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4 ADVOCATE | SUMMER 2024 IN SOLIDARITY by Marisol Garcia AEA OFFICERS Marisol Garcia President Angela Philpot Vice President Amber Gould Treasurer AEA STAFF John Wright Interim Executive Director Emily Kirkland Editor Roxanne Rash Graphic Design Advertising e AEA Advocate is published by the Arizona Education Association, 345 East Palm Lane, Phoenix, Arizona 85004-1532. Phone: 602- 264-1774 or 800-352-5411 Fax: 602-240-6887. Email: Emily.Kirkland@ArizonaEA.org. AEA's website may be found at www.arizonaea.org. Permission to reprint any material originating with this publication is granted provided that credit is given to the AEA Advocate. e AEA Advocate (ISSN 0194-8849) is published in Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer for $3.50 per year by the Arizona Education Association, 345 East Palm Lane, Phoenix, AZ 85004-1532. Periodicals postage paid at Phoenix, Arizona. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to the AEA Advocate, 345 East Palm Lane, Phoenix, AZ 85004-1532. Moving? Please let us know before you go. Simply clip your mailing label from the back of the Advocate and send it along with your new address to: AEA Advocate 345 East Palm Lane Phoenix, Arizona 85004-1532 Marisol Garcia, President Arizona Education Association Dear all, Over the past few months, I've found myself returning again and again to a quote from Jane McAlevey: "We are up against serious power. We need serious skills to win. Unity + structure = the power to win big." Some of you know Jane; we were lucky enough to have her speak to a meeting of the Presidents' Organizing Council last year, and some of us have had the opportunity to participate in her training programs. For those who aren't familiar with Jane's work, I encourage you to check out her most famous book, No Shortcuts, or any of the many videos or podcasts in which she's featured. She has spent decades doing union work, and her erce commitment to organizing has had a huge impact on our union and on the entire American labor movement. As educators, we know that our students and our communities, and our own families, deserve better than the status quo. And yet it can be hard to believe in our own power to make change. Jane's right: we are up against serious obstacles, from apathy and disengagement to the outright hostility of people determined to dismantle Arizona's public schools. And yet when we work together—when we're skilled, and strategic, and disciplined—we can win big. Jane McAlevey has done it over and over with nurses and educators and all kinds of workers. And we're on our way to doing it here. Our union is one of the fastest-growing educator unions in the country (2,095 net new members in the last 12 months!) And every month, more of our locals are at majority status, meaning that 50% or more of the eligible employees in the district are union members. As you'll read about in the pages that follow, our members are working together to gure out solutions to the problems that a ect us day-to-day, from low salaries to high turnover to student codes of conduct. And then we're nding ways to put our solutions into practice. With every new member we add, we have more power and more of a voice. As I told 500 AEA members at our Delegate Assembly last month, we're in our union era now. I can't wait to see where we go next. In solidarity,