"American Federation of Teachers" David Selden Signed FDC Dated 1957 For Sale

Up for sale "American Federation of Teachers" David Selden Signed First Day Cover Dated 1957.  

ES-4164E

David Selden (June 5, 1914 – May

8, 1998) was an American activist who led the American Federation of Teachers from

1968 through 1974. As Director of Organization of the Teachers Guild from 1953, he was a main strategist in the

creation of the United Federation of Teachers in

1960 and the winning of collective bargaining in 1961. During that time he

mentored several UFT staff people, including Burke Probitsky and Robert

Lieberman and elected leaders. Among them was one he was particularly close to:

a junior high school teacher named Albert Shanker. Shanker often paid tribute to Selden, saying

that all he knew about union organizing he had learned from Selden. Selden left

UFT in 1968 upon winning election as president of the American Federation of

Teachers. (In AFT, unlike its rival, the National Education Association,

staff members are eligible to run for elective office. Most UFT, AFT, and other

large AFT affiliates are headed by former staff people.) With the merger of the

AFT and NEA affiliates in New York State in 1972, AFT became a major national

union. Selden's new prominence as head of a major union, and his opposition to

the Vietnam War, landed him on the master list of

Nixon political opponents. The New York merger also meant that AFT

had grown large enough for George Meany, president of the AFL-CIO, to judge that the teachers' union deserved a seat on

the Big Labor's all-powerful executive council. AFL-CIO rules then required a

council member to hold "a unique constitutional office" in his own

union. In the AFT only the president and the secretary-treasurer held such

offices. Shanker, now head of AFT's New York City local, the United Federation

of Teachers, was one of two dozen AFT vice presidents; he held, that is, a

constitutionally non-unique position. But he wanted that AFL-CIO Council seat;

and Meany, a hawk on Vietnam who had denied the dovish George McGovern labor's endorsement two years earlier,

would not give the seat to the equally dovish Selden. Shanker, equally a hawk,

had the AFT executive council create the position of "executive vice

president" and elect him, Shanker, to the position. Though the AFT

constitution said nothing about an executive vice president, Meany wanted

Shanker and Meany persuaded the AFL-CIO Council to add Shanker to its ranks. Sensitive

to criticism of the two power plays—Meany's and his own—Shanker challenged his

erstwhile friend and mentor Selden for the AFT presidency in 1974. He lined up

nearly all the other AFT vice presidents in support of his candidacy. At the

AFT's annual convention that year, in Toronto, Shanker buried Selden, winning

almost 80 percent of the delegates' votes. Selden retreated to Michigan where

he remained active for several years in various union posts, including a spell

as executive director of a local American

Association of University Professors chapter. He died in Kalamazoo, Michigan, of

heart failure, a complication of a stroke he suffered two years prior.