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 [...]

This is the last weekend for 2010 Making Strides. Yes, our most northern areas of the state are the last to stride. Perhaps some year they will be skiing instead of walking? (That’s June and Ron Smith on their cross-country skis in the Adirondacks near Lake Placid. June is retired from Smithtown Teachers and Ron from [...]

Here’s a shout out to Michele Bushey of the Saranac Teachers Association. I just got off the phone with her. It’s about 6 p.m. She’s at NYSUT’s Plattsburgh Regional Office. She’s offered to take pictures for me. I asked if she’d seen an e-mail from me yet. She hadn’t and then I remembered that she [...]

Lots of love at the opening of the SRP conference last night. And lots of love and good wishes being sent to Washington, D.C. Member after member tells me, if this conference already hadn’t been scheduled, they would have been there. Karen Arthmann of Rush-Henrietta EA and Nancy Juliano of the Syracuse TA even pose [...]