BE SAFE — PEF President Roger Benson addresses health and safety activists in June in Albany. — Photo by Deborah A. Miles

Congratulations and best wishes to PEF's new president, Ken Brynien

As many of you already know, the membership recently elected Ken Brynien as PEF’s new president. President-elect Brynien has served as a PEF vice president and statewide PAC chair in the current administration for the past nine years and led our contract negotiations team in the last round of bargaining with the state in 2003.

I know Ken well and I send him and his co-officers-elect my best wishes and congratulations on their election. Whether Ken serves for three years or 15 years as PEF president, this position and the responsibility that goes with it will change him forever, as it did me.

I want to assure our members that during the transition of leadership at PEF and until August 1st, when President-elect Brynien officially takes office, I have pledged to him and Secretary-Treasurer-elect Arlea Igoe there will be full cooperation and transparency from the current administration. This so that on day one of their term, PEF will seamlessly continue to fire on all cylinders.

PEF has come a long way in the last decade and its leaders, regardless of political affiliation, have learned that now the internal union election is past us, it’s time to close ranks and focus on representing and leading our members to better working and retirement conditions. As some of you have heard me say many times, “When we fight with each other, we do the work of management”.

Finally, as I serve the remaining weeks of my term, I want to acknowledge and thank all the PEF leaders, members and staff who have supported me as president.

This has been the most challenging, exhilarating and rewarding job I have ever had or expect to have. There are hundreds of people who have kept PEF moving forward daily; the contract campaigns to prevent zeroes and concessions, the state budget fights to prevent closures, privatization and layoffs, advancing or protecting our pension benefits and, of course, our huge successes in our Go Public and Stop Workplace Violence campaigns.

Each of these struggles and campaigns required the cooperation, in some cases, of thousands of members, and all of PEF’s staff pulling simultaneously in the same direction, and that unity of purpose was always there. It has been a privilege to serve as your president and I depart with a full heart, satisfied that we accomplished much of what we promised in 1997 and leave PEF in better condition than we found it.

The Communicator July/Aug. '06

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