The Local 802 Power Boosters have established a good track record over the last nine months or so.

• An early activity was actually a non-activity. When the campaign on behalf of the “WonderPets!” orchestra needed people to picket the headquarters for the show, we volunteered. But ultimately, the threat of a protest carried the day without our having to appear at all. Sometimes, the threat of a picket line is all you need.
• We made 3,000 phone calls for Barack Obama.
• We made phone calls for Michael McMahon, who ran successfully for the U.S. House of Representatives from Staten Island.
• We made a bus trip to Albany for New York State Arts Day and helped protect funding for the arts in New York.
• We were active in the campaign to prevent the implementation of a sales tax on tickets for Broadway shows. That campaign involved the bus trip above (we killed two legislative birds on that trip) and phoning our own members to ask them to lobby their legislators.
• We were active in the campaign to elect Mark Lesko for town supervisor in Brookhaven.

Our next campaign is most likely going to be a lobbying effort to get New York State unemployment benefits to catch up to those paid in the rest of the country. Right now the amount of money per week paid by New York State ranks in the bottom four of all the states in the U.S. This has to change.

For more information on the Power Boosters, e-mail me at Efein@Local802afm.org.