American Federation of Teachers (AFT)
The Federation was formed in 1916 15th of April. Its main purpose was to be a union of labor. There were many attempts to come up with a labor union for teachers, which were national, but they all failed. AFT was then formed after those numerous attempts. It came to be after three local unions met; one from Indiana and the other two from Chicago. They got support from Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C. and New York. The founding associates decided to request for the charter from American Labor Federation which they did receive in 1916 (Meador 2013). Its early years were faced with struggles regarding the issue of membership but it managed to grow slowly. The collective bargaining idea in education faced discouragement and this made many teachers to decline from joining because of local pressures of political nature they received. Despite all the struggles the union faced, membership gained momentum by 1940’s. Controversial tactics of the union started to emerge with this momentum. There was a strike in 1946 by St. Paul chapter and this eventually culminated to a collective bargaining becoming the official policy by AFT (Meador 2013).
The main purpose of the AFT was to improve members’ lives as well as that of their families; to give a voice to the union’s legitimate professional, social and economic aspirations; to strengthen the working institutions for the members; to improve quality of services provided; to promote unity among the members so that they can learn to help one another; and lastly to promote human rights, democracy, and freedom in the union throughout the globe (Meador, 2013).
After its inception, it left a mark on many policies of education as well as on the realm of politics for several decades that followed. The union generally grew into a vibrant union to represent the rights for the teachers (Meador, 2013).
Reference
Meador D., (2013). American Federation of Teachers An Overview of the American Federation of Teachers, Web, http://teaching.about.com/od/unions/a/American-Federation-Of-Teachers.htm
