GIA Dialogue

Success in the House!

The push to improve Railroad Retirement benefits now moves to the Senate

Yes! Yes! We did it! I am, of course, speaking of the outstanding work all of you did in forcing Speaker of the House Hastert to bring H.R. 1140, the Railroad Retirement and Survivors' Improvement Act of 2001, to a vote on July 31, 2001. At press time, the bill was on its way to the Senate, where, following the August recess, it should be acted upon.

We have worked long and hard to get this bill passed in the Congress. Now, we must act once again by contacting our U.S. Senators, asking them to support S. 697 and pass it as soon after the August break as possible.

To say I am excited, happy and thankful that we have successfully taken a giant step toward correcting our retirement plan would be putting it mildly. Let us just stop and think for a moment about how many of our family members will be affected by the passage of S. 697. I am sure all of you know someone who will benefit.

Legislation has long been an interest of mine. At the Third Quinquennial GIA Convention in 1981, I introduced a resolution to add National Legislative Representative to one of our Vice-President's duties. The GIA President at the time, Lillie Mae Parker, decided that this work should be assigned to the Second Vice-President. It turned out that I was elected Second Vice-President, and, consequently, I served as the Grand International Auxiliary's first National Legislative Representative in 1981.

We were a little slow in the first few years, but have shown great progress in the last five years. This is, I believe, in part due to the complete recognition of us by our counterpart as well as our two ladies who have served us well from 1996 to 2001 - Mabel Grotzinger and Becky Schneider. They are both outstanding individuals and are very good at what they do. I personally want to thank them for all they have done to promote legislation. I believe, without a doubt, that legislation is our best approach for improving our family lifestyle.

Having said all that, I also want to point out how much our GIA members have done to bring about legislation that we support by calling and writing members of the House and Senate. Leaders can only do so much, but with full support from constituents, "We can make a difference."

On a personal note, I have enjoyed writing articles for publication in the Locomotive Engineers Journal; and I must acknowledge and thank the people with whom I have worked (both previously and presently) - Vice-President Bill Walpert; John Bentley Jr., Editor; and Kathleen Policy, Associate Editor - for putting up with me. I appreciate all of you and offer a somewhat sad farewell.

(BLE Editor's Note: This is President Windham's last GIA Dialogue column before September's Seventh Quinquennial Convention. We will miss working with her.)

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© 2001 Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers