Letters

Not 'Me' — 'We'

I would like to applaud Karen Gilgoff on her excellent story about Social Security disability and survivor benefits (November/December 2001). When I was six years old, my three brothers and I were left fatherless because of our father's death of cancer from industrial exposure to radiation. While the community and family rallied around my mother, it was the Social Security Administration that provided food, shelter and educational opportunities for my mother and us children.

Social Security paid the mortgage, put food on the table and paid for our educations. Those benefits allowed my mother to take a dignified job paying a moderate salary.

Sadly, I took these benefits for granted — and at one point even thought the Social Security Administration should be privatized. Then I became a union member and father. The union taught me that the strong (those with jobs) must look out for the less fortunate. The word "me" was replaced by the word "we".

I began to realize the struggles my mother went through and how much more manageable survivor benefits made them. My brothers and I grew up in a middle-class neighborhood, in our own home, and led normal lives. We weren't rich, but we weren't poor.

Survivor benefits stabilized my family at a time when we most needed it, and I will be forever grateful to the Social Security system. For the sake and security of our children and grandchildren, we must resist all attempts to privatize it.

Timothy J. Heyden
Buffalo AFL-CIO Council 
(husband of Rose Heyden, 
CSEA Local 815) 
East Concord, N.Y.

Full-Time Rip-Off

I'm sending this letter for all part-time employees — like myself — who work for the town of Hempstead, Long Island, and belong to Local 880. The town calls us "part time/seasonal" even though we're on the job 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year doing just what the other employees do — but receiving no benefits.

That is, we get no pay on holidays, no vacation, no sick days or other benefits. Yet we put in the same hours and do the same amount of work — and make barely more than half the pay the full-timers make.

As our Local 880 executive vice president, Gary Steckler, wrote in the local's newsletter more than two years ago, Hempstead boasts about eliminating 24 percent of the employees since 1990, creating a huge budget surplus that "has swelled primarily on the backs of our workforce... [t]he town has replaced a majority of these full-time positions with part-time workers." A new contract was signed last November without resolving our unfair job classification(s).

Jim Tosner 
Local880 
CSEA/AFSCME Local 1000 
Lynbrook, N.Y.

We Are the Union!

Robert Henderson wrote, in your September/October Letters column, "In my job, I am forced to belong to AFSCME."

I suspect that Robert chose his job because of higher wages and better benefits (that he gets because of the union). But he doesn't like the union supporting the liberal views of Democrats, because he is a Republican.

A personal plea to Robert: Instead of being negative, take a positive step and become active in your union, so you can really understand how seeking support from our elected officials is imperative. Because we are public employees, our politicians (Republican and Democrat) vote on our working conditions and on the budgets from which we get paid.

We usually find ourselves supporting Democratic candidates because they are the ones who generally support working people and families. But we also back good Republicans.

Here in California, we have a Republican state assemblyman, Anthony Pescetti, who has been supporting my co-workers at the University of California/Davis in their fight for fairness and respect.

We need to stick together (unite and organize) in our struggle. Robert, we need you! You are the union! We are the union!

Margaret Konjevod 
Local 3299
Venice, Calif.

'Sorry, Osama'?

Thank God the Democrats didn't win the last election. Their candidate would have apologized to bin Laden for having the Trade towers in the way of the planes and paid reparations to the families of the hijackers!

William A. Miller 
Local 3730 (Council 62) 
Frankfort, Ind.

To Our Readers

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