Retired Teachers Chapter News
New retirees: Join our ranks
Oct 1, 2009 4:13 PM
The UFT Retiree Chapter is a vigorous and dynamic combination of senior stalwarts who, along with those who joined the ranks of activists a little later, worked hard to build this union and our chapter into the powerhouse it is today.
But I think we need to heed the advice of an old gardener: If you want your lilacs to prosper, be certain the shrubbery has a good combination of new wood, middle growth and strong, older branches.
So to ensure our chapter’s continued vigorous growth, the stalwarts, the middlers and I must be on the lookout for newer retirees to join our activist ranks.
There are certainly plenty of incentives that should attract our recent retirees.
First let’s consider the altruistic reasons for becoming an activist. As retiring AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney said at the recent AFL-CIO convention: We must continue to fight “to protect the dreams we share ... and our enduring mission of improving the lives of working families, bringing fairness and dignity to our workplaces and securing economic and social equity in our nation.”
That’s a challenge we have always responded to and that calls on all of us — new and seasoned — working in solidarity to accomplish. And that means political action. The RTC has always been in the forefront of political battles, not just for our own ends but for the greater good of the entire body politic.
Right now we face an epic battle for meaningful health care reform. In his speech to a joint session of Congress, President Barack Obama made an impassioned plea to provide health insurance for those currently without it and disputed myths and outright lies about death panels. He said he would not accept the status quo as a solution and vowed, “I will not back down on the basic principle that if Americans can’t find affordable coverage, we will provide you with a choice.”
We helped elect Barack Obama because he promised change. Now we can’t let him down. We must help him accomplish those changes. While seniors across the country have been vulnerable to the lies about death panels and losing the Medicare coverage they depend on, UFT retirees have not been taken in by those lies. We must find ways to convince our fellow seniors — our relatives, friends, neighbors, even strangers — that the Obama plan will not endanger Medicare coverage and our current benefits.
We also need everyone’s help to pass the Employee Free Choice Act that would help millions of American workers improve their lives by making it easier to form unions.
Beyond altruism there are more selfish concerns to keep us on our toes and keep all of us connected. We must be very wary of retiree complacency. It’s true that UFT retirees enjoy the best retiree benefit package among American educators and our union continues to fight to protect and improve that package. But we are not immune to the economic chaos that surrounds us. The pressure to cut is intense at every level of government. As the school year begins, budget cuts are threatening class size, programs and jobs, and that’s right on our doorstep.
Our in-service brothers and sisters will be facing contract negotiations this fall and may need our help. When we were still teaching, retirees helped us make the great strides in bargaining contracts that, over the years, brought us improved working conditions and salary increases that have added significantly to our pensions.
Now it’s our turn to help those coming up behind us.
Beyond the political incentives to become an activist retiree, the UFT provides a broad array of social services available to you and to your families no matter where you live in the United States and a wide choice of classes, seminars and field trips to provide lifelong learning. There will be more details about these services and programs provided by the specialists who coordinate them in future columns.
The UFT engages its retirees unlike any other union not just by providing extensive services and programs and actively working to improve our benefits but by constitutionally keeping us connected. Retirees are active members of the union’s Executive Board, monthly Delegate Assemblies and state and national conventions.
The union makes it easy to stay active. For those of you who move away from the metropolitan area, there are retiree sections across the country, as well as in Israel and Puerto Rico. You can keep track of all this activity in the pages of the New York Teacher, or at our Web site, www.uft.org.
We’ll have a chance to talk directly to our newest retirees at their luncheon on Nov. 9 at the Hilton Hotel in Manhattan. Join us and meet Michael Mulgrew, our new UFT president.
