A school secretary and member of the Eau Claire (Wis.) School Classified Staff, Wallace was probably the most reluctant union activist of the three. But a desire to do something about the healthcare crisis in the country, combined with Internet access, gave Wallace the perfect vehicle. When a bill was introduced in the U.S. Senate that would have allowed insurance companies, instead of state officials, to decide what benefits existing healthcare plans are allowed to provide, Wallace wrote to her senator to urge him to stand firm against the powerful healthcare lobby. The effort generated more than 6,000 letters, and Republican leaders were ultimately forced to withdraw the bill.

“Typically, I’m not a really political person, but I think the [e-Activist network] is great,” she says. “You can make a difference in a short period of time,” which is important for busy professionals.

Another school secretary, Christi Herrick of Colorado, took the political activism a bit further when she became involved in the AFT’s Activists for Congressional Education (ACE) program. ACE connects union members in their home districts with their senators and U.S. representatives on both sides of the aisle for a series of frank, regular discussions on issues that matter to union members and their communities. In her case, Herrick—who currently serves as secretary-treasurer of the Colorado Classified School Employees Association—was able to meet with Republican Rep. Marilyn Musgrave in 2004 and has maintained contact with the congresswoman’s office since then.

Herrick says her meeting with Musgrave yielded a candid and constructive exchange on the No Child Left Behind act. “Our meeting focused on NCLB legislation and the effects it can have on small, rural school districts, which are sometimes not even statistically able to make ‘adequate yearly progress’ because of the small number of students,” says Herrick, who started her career as a school secretary in such a district. “I think ACE is an excellent vehicle for involving members in the union. It reminds legislators that there are individuals out there paying attention to what they are doing, and it also gives members a chance to be more aware of the issues.”

Cristel 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 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.