On January 3, 1961, his first day of work as a high school biology teacher in New Orleans, Nat LaCour signed up with the American Federation of Teachers. The academic year had begun four months late thanks to local turmoil over school integration. LaCour knew the AFT had supported integrated schools when many others in Louisiana were silent and he was determined to join. That decision was the beginning of a 47-year-long commitment that would take LaCour to the highest reaches of the union movement.
He first came to national attention in the American Federation of Teachers and the entire movement in 1974 when New Orleans teachers under his leadership achieved what many believed was impossible. In the Deep South — and in a state with no law providing collective bargaining for public employees — the United Teachers of New Orleans became the first teachers union in the history of their region to win a contract through collective bargaining with a local school district.
Throughout that struggle, LaCour showed the same passion for justice, strategic imagination, and ability to bring people together that he has shown throughout his career in the AFT.
His union sisters and brothers chose him as the AFT's Executive Vice-President in 1998, then as Secretary-Treasurer in 2004 until his retirement last month. Perhaps his most important among many achievements was helping new members organize. LaCour served in the critical role of chair of the AFT's organizing task force. Thanks in large part to his vision and hard work, the Teachers are a powerful example of a union that defies right-wing ideologues and union-busters and helps hundreds of thousands of working people join its ranks.
As a member of the AFL-CIO Executive Council, LaCour is involved in a wide range of issues and concerns in the union movement. He is a member of the Council's committees on Capital Stewardship, International Affairs, Organizing, Finance and the Health Care reform campaign. As chair of the Civil and Human Rights Committee, LaCour has been a strong voice on behalf of civil and human rights in our country. And as co-chair of the AFL-CIO Special Committee on Diversity, he has pursued that commitment inside the labor movement, playing a pivotal role in implementing Resolution 2, the blueprint for the AFL-CIO and affiliates to achieve diversity and better reflect our members.
We thank Nat LaCour for all he has accomplished and wish him many happy years in retirement with his wife Connie and their family.