At their annual Spring Business Meeting today CEA-Retired members gathered to make changes to their constitution, elect representatives, learn the latest on state and federal legislation, and hear remarks from NEA-Retired president Anita Gibson.
CEA-Retired President Bill Murray thanked retired teachers for their participation in many CEA and CEA-Retired campaigns and events this year and for their service on a variety of CEA and CEA-Retired committees.
“Thank you for your commitment to your fellow retirees as well as to our active teacher colleagues and our aspiring educators,” Murray said. “Your hard work and your voice are crucial to CEA and CEA-Retired.”
“You are committed champions who have paved the way for us as active teachers,” said CEA Vice President Joslyn DeLancey. “We cannot thank you enough for the service and commitment that you have shown not only to our profession but also to our union. Thank you so much for being here this morning and being committed to doing the work of CEA-Retired. It’s such important business.”
Althea Carr and Gary Peluchette were elected to represent their CEA-Retired colleagues on the CEA-Retired Advisory Council and CEA Board of Directors respectively.
During the business portion of their meeting, retirees passed constitutional amendments to allow retired teachers to join CEA-Retired as long as they are eligible to receive their pension benefits and formalized the election of a second CEA-Retired representative to the CEA Board of Directors. They also elected Althea Carr as an ethnic minority representative to the CEA-Retired Advisory Council and elected Gary Peluchette as a representative to the CEA Board of Directors.
WEP/GPO and State Legislative Updates
DeLancey, who is a strong advocate for the repeal of WEP/GPO, spoke to retired teachers at their fall meeting about federal legislation to repeal these provisions that eliminate or significantly reduce teachers’ earned Social Security benefits and their spousal benefits.
“When I spoke at your fall meeting, H.R. 82, which is a bill that calls for a full repeal of WEP/GPO, had 304 co-sponsors,” DeLancey said. “I am excited to share with you that, as of this morning, H.R. 82 has 320 co-sponsors. That is phenomenal. And some of that has to do with the work that we’ve all been doing through our action alerts and our mailings. So, thank you for that.”
DeLancey said that the second most co-sponsored WEP/GPO repeal bill, Senate Bill 597, has 54 co-sponsors, and S. 597 and H.R. 82 are the most co-sponsored bills in Congress.
CEA-Retired Secretary Pat Jordan, Treasurer Karen DiMenna, NEA-Retired President Anita Gibson, CEA-Retired Vice President Mary-Beth Lang, and President William Murray.
“We know that this has been a particularly inactive Congress, but these are bills that have bipartisan support and call for a full repeal of WEP/GPO,” DeLancey said.
She asked retirees to write postcards to a group of nine target senators—Senators Tom Carper, Ben Cardin, Chris Coons, Dick Durbin, Joe Manchin, Marco Rubio, Rick Scott, Mark Warner, and Ron Wyden—sharing their stories about how they’re affected by WEP/GPO and urging repeal. “If we get six more co-sponsors on S. 597 we will be able to avoid the filibuster and this can go directly to the floor for a vote.”
“I am most impressed and appreciative of all the work that CEA-Retired and CEA are doing together around the repeal of WEP/GPO,” said Gibson.
She thanked the many CEA-Retired members who shared their stories about how WEP/GPO negatively impacts their lives in video interviews. She said that the NEA Board of Directors watched those videos during a lobby week in Washington D.C., earlier this spring.
“Thank you for being willing to share those very personal stories,” Gibson said. “You could see the impact that your words were having. Everybody in that room was focused on the screen. And I can promise you, they made a difference. And I can also promise you that your personal stories were shared over and over on Capitol Hill that day as our board members went and lobbied Congress.”
She said that NEA Board of Directors members from states that aren’t impacted by WEP/GPO don’t have personal stories of their own to share, and so hearing and being able to share the stories of Connecticut retired teachers was crucial to their lobbying efforts.
“After those stories were shared, that’s when we picked up an additional co-sponsor,” Gibson said.
CEA’s Government Relations Department focuses on lobbying the Connecticut General Assembly, not Congress, but Government Relations Director Ray Rossomando shared that this year even state lawmakers have done what they can to push for the repeal of WEP/GPO.
“All four of the leadership caucuses—Republicans, Democrats, House, Senate—as well as a number of constitutional officers signed on to a letter they sent to Congress that urges Congress to take up this issue and repeal WEP/GPO,” he said.
Rossomando shared some of CEA’s other legislative successes for the year including changes to educator certification, mandated reporting, grading and accountability, school air quality, and more.
He added, “We continue to work to protect the Teachers’ Retirement Fund as well as ensuring proper funding on an annual basis. In the past there’s been some underfunding, not only of the annual contribution but also of the retiree Health Insurance Fund, and we continue to bring that to the attention of legislatures. We make sure to hold them accountable to those commitments.”
CEA-Retired will hold their fall meeting on September 17. Are you a retired teacher and not yet a member of CEA-Retired? Join CEA-Retired today!
