When Labor Became Global: How Unions Sold Out American Schools

Labor Day is observed as a Federal holiday on the first Monday in September in the U.S., marking the unofficial end of summer and the beginning of a new school year. Does this bring optimism or anxiety to the minds and hearts of parents? Internationally, there are many Labor Day observances on May 1st or early May. So, what is the U.S.A.’s Labor Day all about?

Placing Labor Day, as a Federal holiday, on the first Monday of September rather than on May 1, was deliberate. President Cleveland and Congress sought to dissociate the U.S. holiday from the radical labor movements and socialist ideologies associated with the strikes and demonstrations that led up to the 1886 Chicago Haymarket Affair, where an American Federation of Labor (AFL) protest rally advocating for an eight-hour workday turned deadly. A September date had already been used by many states and labor organizations, making for an easy shift. The Federal government hoped to honor American workers while distancing the holiday from its militant, violent national and politically adversarial international associations.

As years passed, some key functions of labor unions and professional credentialing associations began to be transferred, shared or otherwise comingled, such as; advocating for their work areas in all levels of government, establishing knowledge/ skills competency expectations, providing ongoing professional development aligned with their social and political preferences, defining the expected scope of services, responsibilities and payment, to name only a few. For decades, the public has relied on both unions and professional associations to fulfill their competency responsibilities, ensuring a fair return on both personal and tax dollars spent. Much of the general public believed that the process of training for certification or licensure was trustworthy enough to outsource the education of our children to school personnel.

Was this trust well placed?

Looking at the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) calls that into question. These are the two largest teachers’ and education workers’ associations in the U.S., and their historical and current actions are concerning.

From 1983 to 1989, Mary Futrell served as President of the U.S. NEA while also holding the position of President of the World Confederation of Organizations of Teaching Professionals (WOTP), which had merged with the World Confederation of Organizations of Teaching Professions (WCOTP) a few years earlier. Both organizations have been advocates for global citizenship.

Both Futrell and Shanker held positions of national and international influence in the teachers’ advocacy sphere for many years, building personal prestige, profits, and political power by serving wealthy, self-appointed humanist socialist elites. These elites sought to globalize socialism through worldwide pseudo-philanthropic child-focused activities, especially in education.

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT), Chicago were very far left-leaning: Charles Stillman, (first president) and Margaret Haley (co-founder) were both published socialist, John Dewey, another co-founder, referred to himself as a secular humanist and co-founded both the New York Humanist Society and the Freedom From Religion Foundation. The Bible states that man reaps what he sows (Genesis 8:22), so it can hardly be a surprise that the AFT promotes socialist and humanist worldviews in K-12 education.

Recently, AFT’s President from 1974 to the 1990s, Albert Shanker, was simultaneously president of the International Federation of Free Teachers’ Unions (IFFTU), a socialist organization, and a member of the Social Democrats U.S.A. In 1993, the WCOTP and the IFFTU merged to form Education International (EI), a global union federation for education professionals, representing more than 32 million teachers and education support personnel in 178 countries and territories, while Shanker was still president of the AFT.

In 2001, AFT and NEA formed a formal partnership. They work together as EI members, advancing the UN/WEF Agenda 21/2030 to ‘reimagine schools’ as replacements for family and church, centers for health, food, and shelter, while training the public to serve as ‘worker bees’ for the global oligarchs of the WEF, UN, and select NGO leaders. A sample of these elite ‘usual suspects’ includes Big Tech companies like IBM and Microsoft, corporate philanthropies such as Lego and Bayer, and other heavily funded nonprofits like the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Agenda 21/Agenda 2030 is also called the Great Reset or Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). EI is a key supporter, positioned as the ‘authority’ in education. It promotes UNESCO’s Global Education Coalition and the WEF’s partner nonprofit or for-profit companies – which are likely to be businesses near you.

President Trump is withdrawing the U.S. from UNESCO and rejecting the WHO International Health Regulations, but will that really make a difference when the two largest American education unions are so intertwined with international organizations affiliated with and consistently promoting the UN, WEF, and other international globalist entities?

The 4IR relies heavily on extensive data mining, which schools now carry out through “assessments” and “evaluations.” For the technocrat partners and stakeholders, an international oligarchy, this data is used with AI to establish a version of Social Credit Score slavery in the U.S. These non-governmental entities aim to replace genuine constitutional democratic governance while keeping their operations hidden behind a façade.

Grants and government contracts have been fueling this education shift and continue to do so. Once the tipping point is reached, the funding will likely change dramatically.

Charter schools, Social Emotional Learning (SEL), virtual learning programs, AI, and public-private partnerships, often presented as “school choice,” are strategic methods for transferring government data and responsibilities to private corporate third-party contractors, whose involvement is frequently hidden to reduce public accountability. Although these partnerships claim to include ‘community stakeholders,’ the community members, often appointed, often face conflicts of interest due to financial or service-reception ties.

This Labor Day, instead of international non-profit organizations reimagining U.S. education to fit their tech revolution agenda, let’s do the reimagining. Let’s reshape the trajectory of education in the U.S. for this and future generations. Let’s free teachers to educate rather than
indoctrinate; reinstate integrity as a personal and community value; ensure subject content enables youth to do math and develop personal communication skills not reliant on devices, and love our neighbors as ourselves (Leviticus 18:19, Matthew 22:39). Let’s invest our time
and talent in our children’s education rooted in a Biblical Worldview as our legacy.