Our Board of Directors is made up of 26 representatives from union leaders, public and private sector union retirees, and community representatives. Currently, we have 68 affiliated organizations around the state.

·       Organizing eleven candidate forums in our priority state and federal races, including the 8^th Congressional District, where over 250 retirees attended.

·       Presenting educational presentations on the above issues and programs as well as comparing the positions on retiree issues between Senator Obama and Senator McCain at thirty of our union retiree affiliates.

·       Organizing and directing a mail program targeting over 28,000 union retiree households that included absentee ballot applications, invitations to candidate forums, and comparisons between McCain and Obama, as well as an endorsement postcard for selected candidates in our priority races.

We co-sponsored and helped organize other Social Security events, including:

·       In July, 2005, the National ARA ‘Social Security Truth Truck’ visited Wisconsin carrying petitions from ARA members across the country. We made visits to the city of Racine and Green Bay . Our president, Leon Burzynski, personally delivered over 1,500 petitions each to Representatives Ryan and Green.

We are very proud of our participation in this national coalition. We believe that, due to our efforts, Congress did not vote on the President’s proposal to privatize Social Security. In fact, as the President took his privatizing plan around the country, more and more Americans opposed his plan. As you know, President Bush cut survivor benefits and continued to push the privatizing of Social Security. We maintained our opposition to the privatization of Social Security, the greatest federal program in the history of our country, by informing Wisconsinites about the position of their federal representatives on Social Security and Medicare during this election cycle. 

As part of our collaborative efforts with labor unions and interfaith organizations, in September 2006 we held two additional town hall meetings in Appleton and Green Bay as part of our campaign to fix the Medicare RX law. During that election cycle we organized and sponsored several candidate forums in the 8^th Congressional district with John Gard, the other candidates, and Congressman, Steve Kagen. We asked the candidates to state their position on the law and if they supported allowing Medicare to negotiate the cost of prescription drugs and to eliminate the ‘donut hole’. We also requested their positions on other retiree issues, such as privatizing Social Security and strengthening pension laws to ensure retirees would not lose any of their hard earned pensions.

As part of our efforts to communicate with our affiliates, members, and unions about our activities, we :

·       Created a bi-monthly newsletter with the inaugural issue in November 2005.

·       Developed this WIARA website.

·       Created a mailing data base of nearly 2500 households. Labor unions and our affiliates are the foundation upon which our organization was built.  During the past legislative session, we worked with over 35 statewide organizations in our efforts to pass Healthy Wisconsin, a comprehensive, affordable health insurance plan for all Wisconsinites. We held twelve town hall meetings about Healthy Wisconsin in July and August of 2007. During these town hall meetings around the state, we met with editorial boards and had numerous media interviews about our support for Healthy Wisconsin.