In a normal campaign year, MTA retirees play an active role in the political activities leading up to fall elections. Retired educators can be counted on to make phone calls, knock on doors and drop off literature about candidates and ballot initiatives.
But this is not a normal year — and the election is anything but routine. COVID-19 has sharply limited face-to-face campaigning, while balloting itself has changed as many people take advantage of mail-in and options for early voting.
Politically active retirees express a bit of sadness about not being able to go out and talk to voters. But the flip side is that some now have more time to get the message out about specific issues or candidates, including Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, whom the union is recommending for president and vice president.
"It’s very hard not being able to canvass and talk to people face to face," said Carolyn Scafidi, an MTA Retired member who serves as a Senate district coordinator. "I’m doing a lot of phone calls and Zooms. It’s very different, but you still need to get the word out."
Scafidi said she has spent a lot of time talking to voters in states where there are U.S. Senate races that could flip seats to the Democrats. That’s not necessarily something she would be doing in a year without the coronavirus — or without Donald Trump on the ballot.
"I probably wouldn’t be doing a lot in other states, but because of what’s at stake, I want to do whatever I can," Scafidi said.
Longtime campaigner Tom Meyers agreed that activism — like education — is always better in person. But at age 70, Meyers is extremely cautious when it comes to limiting his risk of exposure.
Still, Meyers said, "The work needs to carry on."
To that end, he noted, he has gotten more adept at using Zoom teleconferencing and social media and has helped set up a few successful virtual candidate forums in the Greater Lawrence area.
Meyers said he has also worked on getting activists’ op-eds and letters to area newspapers, as well as making phone calls and sending emails to potential voters.
"I’m doing a lot of phone calls and Zooms," said MTA Retired member Carolyn Scafidi. "It’s very different, but you still need to get the word out."
"You always have to be able to adapt to the situation that is in front of you," Meyers said. "The solidarity of the educators’ unions is also very powerful."
Craig Slatin’s activism has been focused on climate change and the development of the MTA Climate Action Network. While the network is still coming together, Slatin said, he sees the limitations of asking educators — both retired and active — to participate in even more remote meetings than they already do.
But Slatin recognized that many of the issues important to the network, along with many supporters of a Green New Deal for Massachusetts, fit into community activism around COVID-19.
"The COVID response and climate crisis response are addressing the very same problems in some cases," he said, pointing out as an example that many schools are not safe to use because of their poor air quality. To renovate or replace such buildings provides an opportunity to create more efficient schools that are climate friendly — not to mention jobs, he said.
Slatin has been representing the MTA in the Massachusetts COVID-19 Response Alliance, and he uses his background in occupational health and safety to work with other retirees and staff members at the Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health — MassCOSH — to develop protocols for essential workers.
Slatin said that working in various climate and COVID-19 coalitions has made it clear to him that activists along the spectrum of progressive causes will stand a better chance of achieving several goals by showing how problems relate, amounting to one big challenge. He said that letting the Legislature claim there are too many competing interests for funding results in a fiscal stalemate.
"We need to be smart," he said, adding that taking on huge and unwieldy issues during the pandemic "has kept me sane."
As MTA Today went to press, the association was preparing to hold the Retired Gathering, a virtual forum at which many of these issues, along with others, were on the agenda.
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