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UW-Stevens Point instructor: guns on campus "a catastrophically bad idea"

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Guest post by Nancy Shefferly, UW-Stevens Point Biology Instructor and member of the UW-Stevens Point Academic Representation Council, AFT local 6505

As an educator, I can only view the prospect of allowing firearms on a college campus as a catastrophically bad idea.

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AFT-Wisconsin State Employee Council: Proposed civil service changes will increase corruption

The State Employees Council of AFT-Wisconsin issued the following statement today in response to proposed changes to state civil service law, and urged Wisconsinites to contact their legislators to oppose this attempt to weaken civil service:

The recent Republican proposal to reform Wisconsin’s Civil Service rules is an attempt to degrade the work of state employees, and will only serve to introduce more corruption into state government.

The Civil Service System was created to counteract the influence of politicians on state jobs.  Allowing politicians to essentially appoint public employees

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Republicans threaten state civil service protections

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports today that Scott Walker and Republicans in the state legislature have hatched a scheme to weaken Wisconsin's civil service protections, which have prevented politicians from using government jobs as patronage for their supporters and from firing employees for political reasons for more than a century.  Under the guise of "modernization," Walker and his supporters are proposing to weaken just cause protections, eliminate the state civil service test, shorten the appeals process for workers being disciplined or fired, and centralize all state hiring under

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UW merger with tech colleges a bad idea

Be sure to check out the op-ed by retired Milwaukee Area Technical College instructor and former Local 212 Executive Vice-President Charlie Dee that lays out why the secretive plan to merge the Wisconsin Technical College System and the UW Colleges would be a disaster: "The first thing a responsible committee would do is research what happened when other states tried this. It would discover that mergers in Minnesota, Georgia, Alaska, Connecticut and New Jersey have failed to produced expected savings, but instead have created myriad problems."

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AFT delegates vow to fight attacks on teachers, unions

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AFT convention delegates on July 13 unanimously passed a special order of business—recommended by the executive council—to fight back against attacks on unions and teachers like Vergara v. California and Harris v. Quinn, and to fight forward to reclaim the promise of America.

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AFT-Maryland Affiliate Members Get Out the Vote

Volunteers from AFT-Maryland affiliate agencies conducted a concentrated effort to get out the vote for Maryland’s primary elections Tuesday, June 24. Affiliate agency members walked through neighborhoods, distributed literature on pertinent legislative issues, and were present at polling places, encouraging Maryland residents to exercise their right to vote.

The AFT-Maryland “get-out-the-vote” activities were a coordinated effort conducted in cooperation with the Maryland/District of Columbia AFL-CIO.

AFT-Maryland’s affiliate agency members include AFT Healthcare-Maryland, the Baltimore

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Join the Fight - Together as One

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We work in the public sector because we care. We care about our community. We care about our neighbors, our families, and - we care about each other. And speaking with one voice is always more powerful than speaking alone. We organize as a union because we can then gain the strength to make real change. Together, we speak with one voice that no one can shake  —  and we'll be louder than our bosses, our elected officials, and those anti-government folks.




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