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American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Edward McElroy and Secretary-Treasurer Nat LaCour said they will not seek re-election during the July 2008 AFT convention in Chicago, where more than 2,000 delegates will vote for AFT president, secretary-treasurer, executive vice president and 39 vice presidents. The winning candidates will assume their posts immediately.
McElroy has served as AFT president since 2004. He was secretary-treasurer for 12 years prior to that, during the presidencies of Albert Shanker and Sandra Feldman.
He began his career as a teacher in Rhode Island, and was elected president of the Warwick (R.I.) Teachers Union in 1967. At age 30, he became president of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and president of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO, two positions he held until 1992, when he came to Washington, D.C., to represent members of the 1.4-million-member national federation.
During McElroy’s 16-year tenure as a national officer, the AFT has added more than 500,000 new members nationwide. Under his direction, the AFT dramatically expanded its member-to-member political outreach efforts, including the creation of the Activists for Congressional Education program, through which AFT members forge relationships with their congressional delegation.
McElroy’s dedication to the labor movement reaches beyond U.S. borders. He has been recognized for his active involvement in the international democratic trade union movement, serving on the boards of Education International and the National Endowment for Democracy.
LaCour is the first to hold the post of AFT executive vice president, a position to which he was elected in 1998. In 2004, he was elected AFT secretary-treasurer and became a member of the AFL-CIO executive council.
Prior to coming to Washington, D.C., LaCour led the United Teachers of New Orleans for 28 years, a union that under his guidance in 1974 became the first teachers union in the Deep South to obtain a collective bargaining agreement with a local school district — notably accomplished in a state without a collective bargaining law.
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LaCour chaired the AFT Organizing Committee and is a founding member of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.
He has led the AFT Disaster Relief Fund, which is a unionwide effort to assist members affected by catastrophes, such as Hurricane Katrina and the other devastating storms to hit the Gulf Coast.