NDU is Empowered to do 'Big Things'

NDU IS EMPOWERED TO DO ‘BIG THINGS’

But, we need YOUR help!

I hope you have all had a restful and restorative summer with plenty of time to enjoy the company of your friends and families. For many NDU members, this column will find you returning to the classroom after continuing your education, enhancing your skills and/or providing exceptional educational experiences to students in summer school sessions across the state.

This column will find still more NDU members engaged in the rewarding work of skillfully providing the vital services that the people of North Dakota have come to expect. Higher education professionals will be found engaging in dynamic research and teaching that brings distinction to our university system. Some members will be supporting our higher education faculty in making sure that the materials and services needed by faculty and students are available and easily accessible. Other education support professionals will be hard at work helping K-12 teachers and students to reach goals and impart necessary skills. Some members will be helping the most vulnerable among us regain their skills after injury, while others will be working to help others to reclaim their lives as they recover from drug and alcohol addiction.

This column will find some of North Dakota’s invaluable public employees fixing our roads and keeping them safe. Others will be keeping us safe through their work in our state’s corrections and rehabilitation facilities. Many NDU members will be found making sure that the State of North Dakota is providing the litany of services that benefit all North Dakotans; from collecting the taxes our state is owed to providing the health and human services our citizens need, to making sure that these services are provided as efficiently and cost effectively as possible.

We are all public servants, and we are all North Dakota United! Your membership in our organization has resulted in a very successful year for NDU, beginning with an increase in our membership. Through membership comes strength and influence. It is that strength and influence that has resulted in a very successful legislative session where our lobbying team represented your interests very well.

On behalf of our members, NDU successfully lobbied legislators:

• To secure 3 percent increases in salaries for public employees in each year of the next biennium

• To secure 3 percent increases in education funding for each year of the next biennium

• To turn back a truly awful attack on the collective bargaining law affecting all K-12 teachers

• To continue full funding for public employee health insurance

• To defeat pension “reform”

• To pass Anti-Workplace Bullying legislation

• To pass legislation to grant leave that can be used by victims of domestic violence

• To stop an ill-advised plan to allow school districts to arm school employees

• To pass an historic bill providing state funding for an early childhood education program

• To kill a voucher bill allowing a tax credit for parents who enroll their kids in private schools

• To guarantee that all state agencies have a policy to address workplace harassment

There are more but the point is this: our members have empowered us to do “big things” on their behalf. So, for us to do more “big things,” we must grow our membership even more.

To that end, I am challenging each of our 11,300 members to do one more “big thing:” ask your co-workers and colleagues to join our organization. The number one reason that people do not join is that they are not asked. You can change that. You know your colleagues and they know you. Tell them about our values and about our unwavering commitment to great public schools and great public service!

And remember, for every member you sign up that was not a member last year, you earn $50.00!

Thank you for your membership, thank you for your activism, and thank you for the “big things” you do for NDU and North Dakota every day! Cheers!