A Message From the President

November 2005

On dues, membership, pensions, and Katrina

NEA-Retired dues will increase in September of 2006. This increase will help meet the costs of our many activities. It will provide for new programs and for retaining and expanding our current successful efforts, like our mentoring program that lets NEA student members learn from retired veterans.

This upcoming increase offers us a window of opportunity to increase membership. NEA-Retired Lifetime dues are now $100. They will be $200 on September 1. This gives us almost a year to sign up retirees who have not yet joined, and it gives us time to recruit pre-retired members from among our active colleagues. Any NEA member can join as “pre-retired,” meaning that when they retire, they will automatically be members. Anyone who joins before September 1, 2006, will get a lifetime membership for half of what it will cost after that. I hope you use this opportunity to help increase our membership.

We want more members. There is strength in numbers. We need members to lobby public officials and to educate the public about the needs of our children and the importance of a quality public education. We need them to work to protect our pensions and improve our health care.

And speaking of protecting retirement benefits, the Administration is still pushing their privatization plan for Social Security even though the opinion polls show Americans are rejecting the idea.

Now, Congress is considering pension “reform” legislation that would make the continued maintenance of traditional defined benefit pension plans completely impractical for most employers. Traditional defined benefit plans—along with Social Security—are the foundation of retirement security for millions of Americans.

Please go to www.nea.org/lac/pension for more information on these moves in Congress, and action you can take to help preserve good pensions.

Finally, I want to thank all of you for your outpouring of generosity for the victims of Katrina. I have heard story after story of state and local Associations and individual members pitching in to help. You are the greatest.

—Barbara Matteson
matteson@dakotacom.net