In the weeks leading up to the Democratic Primary on Sept. 10, the UFT has pulled out all the stops in its campaign to make sure that Bill Thompson will be elected the next mayor of New York.

Since its Delegate Assembly voted overwhelmingly to endorse him for mayor on June 19, the union has run an aggressive campaign in support of Thompson — a former city comptroller and Board of Education president whose late mother was a teacher at Bedford-Stuyvesant’s PS 262 for 30 years.

Over the summer, union members have turned out to show their support for Thompson at press conferences, debates and town hall meetings, and events.

Jacqui Endelson, the chapter leader at PS 132 in Manhattan, was one of several hundred union members gathered to support Thompson at a labor breakfast in northern Manhattan before the Dominican Day Parade on Aug. 11.

“Bloomberg knows nothing about education and Thompson does,” Endelson said. “Thompson understands what teaching is all about because his mother was a teacher and he saw how hard she worked.”

Adhim DeVeaux, the chapter leader at the Bronx’s Academy of History and Citizenship for Young Men, came out to support Thompson at an Aug. 12 press conference on disparities in health care and outcomes between white and African-American New Yorkers.

“We’ve had 20 years of anti-teacher mayors so it’s time we have a mayor who supports educators,” DeVeaux said.

During a widely covered 24-hour campaign blitz on Aug. 1-2, UFT members met Thompson at Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn, the Staten Island Ferry in lower Manhattan and at a transit hub in Harlem. The union has also invited the candidate and his wife to backpack giveaways and other union-sponsored events.

“We’re working hard every day to support and promote his candidacy,” said Jason Goldman, the political action staffer managing the union’s campaign. “Whatever we can do to help, we’re there.”

Several thousand UFT members and staff have also volunteered their time at the phone banks that the union opened in all five of its borough offices at the end of July. Those volunteers have made well over 100,000 calls to their colleagues to encourage them to volunteer and vote for Thompson.

Retiree Norma Peek, who was phone banking for Thompson at the Manhattan borough office, stressed how much is riding on this election. “It’ll be a new day for our schools if Thompson is elected,” she said. “We’ll have more parents involved and more teachers involved.”

For another retiree, Grace Witko, it was simple disgust with the Bloomberg era that motivated her to hit the phones.

“If we don’t do it, there’s nobody else who will,” she said. “If we don’t do it, we will be in the same boat we have been in for the last 12 years.”

All of this activity was only intensifying as the primary drew nearer.

“We’re launching our most extensive get-out-the-vote effort ever in the days before the primary,” Mulgrew said. “The stakes are that high.”