The American Federation of Teachers hosts periodic conferences, with retirees from all over the country in attendance. It is an excellent opportunity for interconnecting and getting a bird’s-eye view of what is happening nationally and in localities from Oregon to Florida; Massachusetts through the Midwest to Southern California. I was one of the three RTC delegates at the conference in Washington, D.C., from Nov. 19 to 21.

Needless to say, the UFT, as the flagship AFT local with a retiree membership of 60,000 members, plays an important role for what we do in the greater New York City area and in areas where our members now reside. We and NYSUT are looked to for guidance and as models in developing retiree chapters in areas where there is continued growth.

AFT Chief of Staff Mark Richards set the tone as the first speaker. As a longtime union organizer and activist himself, he talked about union members such as us as agents of change — whether at age 16 or 60 — who believe that the world can be a better place; that our badge of activism is in us and in the DNA of those who came before us.

Think of the labor laws of the early 1900s, the New Deal commitment to concern for those in need including employment and Social Security, the 1960s push for integration, education and Medicare. There was a sense of a call to duty along with a sense of how to organize.

He asked: Is it episodic, coming and going by generation? Or is it always there? The question we must face is one of looking at the next group of union members who follow us to see if that “paradigm of activism” will continue with the passion and skills needed to fight against regressive forces and to advance the cause of progressive labor. (My immediate thoughts went to how in-service and retired members together responded to Michael Mulgrew’s recent call to arms in the mayoral and comptroller races as more than reassurance that UFTers are there to continue the battle with vigor.)

Richards said the technology has changed the town square in which we operate and we have to celebrate access to one another in social media or lose our advantage. To show how many of us are living up to the old notion that we’d sooner leaflet than go fishing, he cited how many of us — with our busy calendars and even in medical waiting rooms — are working our smartphones, still doing social and political good. He noted that we make good use of our Ph.D.s in activism. Mark finished by quoting Randi Weingarten: We have to delve into where the action is.

Bill Cunningham from the AFT legislative department, who has been a guest speaker at many UFT/RTC meetings over the years, also made a presentation. His focus was on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in the context of the recurring budget, debt-ceiling and fiscal cliff, from sequestration through continuing crises.

The AFT’s eye is ever vigilant whenever a “Grand Bargain” or a “mini Grand Bargain” threatens to weaken programs that are not entitlements in our view but earned benefits. The AFT’s three current goals are big: 1. to end sequestration with its automatic cuts that would make education, health, jobs and transportation all suffer; 2. to prevent benefit cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid; 3. to support progressive tax increases to wealthy individuals and corporations to pay for essential programs.

Whatever differences retirees from across the country may have, they are united in a common national purpose to continue the work and benefits built by our predecessors over the decades.