Terry Scott has made it his mission to educate NTEU members on the threats to federal retirement security, but he doesn’t want them just listening—he wants them to take action.
Since the president’s budget was released last month, the Chapter 26 (IRS Georgia) President has visited 15 posts of duty (POD) where he represents employees, once conducting six lunch-and-learns over a three-day period. Scott has spoken to audiences as large as 150 employees, and not only NTEU members. IRS managers and non-members, anxious about proposed cuts to their pay and pensions, have also attended. The more attendees, the more phone calls and letters to members of Congress opposing the cuts.
And that’s exactly Scott’s goal. An integral part of his presentation is demonstrating to employees how fast and easy it is to use NTEU’s Legislative Action Center to contact members of Congress in opposition to pay and benefit cuts. At each lunch-and-learn, Scott asked attendees to take out their phones and send an email message to their members of Congress.
“The lunch-and-learns are important because many employees are so busy just trying to keep up with the day-to-day work that they are not aware of the things going on behind the scenes that could impact them,” said Scott.
After each lunch-and-learn, Scott follows up with a thank you note containing congressional voting records, a cheat sheet for using NTEU’s Legislative Action Center and information on the union’s legislative priorities for the year. In other words, everything they need to be NTEU activists.
“Many employees were shocked when I shared with them how their representative voted on federal issues,” said Scott. It was an eye-opener to many.”
Along with compelling members to act, Scott has signed up several new NTEU members at the events. His goal now is to bring the lunch-and-learn to all 18 PODs where Chapter 26 represents employees.
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