Randi Weingarten’s Political Influence

Mercedes Schneider speculates on Randi Weingarten’s influence on politics on huffingtonpost.com.  Weingarten is president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) the second largest teacher union, but also a member of the 12.5-million AFL-CIO.

Democratic presidential nominees must secure the AFL-CIO endorsement if they hope to move forward in the presidential run. AFL-CIO currently consists of 56 unions representing 12.5 million workers.

AFL-CIO unions are proportionally represented by delegates. AFT has 1.5 million members.

Given its membership numbers, AFT has a lot of pull in the AFL-CIO — which means that Randi Weingarten has a lot of pull.