Lubin salutes members' political ardor

Decries Bush plan on Social Security

April 8, 2005

Alan Lubin, in his speech to the RA, channeled the political savvy and humanity of the late, great U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

Moynihan had a sign on the wall in his Senate office that read: "It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice."

"The members of this great union are both nice and important," said Lubin. "You who worked the phones, visited a legislator at home, came to a Committee of 100, sent a fax or an e-mail to an elected official - you are the individuals who matter to politicians at all levels.

"And you're important because you vote," Lubin added, citing a recent poll of NYSUT members (by Benchmark, the union's polling and research arm), revealing that nearly 100 percent of NYSUT members say they vote.

The union needs to be nice, important - and strong - on political issues across the board:

• Social Security "reform;"
• Campaign for Fiscal Equity reform of K-12 school aid;
• the need to ramp up funding for higher education;
• the need to straighten out funding procedures for health care.

Last November's national election didn't go the way the union had hoped.

Nevertheless, Lubin said, he was proud of NYSUT's show of solidarity. "We at NYSUT sent over 100 employees and retirees on the road to battleground states to help AFT and AFL-CIO affiliates organize their members and get out the vote. NYSUT employees volunteered to go - even before they knew where or when their two-week assignments would begin. Then when they found out they were being assigned by the AFT to such exotic locations as Cleveland, Detroit and Milwaukee, they still volunteered."

Bush and his team are "masterful," Lubin said: "If you or I took over a school district that went from having a $5 trillion surplus to a $2 trillion debt in four years, we'd have a hard time remaining."

Lubin decried the Bush effort on Social Security: "He wants to privatize the system, and have retirees' futures subject to the ups and downs of Wall Street. It's a huge gamble for everyone except those in the brokerage houses and investment firms."

NYSUT has a multi-faceted campaign to tell the public, and union membership, about what's at stake in the Social Security debate. The union has put together a 13-minute video about the dangers of the privatization of Social Security, which Lubin played for the RA.

On the Albany front, the Legislature produced an on-time budget, but decisions were deferred on the increases needed to provide a "sound, basic education" for all, quoting from Judge Leland DeGrasse's landmark decision. "The courts have ruled that Judge DeGrasse's special masters' recommendation to invest billions in school aid and capital money is needed with all deliberate speed. But the governor is appealing yet again, turning a 12-year court case into a seemingly never-ending battle."

Lubin reiterated the clarion call he has been making in many public forums for a more progressive tax structure in New York.

Lubin criticized Albany lawmakers for letting higher education funding slide: "New York state now ranks 41st in support of its colleges and universities - that is to say only nine other states support their schools less."

A similar slide is hurting health care facilities in the Empire State. "We must also refrain from the temptation to 'buy health care on the cheap,'" said Lubin. "Starving the health care system of the resources it needs will not improve it. Nor will privatization. Some things, like our health, you just don't want to put out to the lowest bidder."