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Oct. 27, 2009

AFT Washington
Draft Long-Term Legislative Objectives and Principles

• AFT Washington believes that early learning educators do some of the most important work in our community, and that they deserve better pay, benefits and professional development. We further believe that the best way to obtain these things is through collective bargaining. Therefore, we support legislation that enables early learning educators to have collective bargaining rights. 

• AFT Washington believes that all education employees -- including classified staff in our state’s K-12 public school system and classified staff, professional staff, and faculty in our public higher education system -- should have an annual COLA, quality affordable health care, and pension/retirement benefits. Therefore, we support legislation that defends and/or enhances these benefits.

• AFT Washington believes that all employees can improve their working conditions by advocating at the local level and by being involved with the governance of their schools and colleges to impact their working and student learning environments. Therefore, AFT Washington will support all members in their efforts to share in the governance of their schools and colleges with local school boards, boards of trustees, and administration, pressing for supportive policy changes from these local governing bodies. 

• AFT Washington believes that our state’s higher education system is plagued by an “Academic Staffing Crisis.” Key factors at play in the system constitute this crisis: Part-time or adjunct faculty in our state’s higher education institutions are subjected to bad pay, little or no job security, and insecure benefits. Their full-time faculty peers, also, are subjected to low pay and increased workloads largely due to the conditions under which part-time faculty work. Therefore, we support equity pay, increased job security, the creation of full-time positions through conversion of part-time positions, priority consideration of existing part-time faculty for these and any other converted full-time positions, and better pay for full-time faculty. 

• AFT Washington believes that our state’s tax system is unjust and unstable. Hence, we support tax reform that introduces progressive, not regressive tax burdens, and that diversifies the forms of taxation, so that we’re not so reliant on just one form, e.g., the sales tax. We are also in favor of diligent, judicious investigation, and possible repeal of indirect expenditures, i.e., tax loopholes.

• AFT Washington believes that long-standing inequities in wealth and power have resulted in institutionalized racism in our society. One of the implications of this is that, in education, students of color tend to earn poorer grades, drop out at higher rates, and have lower admissions and graduation rates.  AFT Washington is strongly committed to eradicating this achievement gap, and therefore we support legislative efforts that will help all education employees serve all of our students better.

• AFT Washington believes that college counselors play a key role in helping students – especially those from traditionally-excluded populations – negotiate through college. We are, therefore, opposed to efforts to increase the student-counselor ratio, and to outsourcing counselors’ work into other less specialized job categories.

• AFT Washington believes that faculty in our state’s correctional facilities deserve respect, job security, pay that is equal to that of their peers teaching in classrooms “outside the walls” and recognition that, as union members, the provisions of their collectively bargained contracts should be complied with. Therefore, we support legislation that defends or enables these rights.

• AFT Washington believes that all working people should have the right to organize without interference from their administration or management. Therefore, we support legislation that expands he right to organize or protects the rights of employees when they are trying to organize.

• AFT Washington believes that lesbians, gays, bi-sexuals, and trans-gendered people deserve rights equal to those enjoyed by heterosexuals in our state. Therefore, we support legislation that defends or moves us further toward such equal rights.

• AFT Washington believes that the right to collective bargaining means being able to negotiate directly with our employer regarding the wages and working conditions of our union members.  Currently two-year college faculty are prohibited by law from negotiating raises for local funds.  Therefore, we support legislation that provides for expanded collective bargaining.

• AFT Washington believes that the provision of ample funding for our state’s higher education institutions is of vital importance, but the exclusion of Running State students from FTE calculations without any adjustment in FTE targets by the state has resulted in serious budgetary concerns on campuses across the state. Therefore, we support legislation that would increase funding for Running Start students and/or that would include them in the computation of FTE’s.