News

The SVFT was well represented at the 2013 AFT TEACH Conference in Washington, D.C.  

Eight members were able to attend the three-day event that included workshops and trainings and also apperances by AFT's national officers and special guests that inspired the more than 2000 attendees from across the country. 

Look for more details in the September newsletter.

Here is a summary of the Second Circuit Court's decision in the lawsuit SEBAC filed against Former Governor John Rowland in a response to the layoffs of only unionized workers in 2003.  Click Here

The 2013 legislative session in Hartford brought some victories and some losses for AFT-Connecticut and its affiliates.  Click the link below for a summary of the legislative session.

Click Here

Apprenticeship programs are making a comback across the country.  Click here for details.

Pride @ Work Conference

By Valerie Stewart, Instructor, CT Aero Tech School

A record number of national union leaders joined LGBT activists and allies at the Pride at Work Triennial Convention in Cleveland, Ohio recently. Among the union leaders who called for equal rights at the convention were Veda Shook, International President of the Association of Flight Attendants; Lee Saunders, President of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME); Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT); Augusta Thomas, National Vice President of the

The joint Education, Higher Ed, and Labor Committees of the Connecticut General Aasembly held a hearing recently to discuss the CTHSS.  Many topics including the budget, trade offerings, and the new CTHSS Board were discussed.  Watch the hearing on CT-N here.

The SVFT sent a contingent of helpers to Coney Island, New York on November 10th as part of AFT's Storm Sandy Relief Effort.  AFT-Connecticut chartered a bus and our members helped fill it with food, clothing, and personal care supplies that were distributed to folks struggling to recover from the storma that washed away homes, schools, and businesses in New York and New Jersey.  The SVFT attendeees included Kate Norton (Special Ed. DH at Goodwin), Chris Sansone (Carpentry DH at O'Brien), Mary Torres (English teacher at O'Brien), Nicole Conti (SVFT Office Manager and an OPEIU member), and the

Felicia Williams, a mathematics teacher at Wilcox Tech in Meriden, has been named the 2012-2013 Connecticut Technical High School’s Teacher of the Year.  An eleven-year veteran, Felicia was selected from a group of seventeen Teachers of the Year, each selected by their peers at one of the system’s schools last spring.  After completing a detailed questionnaire, and an interview before our president, Jan Hochadel, and the superintendent, Felicia was chosen to represent our system in competition for Connecticut’s Teacher of the Year.

Felicia’s road to becoming Teacher of the Year is a

Many of you know Steve Bourque, Plumbing instructor and SVFT building rep at Eli Whitney as an all-around great guy.  But what you may not know about Steve is that in addition to the roles he plays in our system, he is also the president of a foundation that has raised and then donated tens of thousands of dollars to help families fight cancer. Recently, the Michael Bourque Memorial Fund for Children, and Steve its President, donated $43,000 they had raised to Yale’s Smilow Cancer Center for Children.

In 1972, Steve’s brother, Michael, was diagnosed with Osteosarcoma.  Sadly, he passed away