News

WCOA Annual Meeting

xxxxx

The AFT’s long-time advocacy for public schools has just been turbo-charged, with a sweeping, multi-pronged campaign to fund the future of American public education. Amid the continuing wave of teacher activism shining a spotlight on massive shortfalls in education investment, the Fund Our Future initiative aims to take the teachers’ megaphone into Congress, statehouses and communities nationwide.

A. Philip Randolph: For Jobs and Freedom

Join us on Saturday, March 9 for a showing of the film, "A. Philip Randolph: For Jobs and Freedom" at the Fitchburg Library. For more details, see the flyer.

Flyer

Never again

“A majority of American teens say they are worried about a shooting happening at their school. Let that sink in,” AFT President Randi Weingarten writes in her latest column for the New York Times. “Young people are demanding meaningful action beyond ‘thoughts and prayers.’ They know, as do law enforcement officers and educators, that there are effective ways to address gun violence.” Read more about the proven strategies that would enhance school safety and reduce gun violence.

We can fight back against the private prison operators that fuel mass incarceration

It’s time to divest from private prisons: The US incarcerates more prisoners than any other nation in the world - and private prisons profit. Our new report details how AFT members can encourage their pension funds to divest from private prison corporations.

The Department of Administration released its statutorily-required report on contract services in December 2018. You can read the report here. Or, to see a one-page summary, you can look at the chart we created using DOA's data here.

There's another interesting report that DOA released recently. It's called the State of Wisconsin Classified Workforce & Affirmative Action Report for Fiscal Years 2015 and 2016 which can be found here. It includes a chart showing separations from state service during the years fiscal year 2004 to fiscal year 2016. You can see a scan of that chart here.

A couple of interesting things start to happen around 2011. The money spent on contract employees increases greatly while the number of state employees separting from state service also increases a lot.

AFT members feel like political pawns in Trump shutdown

Many government employees already live paycheck to paycheck, without their government salary, it’s getting hard to feed their families.

This shutdown has plunged thousands of Americans, including many AFT members, into economic uncertainty and put critical services at risk. It’s time to end this pain being inflicted on American families.