Page 19 - Work Force June 2017

TODAY
News briefs from around the state
Call for entries for Nadra Floyd and Member Achievement Awards
Do you know a CSEA member, committee, local or unit who has worked to grow CSEA’s membership by helping CSEA organize a new group of workers into the union? If so, they may be eligible for the Nadra Floyd Award for Organizing. The award’s namesake, Floyd, was a longtime union activist who served as CSEA’s director of organizing from 2000 to her untimely passing in 2001. At the time of her death, Floyd was working to grow CSEA’s membership and transform CSEA’s Organizing program.
Do you know a CSEA member, group of members, committee, unit or local that has done the hard work of signing up newly hired employees as CSEA members or converting agency shop fee payers into members? If so, they may be eligible for the CSEA Membership Achievement Award, which honors one or more members who have strengthened the union by growing the membership.
Nominations for both awards must be submitted by Aug. 18, 2017, and mailed to:
Capital ‘Con-Con contest’ reaches out to members
More than 30 Capital Region CSEA locals are participating in a “Con Con Contest,” competing with each other by scheduling member meetings to discuss the potential dangers of a constitutional convention. At the end of the conversation, members are asked to sign a card pledging to vote ‘no’ on the Constitutional Convention ballot question on Nov. 7. To date, more than 1,600 members in the Capital Region have signed.
CSEA Membership Committee
Nadra Floyd Award for Organizing
c/o CSEA Organizing Department 143 Washington Avenue
Albany, NY 12210
CSEA Membership Committee
Membership Achievement Award
c/o CSEA Organizing Department 143 Washington Avenue
Albany, NY 12210
Orange 911 dispatcher meets the baby she helped save
A baby boy in Orange County is healthy today thanks to the intervention of an Orange County Unit member. Courtney Starace, a rookie 911 dispatcher who first came on the job last August,
was the steady voice on the other
end of the phone line at the county Emergency Services Center when Warwick resident Samantha Burke called for help. She’d realized her
infant son, Andrew, wasn’t breathing. While dispatching an ambulance, Starace calmly instructed Burke on
how to perform CPR. By the time the ambulance arrived, baby Andrew was breathing. He was hospitalized for three days for what was determined to be a respiratory infection. Starace, a nine- year emergency medical technician before becoming a 911 dispatcher,
got the chance to meet Andrew and
his parents and received a standing ovation when recognized during County Executive Steve Neuhaus’ State of the County speech. “It was very special for me to be able to meet the Burke family and hold the baby,” Starace said. “It was a very heartwarming moment that I will never forget. I’m happy I could help. I did what I had to do during the 911 call with Mrs. Burke, but she also did a great job. She deserves a lot of credit, too.”
Learn more and download nomination forms at:
cseany.org/award-nominations
Dispatcher honored for outstanding performance during crisis
CSEA member Bruce Mazzone, a dispatcher at the City of Oneonta Police Department, receives a special outstanding performance award from city officials for his handling
of a recent situation dealing with an armed and potentially dangerous person. Mazzone relied on his skills and technology to locate the individual and allow him to be safely apprehended without harm to himself or responding officers. Pictured are, from left, CSEA City of Oneonta Unit President Matthew Harper, Acting Police Chief Douglas Brenner, Mazzone, and Oneonta Mayor Gary Herzig.
Crockett honored as ‘labor influencer’
CSEA Metropolitan Region President Lester Crockett was recently selected as one of “Five Brooklyn Labor Influencers You Need to Know” by City & State Magazine. Crockett
and CSEA were highlighted for having a major presence in the region. Crockett, a Brooklyn native who was raised in the borough’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, got into politics years ago as a volunteer for Al Vann, a legendary elected official in Brooklyn. He later spent more than three decades working for the State Insurance Fund before being elected to his current CSEA office. Crockett remains active in city politics.
June 2017
The Work Force 19
Preserving protections for working families!
I pledge to Vote NO!
on the NYS Constitutional Convention