The Texas Federation of Teachers represents all non-administrative certified and classified public school employees in traditional public schools and some charter schools. We represent the interests of teachers, counselors, librarians, diagnosticians, custodians, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, nurses, teaching assistants, clerical employees, and the other men and women who work so hard to make our schools work. We also represent employees in universities, colleges and community and junior colleges.
As soon as you join the Texas Federation of Teachers there are four member benefits that start immediately at no cost to you. If you have questions about these or any other benefits please contact Barbara Lightheart, TFT Benefits Director, 1-800-222-3827 or belightheart@tft.org
Each TFT member is insured with an $8,000,000 Occupational Liability Insurance policy. This is your professional educational worker insurance, to protect members against lawsuits filed by a student or a students' parents, when the member is acting within the scope of their duties as a district employee. This includes $35,000 Legal Action Trust to protect against criminal incidents. It also includes civil rights violation claims.
Every member is insured with a Legal Defense Fund to protect against any employment related claim issue. This policy is funded as a joint venture between your chartered local, TFT and AFT.
All TFT members receive a $25,000 Accidental Death and Dismemberment coverage through a policy held by the AFT. This policy covers common carrier accidents. Each member should fill out an AD&D beneficiary card and put a copy in his/her personal files. Please contact the TFT benefits director for a beneficiary card.
As a special gift for joining TFT, members can activate a $12,000 Term Life Insurance policy that is no cost to you for one full year. At the end of one year you will be invited to continue service, the choice is yours. Sign up today and start your benefit!
Other Benefits
No cost $12,000 Term Life Insurance policy for new members. Sign up now! (PDF)
Prescription Drug Savings or Discount Card Sign up here to get huge discounts off your prescriptions.
Save with the AFT PLUS Health Club Discount Program Have you been talking about exercising more this summer, but don't like the high costs of joining a gym? To help you and your family take better care of yourselves and save money on monthly health club fees, AFT PLUS now offers a health club discount program. The program offers pre-negotiated 20 to 60 percent discounts on monthly fees at over 1,500 health clubs nationwide. There are no long-term commitments to the program and your membership can be cancelled at any time. You can even freeze your membership in the program and activate it at a later date. Members rave about also having the ability to transfer their membership between participating health clubs for a small $10 fee. Call 800-222-3827 to learn more about the program.
Share the Good News…Low Cost Auto Insurance Affinity Program! TFT has arranged for Nationwide Insurance, one of America’s leading insurance carriers (rated A+ by rating service A.M. Best), to provide additional benefits to our members, by offering premier low-cost auto insurance coverage. Along with Blue Ribbon Claims Service, Nationwide Insurance provides personal customer service from their knowledgeable and friendly agency force. Members will receive fast, fair 24-hour claim service (365 days a year), and convenient payment choices.
If you already have Nationwide Insurance, call your local agent. To receive your FREE, no-obligation quote, call The Fowler Agency at (888) 549-4922. Remember to mention you are a member of the Texas Federation of Teachers.
About AFT Teachers
Throughout this century, the AFT has been a major force for preserving and strengthening America's democratic commitment to public education and public service. Desegregating public schools, passing the landmark Elementary and Secondary Education Act, establishing collective bargaining for teachers and other public employees, and addressing the needs of disadvantaged children are just a few of the causes the AFT has championed. Currently the AFT Teachers division's major initiatives include:
Professional Development Opportunities
The AFT began its professional development work in the early 1980s with the creation of the Educational Research and Dissemination (ER&D) program. The driving principle behind ER&D was to create a union-sponsored program that could translate educational research into practical strategies that teachers could use every day in their classrooms. Today there are more than 130 locals with ER&D programs serving thousands of our members.
In addition to the ER&D and online programs, our division has initiated other projects to:
offer online professional development;
provide teachers who have English language learners in their classroom with effective materials and strategies to reach this student population;
improve teachers' knowledge on using data to inform instruction;
help union leaders and negotiators deal with the current and potential impact of NCLB on collective bargaining contracts; and
create "lesson study" learning communities to improve instruction.
Redesigning Schools To Raise Achievement (RSRA)
The AFT's RSRA project helps states, districts, schools and classroom educators improve student achievement by providing training for school teams; information on programs that work; technical support; district and school policy models; and opportunities to build partnerships. Since its inception in 1989 with six locals, our efforts have expanded both in breadth and depth:
The AFT has provided thousands of hours of technical assistance and training for affiliate leaders, most typically through over-the-phone or on-site consultations.
More than 800 participants from 150 school districts/states have been trained in Effective Leadership for Academic Achievement through a partnership with the AFT and the United Federation of Teachers' Teacher Center in New York City.
More than 27 local labor-management teams have received in-depth labor-management training at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.
More than 400 local participants have attended the last two annual meetings we have sponsored.
Teacher Quality
The AFT provides technical assistance on teacher quality issues and monitors events and organizations that promote teacher quality. We work with affiliates and at our biennial convention to develop and implement policy that is reflected in the union's teacher quality resolutions. We also provide advice and assistance to affiliates on the Highly Qualified Teachers (HQT) requirements of NCLB. Finally, the AFT Teachers division provides support to AFT officers who serve on various boards and committees relating to teacher quality issues.
Standards and Assessments
The AFT charted new territory in the 1990s with its "making standards matter" agenda. We continue to monitor states' efforts to implement standards-based reform—academic standards, standards-based curricula and assessments, intervention for struggling students, and accountability policies—and provide technical assistance around these issues. We monitor changes in state accountability plans to understand how the adequate yearly progress (AYP) formula under No Child Left Behind is being used across the country and provide technical assistance as needed.
English Language Learners
In late 2003, an AFT staff task force was established to develop a political and educational agenda for the union on Latino issues. That agenda includes:
helping affiliates implement outreach programs to better address the needs of the Latino community;
identifying and/or developing resources for PreK-12 affiliates to help teachers and school staff meet the needs of English Language Learners (ELLs) and Latino students;
increasing support for AFT issues among U.S. Latinos; and
forging collaborations and partnerships with Latino community organizations.
Early Childhood
High-quality early childhood education has been on the AFT’s agenda since the 1970s as a strategy for improving educational outcomes, particularly for disadvantaged children. The issue gained momentum in 2002 when the Center for the Childcare Workforce (CCW) merged with the AFT Educational Foundation in an effort to expand the capacity to create a unified voice for the early care and education workforce. That same year, the AFT proposed the Kindergarten-Plus program, which provides an extended year, full-day kindergarten to disadvantaged children by enabling them to begin kindergarten the summer before they would ordinarily enter and to continue through the summer after kindergarten, right before entering first grade. In 2003, the New Mexico Kindergarten-Plus program began a three-year pilot program administered in four school districts. Currently, several states, including Connecticut, Louisiana, Rhode Island, Texas and Virginia, are also considering Kindergarten-Plus programs.
No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Since the passage of NCLB, the AFT has worked to help our members understand and implement its requirements, while also stressing the changes and corrections needed to make the law workable and fair. Our efforts include:
more than 100 presentations to AFT affiliates and other education groups on NCLB;
a special section in American Teacher, called NCLB watch;
creation of an Internet site with information about the law and AFT's positions on various aspects of NCLB;
passage of the resolution Moving Every Child Forward, which reflects grass-roots concerns about the law, and details strategies for improving NCLB implementation; and
development of a course with AFT PSRP to help paraprofessionals meet the new NCLB requirements.
When you need a lawyer, you want quick response from knowledgeable and experienced attorneys. TFT’s attorneys are specialists, and our toll-free hotline and 25 offices across Texas mean help when you need it. Such service provides both peace of mind and protection that could save your career.
Our History
Chartered in 1974, TFT is the state affiliate of the one million-member American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO. Our membership consists of teachers and other educational workers who have joined together to provide a strong voice for education in the community, at the state level, and at a national level.
The presence of the Texas Federation of Teachers and the American Federation of Teachers means that there is in Texas an organization that devotes itself to teachers and educational workers and to the children they influence. Our organization regards those who work in education as first-class citizens, entitled to all the rights and privileges of citizenship Ñ and we believe these civil rights are not left behind when school employees cross the threshold of their school or work site. We work together to create a strong voice that reflects the thinking of our membership, and we work together with parents and taxpayers who care about their children and the future of public schools in Texas.
Our goals are to bring dignity to teachers and educational workers by ensuring a decent living salary and decent working conditions, and to deliver full educational opportunity to Texas schoolchildren. We work to ensure a strong voice for teachers in formulating all programs that affect students. We know that because we are front-line professional educators, we should be in the forefront of decision-making for education in Texas. We know that we can fulfill this role through collectively bargained contracts, so gaining the right to collective bargaining for school employees is central to our mission.
Today TFT has 46,000 members organized in 25 locals, five organizing committees, and in the special Professional Educator Group organizing projects in 798 school districts and 20 institutions of higher learning. Dozens of staff members in our state office, in our affiliated locals, and in PEG offices around the state assist our members in advocacy, organizing, and all the other activities that give members a strong voice on the local and state and national levels. With 25 offices across the state, TFT offers members service that is close to home. No other school-employee group can match TFT's ability to provide instant service to members right in the communities where our members live and work.
Through our affiliation with the Texas AFL-CIO, we also enlist on behalf of teachers and educational workers the support of hundreds of thousands of other Texans, who embrace and assist our efforts to bring dignity to those working in education and an equal educational opportunity to our students.
History of the AFT
On April 15, 1916, teacher unionists gathered at the City Club on Plymouth Court in Chicago to form a new national union: the American Federation of Teachers. The founders included three teacher groups in Chicago and locals from Gary, Ind., New York City, Scranton, Pa., and Washington, D.C. Within a month, the union received its charter--bearing Samuel Gompers' distinctive signature--from the AFL.
It was, in fact, the Chicago teachers, along with their AFL-affiliated counterparts in San Antonio, Texas, who fixed on the idea that teachers should be affiliated with the labor movement. (In 1902, the Chicago Teachers' Federation became the first teacher group in the United States to join its local central labor body.) From those early years, the AFT realized that organized labor was crucial to the influence and strength of its members and has proudly maintained its role in the American labor movement ever since.
The union's first offices were in the Chicago suburban homes of financial secretary Freeland Stecker and president Charles Stillman, next-door neighbors. Even with such modest beginnings, the union's first years were marked by explosive growth: 174 locals were chartered in the first four years. But in the years following World War I, the climate had changed. School boards mounted a campaign against the AFT, pressuring and intimidating teachers to resign from the union. By the end of the 1920s, AFT membership had dropped to fewer than 5,000--about half the membership of 1920. These years saw the union fighting for tenure laws and academic freedom.
This emerging hostility to unionism was a precursor of even tougher times ahead. The Depression cast a pall of economic and job insecurity. Worse, teachers were faced with contracts that still stipulated that an employed teacher "must wear skirts of certain lengths, keep her galoshes buckled, not receive gentleman callers more than three times a week and teach a Sunday School class," noted the American Teacher. Loyalty oaths were required in some districts, teachers were dismissed for joining the AFT or for working on school board election campaigns, and "yellow-dog" contracts, which required teachers to promise not to join a union, were common.
By 1932, the Norris-LaGuardia Act had outlawed such contracts, and the AFT renewed its tenure battle. By the end of the Depression, tenure of some kind had been won in 17 states, largely because of the AFT's efforts.
While the AFT boosted its membership from 7,000 in 1930 to 32,000 in 1939, allegations of communist infiltration in some locals surfaced; in 1941, charters of three locals were withdrawn after an investigation and recommendation by the AFT executive council.
With the advent of World War II, the AFT rallied to the cause; war bonds, war relief and air-raid programs were part of daily life for most members.
A redoubled effort to improve the conditions of teachers and schools alike characterized the postwar years. But working conditions and abysmally low salaries prompted some AFT locals to strike.
The decade of the 1950s brought with it a resurgence of loyalty oaths and McCarthy-era hysterics. The union saw the need to defend members' academic as well as personal freedoms, protecting many from derision of the McCarthyites who sought to label them "subversives."
Meanwhile, the union became increasingly active on the civil rights front. In 1948, the union had stopped chartering segregated locals and filed an amicus brief in the historic 1954 Supreme Court desegregation case Brown et al.v.Topeka Board of Education et al. In 1957, the AFT expelled all locals that refused to desegregate, and the union was heavily involved in the civil rights movement of the 1960s, including voter registration drives in the South).
Another challenge of the sixties was the battle for collective bargaining rights. The age of teacher militancy began in November 1960 with a one-day walkout of the United Federation of Teachers of New York City; two years later the UFT won the first comprehensive teacher contract in the country. The events in New York City spawned more than 300 teacher strikes throughout the country in that decade, and the national AFT grew from under 60,000 members in 1960 to more than 200,000 by 1970. The sixties also saw the first major strike by university professors in the United States.
A new agenda emerged for the seventies, one that included the fight against tuition tax credits, the battle to restore funds for urban schools and myriad other education programs. It was also a time of tremendous pride for the union, for at mid-decade, the AFT was the fastest-growing union in the AFL-CIO. During that time, the AFT became involved with the AFL-CIO Public Employee Department, chartered in 1974, which represented the interests of state and local public employees within the federation. The union also was active in the establishment of the AFL-CIO's Department for Professional Employees in 1977, which elected then-AFT president Albert Shanker its first president.
But there were even brighter prospects ahead. In 1969, the UFT led the way for other AFT locals when it successfully won the right to represent 10,000 paraprofessionals in New York City. In the years that followed, the AFT organized thousands of paraprofessionals and school-related personnel in the nation's schools.
There was, perhaps, no greater theme for the 1980s than education reform. And it was the AFT that advanced the best ideas and challenged its members to take risks and shape change. The vehicle driving much of this change was, not surprisingly, the union contract. Bread-and-butter issues increasingly began to stand side by side with professional concerns.
While all this was happening in the education arena, two new constituencies--healthcare professionals and state and local employees--began to look to the AFT for representation, attracted by the union's bargaining and professional issues expertise and its reputation for local autonomy. In 1978, the AFT established a healthcare division and in 1983 created a division for local, state and federal employees. In serving these new constituencies, the union's lobbying, research and professional services expanded to take on such issues as healthcare costs, privatization, state and local budget analysis, and more.
The 1980s also saw stepped-up efforts in the international arena. Although the AFT had been a leader in promoting democracy and free trade unionism worldwide since the 1920s, events in the eighties decade launched a new era of international activity. The AFT and the AFL-CIO provided crucial support for the underground Polish Solidarity union movement that helped topple communism, and the union played an important role in providing training and technical support to fledgling teacher unions in Eastern Europe. The AFT also sent help to a struggling black trade union movement in South Africa and lent support to the Chilean teachers union, which played a major role in ridding Chile of the Pinochet dictatorship in 1988. Fifteen AFT observers were on hand to monitor the first free and democratic elections in South Africa in 1994.
Throughout the 1990s, the AFT continued as a powerful and persuasive voice for higher academic achievement and excellence, launching its seminal "Making Standards Matter" reports on the progress of states to establish clear standards for what students should know and be able to do states' efforts in aligning their tests to those standards.
A central figure in the union's role in education reform and the standards movement was lost with the untimely death in 1997 of the AFT's longest-serving president, Albert Shanker, recognized as one of the most influential figures in education in the 20th Century. His successor, former UFT president Sandra Feldman, remained at the helm of one of the fastest-growing unions in the AFL-CIO until her retirement in July 2004. The AFT has expanded its organizing efforts--and appeal--in all divisions. By the early 2000s, the union welcomed new members in thousands of job titles--adjunct and part-time college faculty, graduate employees, psychologists, forensic scientists, environmental engineers and many more.
The union's emphasis on quality in the workplace and ensuring the well-being of the institutions our members work in and the clients they serve helped make the AFT "A Union of Professionals."
In unity, the members of the AFT continue to uphold the proud traditions on which this union was created. The union will continue to rally to the right causes, anticipate and shape changes that lie ahead and contribute to the social good. In the process, our members will help build the union and lay the foundation for a prosperous future.
More on TFT's History and Vision
Untitled Document
The Texas Federation of Teachers — On Your Side, At Your Service
Chartered in 1974, TFT is the state affiliate of the 1.3 million-member American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO. Our membership consists of teachers and other educational workers who have joined together to provide a strong voice for education in the community, at the state level, and at a national level.
The Texas Federation of Teachers has grown from 23,000 members in 1993 to more than 50,000 today. Our numbers include public school teachers, paraprofessionals and school related personnel, as well as faculty members and support staff of higher education institutions.
The Texas Federation of Teachers is recognized by the leadership of the American Federation of Teachers as one of the outstanding state federations in AFT today. TFT can proudly boast of its leadership over the past six years in the areas of salary and health insurance improvements, increasing the TRS multiplier, as well as our work in the area of teacher certification.
TFT is recognized for the implementation of a statewide leadership development program that has become the model for other state federations. The program now provides leadership training to over 1,000 local leaders each year in statewide leadership conferences and the after-school programs. Currently eight locals participate in the after-school program.
The Corpus Christi American Federation of Teachers first won elected representation rights for teachers 26 years ago. Today, locals of the Texas Federation of Teachers represent teachers and paraprofessionals and school related personnel in elected representation arrangements in Corpus Christi, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, South San Antonio and El Paso.
The organizing efforts of TFT affiliated locals and of the Texas Federation of Teachers have resulted in our membership increase of more than 27,000 in the last ten years. The TFT/AFT Professional Educators Group membership, with over 18,000 members in 840 school districts around the state, is the largest of all the AFT/PEG state projects. Through this project, TFT has chartered new locals in Del Rio, Amarillo, Killeen, Weslaco, Goose Creek, Brazosport and Fort Bend County.
New membership across the state has meant increased influence at the Texas Legislature. TFT can claim members in almost every legislative district in the state. That growth translates into constituents who can get their representatives’ and senators’ attention on important education legislation. In this past legislative session, TFT members visited the TFT web site over 76,000 times. TFT COPE (Committee on Political Education) has gone from a few thousand dollars in contributions to endorsed candidates to more than $300,000 contributed in the last election cycle by TFT, AFT, and AFT locals in Texas.
As the Texas Federation of Teachers continues to grow, TFT is committed to providing ever-improving leadership and service to our locals and members around the state.
A Vision For The Texas Federation of Teachers
The Texas Federation of Teachers believes in democracy in education, and education for democracy.
The Texas Federation of Teachers believes that an enlightened citizenry is essential to the success of democracy. Fear and bigotry flourish in the fertile soil of ignorance, and it is with fear and bigotry that dictators most often sustain their tyranny. It is axiomatic that an enlightened electorate is essential to a democratic government; it should be equally clear that an enlightened populous is a prerequisite for a democratic society.
The Texas Federation of Teachers believes that America can only educate its students through a strong system of public schools which are funded by the public and run by the citizens through representatives who are elected democratically. We believe that those schools should offer every student an equal opportunity to learn to the best of his or her ability. We believe the only limit on educational opportunity should be the limit that an individual student places upon himself or herself. There should be no special privileges for the rich or the well-born; there should be no special burdens placed upon those born into less fortunate circumstances.
The Texas Federation of Teachers believes that our students deserve a world-class education. The TFT stands for quality education for students, and dignity for those who provide it.
The Texas Federation of Teachers believes that the vision described above can best be achieved by the organization of strong locals of the American Federation of Teachers, affiliated with the AFL-CIO. To that end, the Texas Federation of Teachers will strive to organize the educational workers of Texas into locals chartered by the American Federation of Teachers, and to bring those locals into relationships of mutual assistance and cooperation. TFT will assist locals to obtain, through collectively bargained contracts, all the rights and benefits to which educational employees should be entitled.
We will work to raise the standards of all the professions employed in the schools, and to secure for those employees the conditions essential to the best professional service. The Texas Federation of Teachers will work to initiate, support, and enforce state legislation to benefit all the children and school employees of the State of Texas, through a dynamic organization which builds upon the diversity of its members through a democratic governance structure.
The TFT will strive to build local organizations capable of winning collective bargaining for all members. We believe this goal will be furthered when we have a state organization in which locals are served effectively, leaders are informed, and members are involved in the organization. By supporting local efforts to create a deeper and broader understanding of collective bargaining, we will give school employees the vision and the vehicle needed to defend their rights and those of their colleagues,
To accomplish the task of organizing school employees in Texas, the TFT will position itself so that school employees, state officials and the public at large will see the Texas Federation of Teachers as the best and most effective advocate of the public schools, public school students and public school employees.
The Texas Federation of Teachers believes in democracy in education, and education for democracy.
The Texas Federation of Teachers believes that an enlightened citizenry is essential to the success of democracy. Fear and bigotry flourish in the fertile soil of ignorance, and it is with fear and bigotry that dictators most often sustain their tyranny. It is axiomatic that an enlightened electorate is essential to a democratic government; it should be equally clear that an enlightened populous is a prerequisite for a democratic society.
The Texas Federation of Teachers believes that America can only educate its students through a strong system of public schools which are funded by the public and run by the citizens through representatives who are elected democratically. We believe that those schools should offer every student an equal opportunity to learn to the best of his or her ability. We believe the only limit on educational opportunity should be the limit that an individual student places upon himself or herself. There should be no special privileges for the rich or the well-born; there should be no special burdens placed upon those born into less fortunate circumstances.
The Texas Federation of Teachers believes that our students deserve a world-class education. The TFT stands for quality education for students, and dignity for those who provide it.
The Texas Federation of Teachers believes that the vision described above can best be achieved by the organization of strong locals of the American Federation of Teachers, affiliated with the AFL-CIO. To that end, the Texas Federation of Teachers will strive to organize the educational workers of Texas into locals chartered by the American Federation of Teachers, and to bring those locals into relationships of mutual assistance and cooperation. TFT will assist locals to obtain, through collectively bargained contracts, all the rights and benefits to which educational employees should be entitled.
We will work to raise the standards of all the professions employed in the schools, and to secure for those employees the conditions essential to the best professional service. The Texas Federation of Teachers will work to initiate, support, and enforce state legislation to benefit all the children and school employees of the State of Texas, through a dynamic organization which builds upon the diversity of its members through a democratic governance structure.
The TFT will strive to build local organizations capable of winning collective bargaining for all members. We believe this goal will be furthered when we have a state organization in which locals are served effectively, leaders are informed, and members are involved in the organization. By supporting local efforts to create a deeper and broader understanding of collective bargaining, we will give school employees the vision and the vehicle needed to defend their rights and those of their colleagues,
To accomplish the task of organizing school employees in Texas, the TFT will position itself so that school employees, state officials and the public at large will see the Texas Federation of Teachers as the best and most effective advocate of the public schools, public school students and public school employees.
About the AFT
The American Federation of Teachers was founded in 1916 to represent the economic, social and professional interests of classroom teachers. It is an affiliated international union of the AFL-CIO.
The AFT has more than 3,000 local affiliates nationwide, 43 state affiliates, and more than 1.3 million members.
The AFT is governed by its elected officers and delegates to the union's biennial convention, which sets union policy and elects the union's officers. Elected leaders are Edward J. McElroy, president, Nat LaCour, secretary-treasurer, Antonia Cortese, executive vice president, and a 39-member executive council. McElroy and LaCour also serve as vice presidents of the AFL-CIO.
In non-convention years, the AFT hosts the Quality Educational Standards in Teaching (QuEST) conference, a professional issues meeting that attracts nearly 3,000 educators from around the country. AFT's healthcare, higher education, public employee and PSRP divisions also host yearly professional issues conferences.
The AFT advocates sound, commonsense public education policies, including high academic and conduct standards for students and greater professionalism for teachers and school staff; excellence in public service through cooperative problem-solving and workplace innovations; and high-quality healthcare provided by qualified professionals.
Many well-known Americans have been AFT members, including John Dewey, Albert Einstein, Hubert Humphrey, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Frank McCourt, Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel, former Senate Majority Leader and Ambassador to Japan Mike Mansfield, former HHS Secretary Donna Shalala, and former United Nations Under Secretary and Nobel Peace Prize winner Ralph Bunche.
