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A constellation of speakers addressed AFT members about issues ranging from gun violence to vouchers to reproductive rights during Tuesday’s general session at the AFT Convention in Houston. The issues are all priorities for the AFT, making outside speakers especially salient, said AFT President Randi Weingarten.
Abbey Clements, co-founder of Teachers Unify to End Gun Violence and survivor of the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, kicked off the section by noting that hundreds of thousands of kids have experienced gun violence at school since the late 1990s. The impacts are lifelong, she said. Her own students, who were in second grade at the time of the Sandy Hook tragedy, say they scan every room for exits and still carry survivor’s guilt. Your union has your back, she said, pointing out that the AFT and Teachers Unify to End Gun Violence advocate for trauma-informed safety training and common sense gun laws.
The AFT is also part of the solution to combat climate change, said United University Professions President Fred Kowal and Jessica Tang, AFT vice president and president of AFT Massachusetts. AFT affiliates across the country have been generating local solutions to local emergencies, including movements in Chicago to remove mold, asbestos and lead from schools, in addition to mitigating air pollution, in specific neighborhoods.
Reproductive rights activists Amanda Zurawski and Briana Campbell exposed the life-threatening impact of Texas’ new draconian abortion restrictions through their own personal stories. Both were denied abortion care when experiencing miscarriages; Zurawski ended up in the ICU with a near-fatal bout of sepsis. Zurawski pointed out that electing pro-choice candidates up and down the ballot is critical to prevent her story from becoming an everyday event across the country. Sharing her all-too-similar story, Campbell declared “That’s not medicine. That’s extremism.” She shares her story now “to make it clear that abortion is healthcare.”
Weingarten welcomed Lina Khan, commissioner of the United States Federal Trade Commission, to the stage to discuss the economy. Khan noted the inherent alignment between the FTC and the AFT on issues critical to the preservation of unions and workers’ rights. The FTC is working hard to preserve economic freedoms, she said, and will continue to keep its doors open to workers, and the unions that represent them.
Education professor and policy expert Josh Cowen closed out the section of speakers with a discussion on vouchers, which ultimately fail students on an individual level and siphon resources from public schools. The plan to implement universal vouchers is not an accident and does not have anything to do with the wellbeing of our students, he said. Rather, it is intended to undermine public schools and weaken democracy.
Randi ended the lineup by reiterating that these issues intersect with the AFT’s values and impact our members, our families and our communities.
[Melanie Boyer, photos by Russ Curtis]