Randi Weingarten

Rhonda "Randi" Weingarten (born December 18, 1957) is an American labor leader, attorney, and educator.

She is president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and a member of the AFL-CIO.

She is the former president of the United Federation of Teachers.

Weingarten was born in 1957 in New York City, to a Jewish family, Gabriel and Edith (Appelbaum) Weingarten.

Her father was an electrical engineer and her mother a teacher.

Weingarten grew up in Rockland County, New York, and attended Clarkstown High School North in New City, New York.

A congregant of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, she considers herself a deeply religious Jew.

Weingarten's interest in trade unions and political advocacy was formed during childhood.

Her mother's union went on a seven-week strike when Weingarten was in the eleventh grade.

Under New York state's Taylor Law, her mother could have been fired for taking part in a strike.

Instead, she was fined two days' pay for every day she was on strike.

Later that year, the school board cut $2 million from the budget.

Weingarten and several other students convinced the school board to let them conduct a survey regarding the impact of the cuts.

The survey led several school board members to change their minds and rescind the cuts.

From 1979 to 1980, Weingarten was a legislative assistant for the Labor Committee of the New York State Senate.

She received a B.S. degree in labor relations from the ILR School at Cornell University in 1980 and a J.D. degree from the Yeshiva University Cardozo School of Law in 1983.

Weingarten worked as a lawyer for the firm of Stroock & Stroock & Lavan from 1983 to 1986, where she handled several acrimonious arbitration cases on behalf of the UFT.

She was appointed an adjunct instructor at the Cardozo School of Law in 1986.

She also worked as an attorney in the real estate department of Wien Malkin and Bettex.

In 1986, Weingarten became counsel to Sandra Feldman, then-president of the UFT.

Weingarten handled high-level grievances for the union.

She was also lead counsel for the union in a number of lawsuits against New York City and the state of New York over school funding and school safety.

By the early 1990s, she was the union's primary negotiator in UFT contract negotiations.

From 1991 to 1997 she taught at Clara Barton High School in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

The classes she taught included Law, Ethical Issues in Medicine, AP Political Science, and US History and Government.

Weingarten was one of two coaches for the school's team for the 1995 We the People civics competition.

The team won the New York State championship and moved on to the national championship where they finished in 4th place.

Elected the UFT's treasurer in 1997, Weingarten succeeded Sandra Feldman as president of the union a year later when Feldman was elected president of the national American Federation of Teachers.

Weingarten was elected a Vice President of the AFT the same year.

Weingarten was reelected by consistently wide margins after her initial appointment in 1998.

The local union's constitution required her to run for the UFT presidency within a year of her appointment.

She received 74 percent of the vote against two opponents in 1999 and served the final two years of Feldman's term.

Weingarten began negotiating her first contract as UFT president in 2000.

Talks with the Giuliani administration began in early September 2000, but the contract expired on November 15, 2000, without a new agreement.

She ran in 2001 for a full term and was re-elected.

She won her third full three-year term with more than 88 percent of the vote, despite having two opposing candidates.

By March 2001, the talks deadlocked, and a state mediator was called in.

On March 30, 2007, Weingarten won reelection to a fourth term as UFT President, garnering 87 percent of the vote.

Weingarten stepped down from her post as president of the United Federation of Teachers on July 31, 2009.

An opinion piece in the New York Post on January 16, 2011, characterized Weingarten's final paycheck from the UFT—which included payments for unused vacation days and sick time—as a $194,188 "golden parachute."