Greetings from Cleveland! I’m in this battleground state to help my brothers and sisters in Ohio labor unions get out the vote. My 9:30 a.m. flight landed a half-hour early due to winds going the opposite way they usually blow thanks to Sandy. My heart is back in New York watching the impact of Superstorm [...]

Happy Tuesday! It’s a beautiful autumn day following a long Columbus Day weekend. Have you decorated your yard or front stoop yet? I had enough corn stalks for my house and two of the neighbors. Yards and yards of pumpkin vine only yielded two pumpkins, so the boys next door agreed to let the 3-year-old [...]

More creative people than I came up with this message. You can print it out to display by clicking (or double-clicking) on this electionsmatter document. If that doesn’t work on your computer, just contact me at bsandber@nysutmail.org and I’ll email it to you. You have until Oct. 12 to register to vote in New York [...]

Links updated Sept. 11, 2012 Rena Lull knew the New York Times was working on a story about the finances of Medicaid. She’d agreed to be interviewed and for a photographer to come take pictures of her with her mom, also named Rena and also a retired teacher, at the Otsego Manor nursing home. That [...]

How you vote tomorrow is a personal decision. What matters is that you go to that ballot box and exercise your right to vote. Why do I care? I’m second generation on one side of the family. My grandparents came from Sweden in the 1920s.  They lived with us for a short time. My grandmother was [...]

Do you think that headline is a bit harsh? If you don’t vote next week aren’t you saying you don’t care about your local roads getting fixed? your county nursing home staying open? changes to where your garbage goes? Local races matter for so many quality of life issues.If you don’t vote next week, then [...]

Ah, November’s finally here. And you know what that means. On TUESDAY, NOV. 8 you get a chance to race to the polls to exercise your right to vote. In this “off” election year, it’s all about your town, village or county. So check with your local union leader and your local labor federation to [...]

Coming to your local president’s mailbox is this handy poster. Whether NYSUT members are newly registered or have been registered for years, we hope all NYSUT members will exercise their right to vote next week. If you want a copy, you might be able to download from this blog post. If your computer won’t allow [...]

Where I grew up everybody voted. No kidding. I remember reading the local papers in the late 1960s and early 1970s when Hudson Wisconsin had 100 percent, or near 100 percent, voting participation. Yes, I’m from Wisconsin. It’s America’s Votingland, as well as the land of cheese. Actually, the rate nowadays is a bit lower. [...]

Andy green grass grows all around all around. All kidding aside, you never know who’s going to be knocking at your door. Pleasantville teacher Stephanie Chiafari and her husband Anthony are greeted by NYSUT VP Andy Pallotta last weekend. Pallotta was walking with the Westchester Putnam Central Labor Body. The labor walks are labor members [...]