Since our founding as a union in 1916, the AFT has identified with, participated in and championed the cause of organized labor. Our ranks include teachers, paraprofessionals and school-related personnel, early childhood educators, higher education faculty and staff, nurses and health professionals, and state and local government employees. What binds us together is a commitment to solidarity with workers everywhere and to the quality of the services we provide and the public we serve.

As a community of professionals in unison with all working people, we are committed collectively to advancing human rights, opportunity, social and economic justice, freedom of conscience and expression, unfettered civic and political participation, fairness at work, tolerance, democracy and security at home and abroad. The AFT stands for the right of individuals everywhere to form and participate in voluntary democratic, civic, cultural, religious and fraternal institutions for self-help, worship, advocacy and mutual support.

Free, democratic and independent labor unions are the hallmarks of free societies. We are committed to achieving the rights of all workers - irrespective of nationality, citizenship, or employment sector or status - to organize and represent their individual and collective workplace, economic, occupational and professional interests wherever such rights are effectively denied in the United States and throughout the world.

We are committed to the principle of self-determination, fair play, responsiveness and accountability in union governance. Working people and the public are entitled to know that the unions representing their interests are honest, participatory and unflinchingly and exclusively devoted to the common good.

We believe that solidarity within and among the members of the AFT, other labor organizations, and those workers soon to be organized is vital to building a movement with the legitimacy and authoritative power to speak effectively for working people and bring their influence to bear at work, in the economy, the practice of our professions and in the determination of domestic and international policy.

We believe in the transformational power of universal free public education as the engine for enabling individuals to achieve their personal aspirations while producing a free, informed, tolerant, united, engaged and productive citizenry. We believe in the common school where children from all races, religions, national origins and economic classes are brought together to participate in a quality education characterized by high standards, a challenging curriculum, effective instruction, a safe and dignified learning environment, mutual tolerance and respect, and an appreciation for the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.

We believe that individuals are entitled to enjoy the fruits of their industry and enterprise, and that mutual responsibility and solidarity create the conditions necessary for nurturing individuality, the attainment of personal and collective ambitions, and the competition and cooperation that characterize humane, strong, democratic and productive societies.

We believe in the liberating force and potential of ideas and their free expression in the advancement of scientific and social progress, in raising the standard of living for all, and in the establishment of international freedom and peace. We take seriously the imperative to participate actively in the political process at all levels, and to promote human rights throughout the world.

We are guided by a commitment to building a society where all people have:

• The right to an excellent free universal public education

• Freedom of association, conscience and expression

• Fair and decent working conditions and wages

• Accessible quality healthcare regardless of income

• Dignified work and dignified retirement

• Decent housing and responsive public services

• A clean and healthful environment

• Security and peace

• And a government that promotes opportunity, collective and individual initiative and freedom, protects against discrimination and exploitation, and evens the playing field in curbing abuses of concentrated power and privilege

These are the enduring values and principles that guided earlier generations of AFT members in overcoming the challenges of their times, that built unions where none existed, gained rights where there weren’t any, won equality before the law where there had been discrimination and injustice, and asserted a role for quality and high standards where professional voice previously had been denied.

It is a vision we reaffirm as we meet the challenges of our own times and those that lie ahead.