LFT Legislative Director Alison Ocmand, left, LFT President Steve Monaghan and AFT President Randi Weingarten.
There was no shortage of resolve and determination when AFT affiliates from 37 state federations, including Louisiana, gathered in Washington, D.C., Jan. 7-9 for the new year's first order of business: crafting a comprehensive plan to defend vital public services—and the professionals who deliver them—from no-holds-barred attacks in today's perilous, divisive economic and political landscape.
The conference drew teams of AFT leaders from around the country, and their goal was to come up with effective union responses to some of the toughest challenges members face—including efforts to gut collective bargaining, attacks on pensions, and privatization of public schools and services. The responses to these and other challenges, AFT president Randi Weingarten told the group, must be as aggressive and as comprehensive as the threats in play.
"We are not going to give up, and we are not going to hunker down," simply waiting for crises to pass, the AFT president told union leaders. "What we need to do is engage in constructive problem solving—using all the means of power at our disposal."
That AFT power, she said, flows from five different sources: political action, effective communication, mobilizing union members, promoting ideas for constructive change and building partnerships across the community. These areas helped provide the focus in small-group sessions that centered on taxes, public deficits, pensions, healthcare, retirement security, school vouchers and other key topics.
Louisiana has seen its share of attacks on public schools and the professionals who dedicate their lives to our children, LFT President Steve Monaghan said.
Monaghan attended the conference, along with Legislative Director Alison Ocmand, Senior Organizer Mona Icamena, Paraprofessional and School Related Personnel coordinator Chrisandra Lee and Public Relations Director Les Landon.
Monaghan said the focus of the meeting is on forging coalitions that can build support for our schools in a political climate that is often unfriendly to public education.
Monaghan said teachers and school employees spend their professional careers buildig a better future for our children, and that we owe it to them to make sure they have decent salaries, adequate benefits and a pension that allows them to have a comfortable retirement after a lifetime of service.
AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka also addressed the conference, underscoring the need for comprehensive action. "This can't be a parochial fight—no union alone is big enough" to take on well-heeled, well-coordinated groups determined to silence the power and voice of a strong middle class. "It's time to take back the political momentum," he said.
Speakers at the conference's opening session included Ed Muir from the AFT's research and information services department, who said he expects this to be the worst year yet for the state fiscal crisis. "The demand for public services is going to be greater that it's ever been in our lifetimes," and the resources to perform these services are dwindling, he warned.
The deepening fiscal crisis is going to fuel continued attacks on public employees and their unions, including expanded efforts to roll back bargaining rights, Muir added.
Moody's Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi, who has advised both Democrats and Republicans on economic policy, told conference participants that his overarching message is that there are "reasons to be optimistic about the economy."
Zandi gave several reasons for his optimism, including the decline in U.S. household debt. But the No. 1 reason he gave is the fact that U.S. businesses, particularly large and midsize companies, are doing very well. "Profit margins are about as wide as they've ever been," Zandi said. "It's really no longer a question of whether businesses can go out and invest and hire," he said, noting that it's really a question of whether they are willing.
Zandi's optimistic outlook, however, was tempered by discussion of the reasons for continued concern, including the state and local government budget crisis. Zandi's opinion: "The cutbacks in state and local governments, and some of the tax increases that are occurring in states and localities across the country, will be the most significant drag on the economy in 2011 and probably 2012."
Zandi predicted that the states with the biggest budgetary problems and graduated income tax schedules, like California, New Jersey and New York, "will be in much better fiscal situations come this time next year."
LFT Legislative Director Alison Ocmand, President Steve Monaghan, PSRP Coordinator Chrisandra Lee and Senior Organizer Mona Icamena.
The ongoing foreclosure crisis also could negatively affect economic recovery. "It is very likely that we are going to see more house price declines," said Zandi, adding that "we probably have another 5 percent of price declines to go between now and the end of the year. Nothing works all that really well in our economy if house prices are falling. The home is still the most important asset that most people have on their balance sheet."