Suleski, a 10-year teaching veteran, is a building representative at Charles D. Harrington Elementary School in Chelmsford, Mass. He is the school’s point of contact for his local, the United Teachers of Lowell. It’s Suleski’s job to keep union members abreast of what the union is doing—and the local up to speed on workplace issues at his school.

“You can count me in to keep members informed about their rights on the job, their collectively bargained benefits, and the local’s legislative stance on the issues facing education today,” says Suleski. He believes the AFT’s Count Me In program will help members stay up to date—and be involved in their union.

“[Members] need to be active in the union so their voice can be heard and they can help the union move in the right direction. We are stronger in numbers.”

Pierce-Williams took what might be the ultimate step toward union activism when she signed up, two summers in a row, for a two-week stint as a volunteer organizer for the AFT far from home.

“It was challenging, but it was a great experience,” says Pierce-Williams, a paraprofessional and building representative for the Chicago Teachers Union, who worked as a volunteer organizer in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. Pierce-Williams and other volunteers from established AFT locals in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and elsewhere have traveled to the Southern states—most of which have no collective bargaining—to sign up members, often in a hostile anti-union environment.

“We complain a lot in Chicago about what the union is not doing and what we don’t have,” she says. But this experience showed that “we have a union that is awesome working for us and with us.” It was a real eye-opener to see both the substandard working conditions, including those for staff at Bureau of Indian Affairs schools in Arizona, as well as the lack of union protection on the job for the workers she talked to during her assignments.

“We should get a lot more people involved in this,” says Pierce-Williams.