Our parent union CFT, “A Union of Educators and Classified Professionals,” is affiliated with the more than 1.7 million member American Federation of Teachers (AFT). The CFT comprises more than 120,000 educational employees working at every level of public and private education from Head Start to the University of California, in the state’s 145 local unions chartered by the AFT.
This weekend CFT held its 100th annual convention at the historic Biltmore hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Among the many CFT members who promote and agitate on behalf of their locals, the CFT Communications Awards are considered the “Academy Awards” of the CFT, so the glamorous location was appropriate – several Oscar ceremonies have taken place at the Biltmore.
And this year, UC-AFT won 8 awards for our hard work! 6 awards were handed out for efforts specific to the Librarian bargaining team efforts:
- First Place – Best Website – for ucaftlibrarians.org by Carla Arbagey, Marty Brennan and the Bargaining Communications group
- First Place – Best Public Relations – for the Petition for Academic Freedom by the Librarians Bargaining Committee
- First Place – Best Single Effort – for UC-AFT Librarians Salary Presentation to UCOP by Laurel McPhee, Dominique Turnbow and Cristela Garcia-Spitz
- First Place – Best Use of Social Media – #LibrarianAF by the Bargaining Communications Group
- First Place – Best Flyer or Poster – The UC Librarian Wage Gap by Anna Sackman
- Honorable Mention – Best Use of Graphics – Academic Freedom and Academic Workers Part 3, Quotes by Kendra Levine
UCLA organizers won an additional two awards for their efforts:
- Third Place – Best Flyer or Poster – for Know Your Rights Flyer for Contract Faculty by Mia McIver
- Third Place – Best Use of Social Media for locals with more than 500 unit members – for twitter.com/ucaft_ucla by Mia McIver and Daniel Schoorl
More details on the awards for librarian bargaining are included below, and you can download printable PDF versions, suitable for framing! Here’s a few pictures from the happy ceremony:
The awards were passed out very quickly – no time for rambling speeches by the winners! Please allow us, on behalf of all the winners, to THANK EVERYONE that contributed to our communications efforts in large and small ways. By keeping our members informed and engaged, by getting the message out to our allies in creative ways, and by getting the attention of the media and the general public in uprecedented ways for UC-AFT – together we have attracted the recognition of our union peers across California. Cheers and Solidarity to all!
The UC-AFT Librarians Blog (you’re reading it now!) has won 1st Place. Carla and Marty thank everyone who contributed ideas and content to this tentpole effort of our Bargaining Communications Group!
Our Petition for Academic Freedom won First Place for Best Public Relations. We must thank CA-AAUP and CUCFA for their vital Joint Statement of Support that inspired the Petition, and the thousands of supporters who have signed the petition. (Have you signed the petition yet? You should!!)
We are very proud of the work that Dominique, Cristela and Laurel of San Diego put in to our original Salary presentation to UCOP. It really was remarkably well done, and stand out with a First Place award for Best Single Effort.
Berkeley’s Anna Sackman rose to the occasion and created a poster that is hanging in offices and on bulletin boards across the ten campuses – and now, it’s won First Place for Best Poster.
We’re not sure who created the #LibrarianAF hashtag, but we were happy to hijack it, and the double entendre was a great way to draw attention to our struggle for academic freedom.
Berkeley’s Kendra Levine created some fantastic handouts related to Academic Freedom that you may have seen at our on-campus actions, like the one below. Our petition would not have been as successful without Kendra’s inspiring zine work!
Finally, we salute Mia McIver and Daniel Schoorl for the UCLA-focused comms efforts that have also won the awards below. Congrats!
UC-AFT Librarians Blog 