February 12th- Today almost 100 educational assistants arrived at the State Capitol in Santa Fe to ask lawakers for help. The group of EAs, organized under the Albuquerque Educational Assistants union/AFT New Mexico, have been asking lawmakers to consider at least a 5% raise over the last thirty days of the legislative session. Read the article reported in the Tribune!

The New Mexico Legislature has passed a budget that needs to be pitched out. Lawmakers have agreed to a budget that cheats kids out of a sufficient public education and cheats school employees out of their dignity. 

The budget that passed the House and Senate provides a 2% salary increase for licensed K-12 school employees and higher education faculty and staff and 3% for classified employees and EAs. Overall funding levels for education have been cut.

More than 20,000 paraprofessionals and school-related personnel represented by the Oregon School Employees Association have voted to affiliate with the AFT, marking the largest affiliation of an independent union in AFT history.

President Bush on Nov. 13 vetoed the spending bill passed by Congress last week for education, labor and health programs for fiscal year 2008 and asked that Congress support his fiscal year spending request.