MAPPING A PLAN —
PEF President Roger Benson and PEF volunteer target areas in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre,
PA in the November get-out-the-vote campaign. Photo by Tim Raab
Election efforts benefit all members
By Roger E. Benson
As public employees, state and federal elections can have a profound impact on our jobs. And, like it or not we must do our best to work to ensure that we elect political leaders who will represent our issues.
Over the past eight years, we have worked to increase PEF’s impact and political advocacy in elections, concentrating our efforts where we could affect the outcomes of races to the benefit of our members. These efforts have led to positive relationships with the state’s political leaders and have increased our ability to influence the terms and conditions of our members’ employment as well as our ability to protect our members’ jobs. With the state facing a potential budget shortfall of $6 billion, and federal funding for many state agencies uncertain, these efforts have taken on added importance.
Shortly after the general election two years ago, PEF began planning for last November’s elections. We worked to build a framework of political action and mobilization for priority races across the state to increase PEF’s impact and profile in the elections, and to expand our efforts in federal races in partnership with our international affiliates and the AFL-CIO.
As a result of these efforts, we were able to marshal scores of volunteers for more than a dozen priority races, and provide nearly ten thousand hours of volunteer efforts for the SEIU/PEF “Push Bush Out the Door” campaign.
I am proud of the efforts of PEF and our members in the election. Although we were not successful in all of our priority races, we were successful in many of them, and the impact of our involvement was significant. We once again proved that member for member, PEF is a political leader and a force in New York politics and we are beginning to expand our reach into federal politics as well.
I would like to thank all our members for their commitment and dedication to our efforts in the past election. Your efforts in this election represent just one more step in our plan to build PEF’s political strength and clout. There were many new faces and a new level of activism was evident in many members. I have no doubt that the seeds of activism planted in our efforts this past election will lead to many more victories in the future.
The
Communicator Dec.04-Jan.05
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Features
Convention Recap:
Delegates set union's '05 agenda
Benson and Hallum speeches
Nurses:
Stay unified on overtime..
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Get-Out-The-Vote '04:
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PEF scores big with voters
- Volunteers of grassroots...
- Union
help win states for Kerry
Committee
takes on shadow threat
AHA members OK
new pact
PS&T members get contract $
Members
rally to save OTDA move
Members push DOT to save jobs
Vocational counselors
fight back
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Scanlon scholarship tournament
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