Summer vacation for retirees can be any month just as retiree weekends can be any two days ending in y. Because so many retirees have committed the free time that retirement provides to union organizing and political activities they have become known as the UFT’s Daytime Army and they are mobilizing all across the country.

New Arizona UFT/RTC Section Coordinator Jerry Weissman and the more that 300 retirees now living there supported the ferment when that state’s teachers took a lead from those in West Virginia, Oklahoma and elsewhere who decided to stand up for their professional and economic well-being. UFT Arizona resident retirees watched events like the rally in Phoenix, the state capital, and the passionate lobbying efforts of their brothers and sisters through their UFT eyes.

They joined their colleagues in solidarity, pressing government officials to respond to their demands to improve public education for students and teachers. It was a very UFT thing to witness. You can take the boy out of New York City, but you can’t take New York City out of the boy. Jerry’s UFT DNA guides him still.

Two recent UFT retirees have also jumped into the fray of union activism. Christine Rowland, a Tampa Bay area transplant from New York, and Joe Sicilian, a Staten Island homeboy, signed up for an intense AFT training session in early May in Albuquerque, New Mexico, spending five days immersed in labor organizing techniques. Included in the course were such things as phone banking, door knocking and the use of social media for communicating with members.

Christine is already sharing her newly honed skills in political campaigns in Florida, working alongside Lynne Winderbaum, our Tampa Bay retiree coordinator, and Stewart Cohen, our Sarasota retiree coordinator. Our west coast of Florida members are building a powerhouse operation that is carrying the union message at a time when we need it most.

Joe has also been making use of those skills. In Albuquerque, he was door-knocking on behalf of Democratic candidates and all three won their primary races. As part of the UFT’s door-knocking campaign to reach out one-on-one to every UFT member, knowing that such member engagement is the best way to fight back against the anti-labor venom so apparent in the Janus case, Joe reports, “The union pulse is very strong.” Both here and in New Mexico, he said, no one has been rude or dismissive. “I never got the sense that people didn’t care,” he said.

Joe is also participating in a Labor to Neighbor Congressional Primary campaign in the Brooklyn/Staten Island 11th Congressional District.

The work of these members follows in the footsteps of UFT retirees who, over the years, have spent days and weeks at a time in other states such as Wisconsin and Texas, helping fellow unionists in political and organizational campaigns.

When UFT President Michael Mulgrew refers to the RTC as the Daytime Army, these activist retirees are the ones who fill his ranks and platoons.

Looking ahead to November offers us the opportunity to bring our nation back to the sanity of labor’s progressive agenda. Let’s hope that after the November election campaigns are over we can celebrate winning back the Congress and can look back at our July, August and September activities knowing it was a summer well spent; that from Memorial Day through Labor Day, we had fun the way retirees know how: with work and play intertwined.

We could celebrate the Fourth of July with volunteers like these but, true to UFT retiree form, we can have such celebrations any time of the year.