rather have caring for you and your family? If we have enough people speak up and sign this petition, Northisde will have to listen. Nurses deserve a fair contract, fair pay and the right to advocate for the safety of patients and their caregivers.

  819 of 1,000 Signatures

  Created by Candace Root
• Let Temple adjuncts have a vote!

  Dear Provost Dai: I am a graduating senior majoring in African American Studies, and I support the right of my professors—including adjunct faculty—to vote to form a union. I urge you to allow the approximately 1,300 adjunct faculty at Temple University to proceed with a fair and timely election by dropping the legal challenges Temple has brought before the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board. Temple’s adjunct faculty should be able to exercise their right to make a choice about unionization. I urge you to let them vote. Every student who has attended Temple has been taught by at least one adjunct faculty member. After all, adjuncts make up half of the faculty at Temple. They are a valuable part of our university community. Their commitment to our education is compensated with low pay, few benefits and no assurances that they will be able to teach future classes beyond the current semester. This is unfair not only to faculty but to students as well. For example, a professor I make a connection with one semester may not be around the next semester, in spite of excellent teaching and student support. I believe that adjunct faculty, like all workers, deserve to be treated with dignity and respect by the Temple administration, and I strongly support their organizing to form a collective bargaining unit with the union they have chosen, the Temple Association of University Professionals. I call on you to allow Temple’s adjunct faculty to hold a fair and transparent election, and I demand that you not use any tuition funds or other resources to hinder their efforts. Sincerely, Sarah Giskin, African American Studies Temple University

  3,012 of 4,000 Signatures

  Created by Sarah Giskin
• Support Teachers at Perelman Jewish Day School

  Perelman Jewish Day School teachers have been unionized for nearly four decades. Suddenly in March the schools board of directors withdrew recognition of the teachers’ union. Neither parents nor teachers had a voice in this decisions. The board met in secret for nearly a year, while refusing to sit down with the teachers’ negotiating team. Conservative Judaism is clear on workers' rights and employee unions. In a 2008 Teshuva, the Rabbinic Assembly ruled that Jewish employers are required to treat employees with respect and dignity, not interfere with union organizing and should hire union employees whenever possible. A school that teaches Jewish values should demonstrate Jewish values as well. The school should immediately reverse course and work with the teachers, rather than attacking them.

  1,153 of 2,000 Signatures

  Created by Jesse Bacon, Parent
• Don't hand over our neighborhood school to an unaccountable, union-busting charter company

  Although Luis Muñoz Marín Elementary School has been stripped of staff and resources during Philadelphia’s ongoing budget crisis, this year there was good news: The school is making a comeback under the guidance of a new, much-loved principal. But now the school district has targeted Muñoz Marín for a charter school takeover by ASPIRA of PA—and local parents are crying foul. ASPIRA of PA, a charter organization, is currently under scrutiny for suspicious financial practices and misuse of funds that never made it to the classroom. ASPIRA of PA is also engaged in an ugly anti-union fight at another Philly school, pitting its expensive lawyers against its own teachers who are seeking a voice and a union. The National Labor Relations Board has filed numerous unfair labor practice charges against the charter operator; in every case, ASPIRA of PA has been forced to concede, settle and correct its practices. Sadly, ASPIRA of PA has a powerful advocate in Councilwoman Quiñones-Sánchez, who was once its executive director. She pledged to support unions and workers’ right to organize, but was quick to endorse ASPIRA of PA, a union-busting organization, in its takeover attempt of our public school. We, the parents of Muñoz Marín students, do not want our children’s destiny in the hands of ASPIRA of PA—with its financial problems and anti-union values. We call on Councilwoman Quiñones-Sánchez to stay true to her constituents, to request a City Council investigation into the troubling allegations around ASPIRA of PA, and to protect our children from the School Reform Commission’s apparent strategy of abandoning our public school system. Rather than declaring our school a failure, we ask Councilwoman Quiñones-Sánchez to advocate for our school’s funding, staff and resources to be restored. That loss of resources is the real plague at Muñoz Marín. Our school deserves a fair chance.

  833 of 1,000 Signatures

  Created by Maria Cruz, School Advisory Council, Luis Muñoz Marín ES