The American Federation of Teachers and Desegregation

Dewing, Rolland

doi:10.2307/2966795

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…White and Black teachers working in the same schools in large numbers for the first time built relationships and friendships and no longer saw the need for separate teacher organizations. In the 1969-1970 school year, forty-one elementary schools had no teachers of the minority race but by 1971-1972, there was only one school, all-white Lakeview Elementary, that had not achieved even token integration (see Table 2) (Informational Report on Staff Desegregation, 1969-1973. In anticipation of conflict arising out 1969-1970 1970-1971 1971-1972 1972-1973 (1969)(1970)(1971)(1972)(1973).…”

Section: Faculty Desegregation and The Formation Of Utnomentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This was an extraordinary move for unions at the time. When the AFT mandated the end of segregated locals in the South, after Brown v. Board in 1954, every white local refused to integrate and the AFT lost approximately 14 percent of its total membership (Dewing 1973). The racial dynamics among teachers unions in the North, which tended to have majority white members, were not much better.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Civil Rights, Labor Conflict, and Integration: New Orleans Educators’ Struggle for Collective Bargaining 1965-1974

Chanin

2020

Labor Studies Journal

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When American Federation of Teachers-Local 527 launched their collective bargaining campaign in 1965, they were one of five mostly segregated teachers’ locals in New Orleans and represented a minority of the system’s educators. Spurred on by the National, who saw them as the lynchpin to organizing the South, they held a three-day job action, the first teachers’ strike in the South, in 1966 and then a longer nine-day strike in 1969. Through these mobilizations, they connected their demand for collective bargaining to racial and economic equity in the schools, aligning themselves with Black students, parents, and lower paid support workers. In the early 1970s, New Orleans underwent an ambitious faculty desegregation program that transformed the schools and led to the merger between Local 527 and the majority-white National Education Association (NEA) local to form the United Teachers of New Orleans (UTNO). Although faculty desegregation was a top-down reform, the union capitalized on teacher integration to form intentional alliances across race and mobilize new members. Following the merger, UTNO renewed their call for collective bargaining, eventually pressuring the board to approve an election in 1974. I argue that by positioning racial justice as central to their union organizing, prioritizing participatory democracy among membership, and engaging in civil rights unionism, UTNO succeeded in achieving collective bargaining when so many other Southern cities failed.

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Section: Faculty Desegregation and The Formation Of Utnomentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Civil Rights, Labor Conflict, and Integration: New Orleans Educators’ Struggle for Collective Bargaining 1965-1974

Chanin

2020

Labor Studies Journal

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“…The militancy of the AFT for racial equality did not only start after the enactment of this legislation. Prior to 1954, the AFT consistently supported equality for African‐Americans to a greater degree than any other historically white teacher unions (Dewing, , p. 79). From its inception in 1916, the AFT has stressed that it seeks to advance social justice and equality.…”

Section: Social Unionism and Public Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teacher social justice unionism and the field of industrial relations in the United States

Dandala

2019

Journal of Labor and Society

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This article presents a critical discourse on the lack of scholarship and empirical studies on teacher social justice unionism in the field of industrial relations in the United States. It does so by pointing to union density, social justice unionism indicators in public education, and literature scarcity to consolidate its position to why teacher social justice unionism should be considered by researchers as a subject of academic inquiry.

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