Weingarten inspires delegates to fight for freedom, opportunity and justice

Delivering her State of the Union address before thousands of educators, healthcare professionals and public employees at the AFT's national convention in Washington, D.C., AFT President Randi Weingarten delivered a powerful message: "We will change the trajectory of this nation and secure a better future for all."

Calling on delegates to harness "the power of the people," Weingarten said unions remain one of the few forces capable of standing up to concentrated wealth and political power.

"Yes, the other side has enormous power," she said. "But this is what they don't have: The power of the people."

She also drew a stark moral contrast between the needs of working families and the Trump administration's policies, which have been marked by attacks on the institutions and rights working people rely on to build secure and dignified lives-including public education and collective bargaining. She invoked Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision of the "'beloved community'-an America where hate has no home." That, she said, is the difference between the values of the labor movement and the administration's policies. "We use our power for good-against chaos, cruelty and corruption," she said.

Fighting forward

Throughout the speech, Weingarten returned to a single idea: "People power can win. But we need to be all in. … None of us can do everything, but each of us can do something to … achieve the better future we fight for."

Over the last two years, AFT members have negotiated contracts that raised pay, expanded healthcare, improved retirement security, strengthened staffing protections and secured paid family leave.

Weingarten also highlighted victories beyond the bargaining table.

Through the AFT's student debt clinics and advocacy, more than 1 million borrowers-many of them AFT members-have received $78 billion in student loan forgiveness. The union has filed more than 25 lawsuits challenging administration policies affecting public education, higher education, civil rights and free speech. It has launched national campaigns to strengthen higher education and healthcare, fought for safeguards around artificial intelligence in schools and colleges, and put more than 11 million books into the hands of children through its Reading Opens the World program.

Those victories, Weingarten said, demonstrate what happens when people organize around shared values instead of individual interests.

To a standing ovation, Weingarten announced that the AFT has continued to grow. Since the last convention, the AFT has organized 179 new bargaining units, adding nearly 60,000 members. Weingarten announced that the union now represents 1.88 million members-the largest membership in its history.

Bending the arc

Still, she emphasized that past victories and growth are no guarantee of future success.

Weingarten warned that workers' rights, public education, healthcare, voting rights and democratic institutions continue to face unprecedented attacks. The answer, she argued, isn't to retreat-it's to organize even harder.

Weingarten outlined what she described as the union's largest political mobilization yet. The AFT plans to mobilize members and their families in competitive races across the country, helping reach millions of voters alongside the AFL-CIO and recruiting tens of thousands of Democracy Defenders to help ensure every eligible voter can cast a ballot free from intimidation.

"This election will decide whether we are a country governed by the people or ruled by the powerful," she said.

Closing with King's wisdom that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice," Weingarten reminded delegates that progress doesn't happen on its own. The arc "bends toward freedom and opportunity through the work you do every day, making a difference in people's lives, in classrooms, at the bedside, in communities."

And she ended with a challenge: "You bend the arc. Unions bend the arc. Voting bends the arc. The power of the people bends the arc toward justice. On this 250th anniversary of our nation, that is our responsibility."

The full speech can be viewed here and downloaded here.

[Melanie Boyer/Photo credit: ]