Union involvement doesn’t have to end when pension checks start to arrive. Millions of union members stay connected in union retiree groups, and in the Alliance for Retired Americans (ARA) — an umbrella group aimed at union retirees.

ARA was started by the AFL-CIO in 2001 as an independent non-profit organization, and as a successor to the National Council of Senior Citizens (a union-allied retirees group that was active from the early 1960s to the late 1990s.)

ARA is an avenue for union retirees to participate in a kind of cross-union political activism focused on core economic justice issues like affordable health care and retiree economic security.

David Blank, the group’s spokes-person, said ARA has 3.5 million members. Any individual can join ARA by signing up online at retiredamericans.org. Dues are $10 a year. Even those who aren’t retired or aren’t union members can join. But the overwhelming majority of ARA members belong because they are retired members of international unions that are paying sliding scale per capita dues for all their retirees to belong. When members of participating unions retire, they receive a letter welcoming them to ARA signed jointly by their union’s president and ARA President George Kourpias, a retired president of the International Association of Machinists.

ARA has a staff of 25 in Washington, D.C., plus 14 field staff throughout the country that assist the group’s 28 state chapters. Some states, like California and New York, have ARA chapters that are active enough to support their own staff. Others have staff who work for the national organization.

To help build the Oregon chapter, the national organization last month hired a part-time organizer, Andrew Gonzalez. Gonzalez was introduced to members April 26 at Oregon ARA’s 5th annual convention.

Verna Porter, president of the Oregon chapter, said the organization has also adopted a new donation policy above and beyond the $10 dues fee. Members who contribute $100, $250 or $500 or more will receive a special certificate of membership. Donor members will be listed in the annual convention program. The Oregon Alliance is a 501 (c) (3) organization, and any donations beyond the $10 dues are tax deductible.

“The Oregon Alliance exists because retirees still care and want to be informed and involved in the issues of the day,” Porter said.

ARA has a more grassroots political orientation than the larger and better-known retiree organization AARP (American Association of Retired Persons). Unlike AARP, ARA doesn’t maintain paid lobbyists; its focus is more on the political activism and education of members.

In 2003, ARA was at odds with AARP over the Medicare Modernization Act. ARA opposed passage of the law, which accelerated the creeping privatization of Medicare and added a drug benefit for seniors but prohibited the government from trying to get a good price for drugs.

This year ARA plans to speak out against proposals by Republican presidential candidate John McCain to privatize Social Security.