AFT affiliates in New York and Washington, D.C., paused Sept. 11 to commemorate the anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Of the 43 AFT members who perished Sept. 11, 2001, 34 of them were state employees represented by the New York State Public Employees Federation (PEF), an affiliate of AFT Public Employees.

PEF dedicated a seven-foot granite monument and garden on the grounds of the union's Latham headquarters to honor all PEF members who have died in the line of duty--the 34 members who died in the attacks on the World Trade Center and nine others, including parole officers, a psychiatrist, a psychiatric nurse and a state Education Department employee who were killed from 1981 to 1999.

"If there is one thing we can do to honor the memory of these brave workers, it is to express our solidarity with them," said PEF president Roger Benson. "We are here today to pay tribute not only to the individuals but also to the important services they delivered."

Nearly 250 people attended the ceremony, including PEF activists, state officials and lawmakers. AFT executive vice president Nat LaCour, who represented the national union at the ceremony, said the monument honors "our deceased brothers and sisters not for the way they died, but for the way they lived--serving the public, doing excellent work and rarely getting the thanks they deserved."

PEF member Erich Valckenaere, a Department of Transportation landscape engineer, designed the monument and garden.

Members and leaders of New York City's United Federation of Teachers, the Professional Staff Congress, AFT's affiliate at the City University of New York, and the Washington [D.C.] Teachers Union also took part in commemorative activities. Seven PSC members died in the attacks on the World Trade Center, and three members of the Washington Teachers Union were on the airplane that crashed into the Pentagon.