Randi Weingarten is the newly elected President of the more than 1.4-million-member American Federation of Teachers(AFT), which represents teachers; paraprofessionals and school-related personnel; higher education faculty and staff; nurses and other healthcare professionals; and local, state and federal employees. As an AFT vice president since 1997, she has been involved in every major AFT policy initiative of the last decade. Weingarten also served on the AFT executive committee and the democracy committee, and headed the professional compensation committee. She has acted as an emissary for the national AFT in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Ms. Weingarten also continues to serve as the President of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), AFT Local 2—a position she has held since 1998—representing 110,000 non-supervisory educators in the New York City public school system, as well as home child care providers and other workers in health, law and education.

In addition, Ms. Weingarten leads New York City’s Municipal Labor Committee (MLC), an umbrella organization for the city's 100-plus public sector unions, including those representing higher education and other public service workers. As MLC chair for the past 10 years, she coordinates labor negotiations and bargains for benefits on behalf of the unions’ 365,000 members.

From 1986 to 1998, Ms. Weingarten served as counsel to UFT President Sandra Feldman, taking a lead role in contract negotiations and enforcement, and in lawsuits in which the union fought for adequate school funding and building conditions. A teacher of history at Clara Barton High School in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights from 1991 to 1997, Weingarten helped her students win several state and national awards debating constitutional issues.

Elected as the union's assistant secretary in 1995 and as treasurer two years later, she became the UFT President after Feldman became president of the AFT. She was elected to her first full term the following year, and has been re-elected three times since by ratios of more than 3-to-1.

Under Weingarten’s leadership, UFT membership rose by 35 percent to more than 200,000, including 28,000 home-based child care providers for whom she helped win collective bargaining rights in the largest labor organizing drive in New York City in almost half a century. In addition, salaries of UFT-represented public school employees increased by 43 percent under contracts she negotiated between 2002 and 2008.

Weingarten holds degrees from Cornell University School of Industrial Relations and the Cardozo School of Law. She worked as a lawyer for the Wall Street firm of Stroock & Stroock & Lavan from 1983 to 1986. She is an active member of the Democratic National Committee and numerous professional, civic and philanthropic organizations.