(DUNKIRK, NEW YORK) - From a gurney in the emergency room at Buffalo General Hospital on May 6th, Joe Sweeny (pictured below/Photo Courtesy of NYSUT) wanted to make sure his longtime companion Mary Ellen Decker did not forget … the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) tickets to a May 9th fundraiser for Southern Tier U.S. Congressional Candidate John Plumb.

“I asked him if he ‘knew where he was’ and he said he ‘knew he was - in the damn hospital,’ but he wanted to ‘make sure’ that someone from NYSUT was at Plumb’s fundraiser.  He was ‘passionate’ about getting John elected to Congress to give our region a ‘stronger voice.’  Then he started ‘worrying’ about the speech he was supposed to give at Worker’s Memorial Day.  When I told him I ‘didn’t think’ the doctors would let him go, as ‘bossy as ever,’ he told me that ‘I’ would have to give the speech then,” she recalled.

If Decker felt she could have left Joe’s side, she would have given that speech.

Southern Tier Union Activist Sweeny, a NYSUT Board member, former Dunkirk Teachers Association president and a Social Studies Teacher for 38 years, died Sunday (May 8th) morning at Buffalo General Hospital from complications caused by an incurable brain tumor.

“NYSUT and the Labor Movement have ‘lost a fierce advocate,’ a ‘persuasive voice’ and a ‘loyal friend,’” NYSUT President Karen Magee said. “Joe will be ‘missed by many.’”

While funeral arrangements are incomplete, honoring Joe has already started.

“I was on the phone with Rick (Gallant, a fellow NYSUT Board Member) and we knew folks would ‘want to do something’ for Joe and we both ‘instantly knew’ what Joe would want ‘more than anything’ would be for folks to register people to vote and, specifically, for the Democratic Party,” Decker said.

Dunkirk Teachers Association’s current president, Nancy Baker, laughed when she heard of that request to register people as Democrats.  “Joe ‘built a legacy of reaching out to help others’ and by ‘motivating’ people to ‘go the extra mile,’” Baker said.

Gallant agreed.

“He was ‘tireless,’” Gallant said, recalling he first met Sweeny at a NYSUT contiguous Election District meeting after he became elected president of the Corning Teachers Association.  Sweeny represented ED 4, a huge geographic region that stretches from Salamanca past Olean, while Gallant served as an at large director for both ED 4 and 46.

“My first thought was ‘doggone this guy is passionate about Worker Rights and Teachers.’  My second thought was ‘doggone, he talks forever!,’ Gallant said, laughing.

That ability to talk and to press the case of Members he represented started as a young Social Studies Teacher, recalled Anthony Bifaro, who first met Sweeny at a Chautauqua County local leaders meeting.  “I was president of the Brocton Teachers Association and Joe was an officer of the Dunkirk TA. Many locals were ‘just beginning to understand’ the Taylor Law and there were demonstrations or picket lines several nights a week as a means of ‘getting the message across to the public’ and ‘getting our members engaged,’” Bifaro said.  “People ‘followed Joe’s lead’ so he would bring along many people with him to those demonstrations.  Joe ‘believed in the core mission of Unionism’ – his Members were ‘foremost on his mind’ - and it ‘didn’t stop’ with NYSUT.  He was a ‘fierce advocate for all Unions,’ active in the (Dunkirk AFL-CIO Central) Labor Council and ‘became recognized for his advocacy, knowledge and activism.’”

To Read the Rest of This Labor Remembrance on the Late Joe Sweeny, Go to: http://blogs.nysut.org/blog/2016/05/11/joseph-sweeny-his-members-were-foremost-on-his-mind/