Since retiring in 1995, Eva-Lee Baird has faithfully attended Retired Teachers Chapter meetings and kept up with the issues. But it wasn’t until the RTC launched the Labor Solidarity Project in late 2024 that she found an outlet to practice her union activism as a retiree.

Baird, a 23-year elementary and middle school art teacher in upper Manhattan’s Inwood, now regularly supports other unionists in Labor Solidarity Project actions like walking the picket line with recently striking Mt. Sinai Hospital nurses. Baird is grateful to the UFT for having provided her a life with job security, benefits and, now, a pension, and she wants that for others.

“I want every worker in the United States to be in a strong union,” she said, “and by strengthening other unions, it reflects on and strengthens the UFT.”

In addition to members walking the nurses’ picket lines most days, the Labor Solidarity Project recently called on members to join the “ICE Out for Good: Solidarity with Minneapolis” rally and march on Jan. 23 and a vigil on Jan. 29 for Alex Pretti, the U.S. Veterans Health Administration nurse who was fatally shot by ICE agents in Minnesota.

The Labor Solidarity Project is more than 200 members strong, and there is room for more, RTC Chapter Leader Bennett Fischer said. “We’re always trying to grow that number,” he said.

The group has several subcommittees, including a book club on labor, a working group interested in fighting rising fascism and a newsletter group that shares information with members, said Bobby Greenberg, chair of the Labor Solidarity Project and the treasurer of the RTC. “It’s a great pleasure to see this growing movement of activism among our members.”

The Labor Solidarity Project collaborates with the UFT Member Action Committee, created for in-service members to support labor actions. “Every time there’s a big demonstration, especially after school or on weekends where both groups are out there, we work very well together,” Greenberg said.

Marie Leblanc, who retired last year after teaching high school in Chelsea at the James Baldwin School: A School for Expeditionary Learning, marched with Labor Solidarity Project members alongside MAC members (see page 8) at the “ICE Out for Good” rally.

“It’s a dangerous, unsafe, difficult time for so many of us, so many of our children,” she said of the current political landscape. “That’s why I was there.”

For more information about the Labor Solidarity Project or the committee sign-up page.