Longtime labor activist keeps on with GE fight

http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2008/apr/20/0420_gepension/

By Sara Foss (Contact)
Gazette Reporter

Sunday, April 20, 2008

SCHENECTADY — The General Electric workers trickled out of the factory Thursday and headed toward the island in front of the company’s sprawling Schenectady campus, where they joined the aging retirees who have rallied here for years. Holding signs that say “COLA NOW” and “Current Guaranteed Minimum Pensions,” the group marched slowly in a circle.

In the midst of the mostly male group was a short, white-haired woman who walks with a cane and wears a hearing aid; a poster that reads “GE — Bring Good Things to Pensioners — Please” hangs around her neck. The woman is 88-year-old Helen Quirini, and this was the 28th year she had organized the annual protest held at the Edison Avenue entrance to General Electric.

Quirini, who retired from General Electric in 1980 after working in the factory for decades, is a longtime labor activist who wears two hats: She is president of the retiree council for IUE-CWA Local 301, the union that represents workers at the GE plant in Schenectady, and also co-founded the GE Justice Fund, which coordinates 15 GE retiree councils throughout the country.

The fight continues

On Wednesday, Quirini will make her annual pilgrimage to GE’s annual shareholders’ meeting, to be held this year in Erie, Pa. There she will continue her fight for higher pensions for GE retirees; specifically, she’d like retirees to receive routine cost-of-living adjustments to their pensions, so their pensions can stay even with inflation, and the guaranteed minimum pension benefit of $34 per month per year of service.

“We have no cost of living,” Quirini said. “From the day you retire to then on in, you’re losing money.” She notes that retirees die ever year, and that the cost of a guaranteed minimum pension will diminish over time.

FULL story at link.