At the AFT’s Collective Bargaining Conference July 23, 2025 in Washington, D.C., AFT President Randi Weingarten argued that collective bargaining is not only an essential tool for securing better wages and working conditions, but also for ensuring civil rights and defending our basic freedoms.
Speaking to a packed room of union leaders from across the country, Weingarten said, “This tool and this right is probably the most important economic right that a worker has in the United States.”
That is why, Weingarten said, collective bargaining has always been crucial to moving civil rights forward, from equal pay for equal work to safe working conditions.
“If you have an equity provision in your contract, like parental leave—not women’s leave, not the mother’s leave, but say you got parental leave; all of a sudden what you’re doing in a contract is creating the equity that’s taken years to try to get to. It’s the same in terms of wages. A contract is a huge tool to do the equity work.”
Her remarks came just weeks after what she called the “big ugly bill” slashed safety net programs like Medicaid, student loan forgiveness and income-driven repayment plans—policies that directly impact the communities AFT members serve. She warned that rural medical centers, which depend on Medicaid funding, will most likely close and that school budgets, from kindergarten all the way through higher education, are going to suffer.
Five principles of collective bargaining: Prepare, Engage members, Embrace the community, Adopt a solution-driven mindset, Identify and exercise leverage.
