News

With SNAP in limbo, public employees stitch together the safety net

Scarlett Ahmed has started counting the number of people sleeping outside the Queens Career Center in New York City when she arrives at work in the morning.

“It was already bad,” she said. “But this? This will just add to it.”

Ahmed, a career center supervisor and an executive board member of New York’s Public Employees Federation, is referring to the devastating disruption in benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. The break in benefits—resulting from the longest federal government shutdown on record—has a seismic impact, reaching even programs and departments

Randi Weingarten at a Massachusetts high school

Summer is upon us, and parents, children and teachers are winding down from what has been an exhausting and fully operational school year—the first since the devastating pandemic. The long-lasting impact of COVID-19 has affected our students’ and families’ well-being and ignited the politics surrounding public schools. All signs point to the coming school year unfolding with the same sound and fury, and if extremist culture warriors have their way, being even more divisive and stressful.

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-Wisconsin Spring 2022 Endorsements

AFT-Wisconsin COPE has endorsed the following candidates for the spring 2022 election happening on April 5, 2022. Now is the time to get involved. Let us know how you'd like to get more involved!

Ban on Guns in the Workplace

March 15, 2022. Here is the link to a petition for Gun Free State Work Sites:
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/gun-free-wisconsin-state-worksites?

Wisconsin Coalition of Annuitants (WCOA)

Feb 23, 2022. The WISCONSIN COALITION of ANNUITANTS consists of statewide and regional organizations representing retirees in the Wisconsin Retirement System, and may include active as well as retired participants in the system.

The WCOA Annual Meeting will be two Thursday mornings, May 5 and May 19. Two speakers each morning. ETF and SWIB will be separate mornings.

The Coalition recently reported on a three-year study of the WRS recently completed by ETF. The study can be found here.

Wisconsin Coalition of Annuitants 2021 Summary

January 3, 2022. Below is a summary from WCOA about what they did during 2021. Bob Beglinger and Kathy Kreul are AFTW's reps to WCOA. For more information about WCOA, go to https://www.wicoa.org/index.php

Summary

Rising Worker Activism

Join the Wisconsin AFL-CIO and WisPolitics.com on Tuesday, December 14, at the Madison Club for a luncheon panel discussion on "Rising Worker Activism and What it Means for the Wisconsin Economy."

More Information

Wisconsin Labor History 40th Annual Conference

Saturday Nov. 6, 2021, 9:00 am

American Postal Workers Union Hall, 417 N 3rd St., Milwaukee.

FLYER

2018 Classified Workforce Report

September 21, 2021: DOA recentlly released the 2018 Classified Workforce and Affirmative Action Report. To see the report click here.

One trend cited by the DOA Secretary in her cover letter was that the rate of employees separating from state service for any reason other than retirement increased consisently over the last five years ...