Unions unite to connect U.S. soldiers to home during holidays
By DEBORAH A. MILES
During the past holiday season, PEF members in Region 1 worked with the Western New York Area Labor Federation, AFL-CIO to raise more than $41,000 to purchase telephone cards for U.S. soldiers stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The idea for the phone cards came about when union representatives became aware that military members overseas often have to use their own credit cards to call loved ones in the states. Phone cards are easy to mail and can be distributed by the military with little effort once they arrive at their destination. So, the unions launched a campaign called “Working to Connect our Troops.”
“As a union effort, it was absolutely wonderful,” said PEF Region 1 Coordinator Joyce Degenhardt. “The Buffalo AFL-CIO office did a fantastic job organizing and publicizing the fund drive.”
The Buffalo AFL-CIO Council, which represents more than 200 union locals and represents 100,000 unionized workers, partnered with M-One Financial, which absorbed the cost of publicity and advertising including a high-profile 15-minute interview on AM-Buffalo/Channel 7. The effort caught the eye of the FOX News Network.
The campaign received national attention and people from all over the country started sending-in donations. Checks, ranging from $5 to $500, were sent by people living as far away as California and Hawaii. Before the national television exposure, the campaign raised nearly $20,000 locally in just two weeks (November 23 to December 7), and then more than doubled.
With the donations, the unions were able to purchase more than 2,600 prepaid telephone cards. Volunteers from local labor gathered at CWA Local 1122’s union hall on Genesee Street in suburban Cheektowaga and put a small sticker on the back of each phone card.
The stickers read: “Happy Holidays and God Bless. Compliments of Western New York’s Labor Unions.”
The
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