SUNY Downstate Local activist Mary Harmon and Local President Althea Green rally to keep SUNY Downstate open during a rally at Albany's Legislative Office Building.
The Civil Service Employees Association's (CSEA) Metropolitan Region President Lester Crockett addresses the crowd at a rally to save SUNY Downstate Medical Center and maintain the essential health services it delivers.
Youth Developmental Aides William Ponder, Erika Watson, and Anthony Hinton stand near the basketball court where they spent many hours playing and working with youths at state Office of Children and Family Services Bronx Residential facility.
AFSCME Council 95 members show their union pride. AFSCME workers in Puerto Rico had collective bargaining rights ripped away (in 2009) by a reactionary governor similar to what workers in Wisconsin and Ohio faced. The Council 95 members were able to get the laws overturned.
Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) Metropolitan Region President George Boncoraglio, shown in this 2011 photo, retired after 40 years in the labor movement. A hands-on leader since his days as a mental health therapy aide at South Beach Psychiatric Center, Boncoraglio was always known and feared by management. While the topic of race played a very sensitive and often tense role during his early years as region president, Boncoraglio's fairness and insistence on coalition building helped the region become very important in terms of influence within the union.
Photo of the Month in the October 2011 Work Force. Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) Statewide Secretary Denise Berkley lights a candle in honor of the CSEA members and other workers lost from the state Department of Taxation and Finance on September 11, 2001, at a September 8, 2011, ceremony at the department's New York City offices. CSEA honored all of those who lost their lives to the attacks, including 2,753 people at the World Trade Center. Among the World Trade Center losses are CSEA members Yvette Anderson, Florence Cohen, Harry Goody, Marian "Marty" Hrycak and Dorothy Temple. All were employed at the state Department of Taxation and Finance.
A photo of Omayra Camacho, a crime victims specialist for the state Office of Victim Services, used in a special section of the September 2011 Work Force: Always Remember: A commemorative 10th anniversary retrospective published by the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA). Camacho was among the first responders assisting the families and victims of the September 11 attacks. She now assists people who were involved in the cleanup, many of whom have developed cancer, were exposed to asbestos and have other illnesses.
A photo used in the special section of the September 2011 Work Force, Always Remember: A commemorative 10th anniversary retrospective. Deborah Hanna, Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) Health Research, Inc. Local president, stands in front of the nation's largest construction project, the World Trade Center. Following the attack, it was the nation's largest toxic waste site, which led Hanna and other union activists to create the 90 Church Street Coalition in order to protect the safety and health of workers and local residents being relocated. The 90 Church St. building is the smaller one on the right. On the left is the Liberty Tower under construction and next to it is World Trade Center 7, which is already occupied.
A photo used in the special section of the September 2011 Work Force, Always Remember: A commemorative 10th anniversary retrospective published by the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA). Co-workers at the state Department of Taxation and Finance and survivors who worked on the 86th floor of Tower 2 of the World Trade Center, from left, Margaret Ramsay, Terrel Silver and Marcia Smart, pay their respects to 39 co-workers who perished on September 11, 2001 at a memorial in their Brooklyn office.
Photo of the Month for September 2011, edition of The Work Force. Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) members and activists including Health Research Inc. Local President Deb Hanna, Jacqueline Stanford, Mary Harmon, Angelina Black and Damaris Rodriguez join Communication Workers of America (CWA) members on the Verizon picket line in lower Manhattan. Harmon's son is a Verizon worker. CWA members and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) struck at Verizon for two weeks in August over the bargaining terms for a new contract. The unions and Verizon have returned to the bargaining table.