READY
TO RALLY - PEF Region 3 Coordinator Linda DeVito pledge
the union's determination to win a fair state contract at
the October convention 
rally in
Rochester.
Legions of members marching for fair pact
They said it in Rochester. They said it in Batavia. And they said it again in Poughkeepsie: "Give us a fair contract now!" Then they kept right on saying it in Albany and other cities around the state.
In fact, angry and determined PEF members have been burning shoe leather all over the state in pursuit of Gov. George Pataki and contract justice.
A long, noisy, yellow-shirted column of nearly 900 delegates to the PEF convention waving pennants and chanting stopped downtown Rochester traffic as they marched for blocks through a brisk mid-October morning to rally for contract justice.
The delegates had just overwhelmingly approved a resolution from the convention floor authorizing union leaders to pull out all of the stops and hold nothing back in the fight for a fair PS&T contract.
State AFL-CIO President Denis Hughes and Rochester Labor Council President Jim Bertolone told the delegates workers all over the state support PEF in its struggle and urged them to keep ratcheting up the pressure on the state.
A week later, approximately 200 PEF members and their coworkers from PEF Regions 1 and 3 traveled to Batavia Downs race track in western New York after work to rally outside a Republican fund-raiser there where Gov. George Pataki was speaking.
"It was tremendous," said PEF Region 3 Coordinator Linda DeVito. "About 25 percent of our staff at the state School for the Blind in Batavia turned out and there were lots of members from Rochester and Buffalo and from many of the state correctional facilities in the area. One delegate heard me announce it at the convention and came all the way from Elmira. We didn't even have to provide buses."
DeVito said she saw many members participating who had never turned out for union rallies before.
The very next day in Poughkeepsie, more than 100 Region 9 PEF members and their co-workers marched in front of the Eleanor Roosevelt State Office Building to echo once again the demand for a fair contract.
In the following weeks, more members held more rallies in Albany and again in Poughkeepsie.
Then PEF Region 7 members turned out at the Plattsburgh airport to intercept the governor on his way to yet another political event.
"This is what it takes to win this battle," said PEF Region 9 Coordinator Neila Cardus. "And we're picking up steam with every step that we march. It seems as if members are just waiting for their chance to participate and speak out, even people who have always left it to others are starting to see that their participation really matters.
"If this keeps up," she said, "we'll have thousands of very unhappy people in Albany to greet the governor on January 5 when he makes his State of the State address to the Legislature. I know he will get their message, and so will the legislators who all have to stand for re-election next year."