Saturday, March 27, 2004.

NYSUT Executive Vice President Alan Lubin laid out an ambitious agenda for unionists in the coming year, especially with what polls say will be a close presidential election this November.

"We have two extremely powerful weapons in our arsenal: education and political action," Lubin said.

Lubin said last year's extraordinary political action efforts proved how mighty the union's voice can be.

"At last year's RA I asked you to imagine what it would be like if members came together for a great show of unity for public education at a march in May. I told you that together we could do anything."

Then, Lubin said, just 30 days later, some 40,000 people came together for the March for Public Education - the biggest rally of its kind in Albany.

"Congratulations to all of you who helped make that day one of the greatest in our union's history," Lubin said, after he showed a video highlighting the event. "Forty-eight hours after the rally, the state Legislature overrode the governor's 119 vetoes and restored $1.2 billion in funding for health care and education, pre-K through post-grad. After the historic override vote, the public showed its commitment to schools by approving 97 percent of all school budgets on statewide voting day.

"I told you that together, we could do anything," Lubin said. "Our statewide victories were sweet, but they were also fleeting - they always are."

In the coming year, Lubin said, the union faces many challenges: securing adequate funding for K-12 and higher ed; beating back an attack on higher ed tenure; and defeating a proposed state aid cut for community colleges.

He said many problems facing New York are coming from Washington, D.C., and that's why unionists must focus on the presidential election.

"We have to stick to our lesson plan for political action," Lubin said. "That means working in coalition with other unions and non-union partners."

He also urged unionists to get personally involved by stuffing envelopes, volunteering for phone banks and writing letters to the editor.

"Most important, we have to vote," Lubin said. "We have to reach our 500,000 members and the 2 million people in our families."