Politics and appreciation were the hot topics at the 52nd annual Retired Teachers Chapter Luncheon at the Hilton Hotel in Manhattan, where more than 400 retirees — some veterans of retirement and others just rounding out their first year — gathered on June 1 to honor service and to celebrate friendship and union solidarity.

At the morning awards ceremony, John Soldini, the winner of the Tom Pappas Award for outstanding service to the RTC, hit hard at politics today. He called on all retirees to join “the struggle against the myopic view of powerful people who want to make us a third-world country by destroying Social Security, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act and other institutions.”

He also thanked the UFT for encouraging retirees to remain active.

Doris Meyer and Olga Stylianos, who shared the Fanny Simon Award for outstanding achievement and human rights, struck similar tones.

Meyer called the luncheon “a celebration of our solidarity” and reminded everyone that “our voices are needed to support the dignity of all labor.”

Stylianos noted that “the UFT has always supported human rights and it’s my privilege to belong.”

Retired Teachers Chapter Leader Tom Murphy called the UFT “one seamless union committed to one another in and out of service.” He urged retirees to mobilize for political action in the upcoming presidential campaign.

UFT President Michael Mulgrew warned the celebrants of “big problems ahead for workers, especially union workers” if conservatives who now control Congress and the Supreme Court take the White House, too.

With growing attacks on pensions and collective bargaining, and with more states enacting right-to-work laws, he cautioned retirees, ”Don’t let what happened to others happen to us.”

Acknowledging retirees’ historic commitment to UFT struggles, he called on RTC members to come to the aid of ”the millions of people in our country who need our help. Let’s do this together.”

Mulgrew also took a swipe at Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s disastrous education proposals and his TV commercials “that no one believes.” He credited the UFT for Cuomo’s plummeting approval rating.

On a gentler note, Mulgrew reminded everyone that we now have “a helpful mayor fulfilling his obligations to retirees and keeping the city on track” after “20 years of City Hall battering.”

For 10 years Charles Castrovinci has been a regular at the luncheons because he likes “meeting new people and seeing old friends.” Active with the UFT Players, one of the union’s professional committees, he said that he is grateful for all the UFT does for retirees. “Most people get nothing,” he noted.

Enjoying her first year of retirement with new artistic and intellectual discoveries, Shelley Grant considers her retiree benefits “a blessing” while recognizing the importance of fending off “attacks on Social Security and everything else.”

New York State United Teachers Vice President Paul Pecorale joined Mulgrew and Murphy in applauding the work that RTC member Donesa Jackson has done in building coalitions among labor and community allies in the Orlando area of Florida and then mobilizing them to turn out voters for Democratic victories in that key state. Winner of the NYSUT Retiree of the Year Award, she expressed appreciation for the UFT training she received as a chapter leader and activist in her “journey to now.”

She holds firm, she said, to her guiding principle: “Once a union member, always a union member.”

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Jonathan Fickies

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Jonathan Fickies