Delegates to the American Association of University Professors’ (AAUP) June biennial meeting voted to bring AAUP’s 44,000 members into the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), which has 1.7 million members.
AFT already represented 270,000 higher education workers, including tenure-track faculty, adjuncts, graduate employees and other academic professionals. Combined, the two organizations now represent more than 300,000 college faculty members nationwide. AFT is the second-largest educators’ union in the country overall, with the National Education Association as the largest.
The two unions say the affiliation will bring together AAUP’s expertise and AFT’s resources to defend higher education from funding cuts, “attacks on knowledge and expertise, and increased legislative intrusion into the academy.” The affiliation, which brings AAUP into the AFL-CIO, takes effect Aug. 1.
