The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) on Friday announced its official endorsement of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 Democratic primary election.
AFT president Randi Weingarten said Biden and Harris “really care about people” in an announcement video shared on social media. She also praised them for being “unabashedly pro-labor and pro-public education.”
The Biden-Harris administration is proudly pro-worker, pro-public education and pro-democracy, and the @AFTunion is proud to endorse @JoeBiden and @KamalaHarris in the 2024 Democratic primary. Here are our members sharing why. #AFTvotes pic.twitter.com/T6mIivgN0c
— Randi Weingarten 🇺🇦🇺🇸💪🏿👩🎓 (@rweingarten) June 16, 2023
The AFT is a “union of professionals that champions fairness; democracy; economic opportunity; and high-quality public education, healthcare and public services for our students, their families and our communities. We are committed to advancing these principles through community engagement, organizing, collective bargaining and political activism, and especially through the work our members do,” according to its official mission statement.
The endorsement is part of the union’s AFT Votes initiative, which works to “win the elections and ballot measures” the union supports. AFT Votes calls the Biden-Harris administration a “consistent partner” in its efforts “to make the lives of our members better and improve the communities we serve. While there is still much work to do, this administration’s record is remarkable and unprecedented, giving us a staging point from which to build a more perfect union.” The endorsement was an unanimous vote by the union’s executive council.
Both the AFT and Weingarten have received backlash for their handling of issues such as COVID-19 and critical race theory (CRT) in schools. Former United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called Weingarten the “most dangerous person in the world” in a November 2022 interview with Semafor. (RELATED: ‘The Way In Which Wars Start’: Randi Weingarten Freaks Out Over GOP Parental Rights Bills)
Weingarten has been included on Washingtonian’s 2021 Washington’s Most Influential People, City & State New York’s 2021 New York City Labor Power 100 and Washington Life’s 2018 Power 100 list of prominent leaders and is an “active member” of the Democratic National Committee, according to her AFT bio.