News

AFSCME President Lee Saunders praised the White House’s announcement Thursday that the Biden administration will forgive student loans for an additional 78,000 borrowers — including many AFSCME mem

By Anna Berry, Assoc. Recording Secretary

From Jan. 11-14, 2024, a delegation of DC 37 retirees attended the AFL-CIO’s “Dr. MLK Jr. Civil & Human Rights Conference” in Montgomery, Alabama. The theme for this year’s conference was “Our Voice, Our Ballot, Our Future."

Despite the growing wave of worker organizing across the country, the union membership rate last year ticked down slightly, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported today, underscoring the importance of initiatives like AFSCME’s Staff the Front Lines to fill job vacancies in the public sector.

For John Campion, a monitoring officer with AmeriCorps, the potential for a federal government shutdown beginning this month brings fear, insecurity and frustration.

NYC PARKS DEPT. RECREATION RETIREES ASSOCIATION LUNCHEON
 
The NYC Parks Dept. Recreation Retirees Association held a luncheon meeting on Nov. 8, 2023, at Lenny’s Restaurant in Howard Beach. The meeting was convened and chaired by the association's Pres. Dominick Martino, who is also the VP of Social Security, Pensions and Medicare for the DC 37 Retirees Association. DC 37 Retirees Assn. Pres. Bob Gervasi attended the luncheon.

By Lesly Williams, VP Publicity/Public Relations
 
The power of well-structured and meaningful “Stories!”
They serve both to “dispossess and to malign” as well as “to empower, and to humanize.”
“Stories can break the dignity of a people. But Stories can also repair that broken dignity.”
 

By Lesly Williams, VP Publicity/Public Relations
 
The SOMOS 2023 Conference took place, as is customary, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, from Nov. 8-11. The well-attended event drew 2,300 people, a record number. Among the attendees were NYS elected and appointed officials, members of various community/labor organizations, and officers and members of the DC 37 Retirees Association.
 

As the year comes to a close, I am celebrating the incredible surge of worker activism in 2023. Current and future members of AFSCME and many other unions were in the streets, on the picket lines, and at the bargaining table demanding fairness and respect. I want to also take a moment to recognize and celebrate some of the most inspiring activists in our AFSCME family: AFSCME retirees.