Become a Local Organizer for 'Students for Social Secirity' (SSS)

1. Contact us with your name, school, city, year in school and area of study.
2. Register SSS as registered campus organizations (RCO). You may need other student or faculty as signatories. See below for how to table on campus, and more detail on how to become a RCO. The Office of Student Life (OSL) is usually your best bet for this.
3. Announce SSS on your campus and in your community. There are several ways to do this: post "Get Organized" or other fliers on campus, host a media event, contact other organizations in your area working on the Social Security debate (see Coalition building below), submit an article, op-ed, etc to your local or campus newspaper, host an educational or advocacy forum for Social Security.
4. Take Action! Sign petitions, send in pledge cards to congresspersons (available through AARP, we plan to make our own soon as well), attend local rallys, town hall meetings, or other events, hold education and advocacy forums to educate students, staff, faculty, and the community at large about Social Security and the effects of privatization. Many actions can be facilitated by operating through a department or a congressional representative as a sponsor of events (helps with costs and technical assistance, as well as identifying speakers).
5. Get more active on the state or national level! Become a member of SSS's advisory board. Speak at events state- or nation-wide. Submit testimonies to Congress stating student's desire to protect and preserve Social Security as a social insurance program, not a risky investment.

Join the Students for Social Security Coalition
Contact us with information about your organization, we will list you as a contact for Social Security events, and organizing in your area. If your organization has a website we will be happy to provide a link on our site for yours.

Build a Local Social Hands Off Social Security Coalition
Identify and contact local organizations, politicians, businesses, and advocates organizing, or interested in organizing against the privatization of Social Security. Those interested might include: the Gray Panthers, Independent Living Resource Centers, Adult Day care facilities, Long term Care Ombudsman Programs, unions, AARP, Rock the vote, and specific campus departments (community studies, Sociology, Psychology, economics, Political Science, Cultural Studies, Women's Studies, Gerontology, etc). Ask to share information and events. Offer your services as a speaker, activist, etc. Ask to be linked on others websites, or listed as sponsors on event fliers. Create a yahoo group to keep all persons, organizations, etc in communication with each other.

Table on College Campuses
In our experience, most college campuses allow tabling for registered college organizations (RCO). While this is a fairly simple process, another option is to have an existing RCO sponsor your tabling event. Caution should be given in making sure the organization approves of SSS and CSA messages, and will not interfere with our independence. If you are going to be sponsored by an existing RCO, it is also advised to clarify SSS and CSA's non-partisan approach. If the RCO is a partisan organization, it might be better to register SSS as an independent RCO.

The office of student life (OSL) or office of student affairs are usually the people handling the RCO registrations. Occasionally, there is a fee involved in registering the group, shouldn't be more than $50. In most cases you will need several (3-4) signatures, and possibly a faculty signature on the registration form. These people will be the group signatories. In addition, one or more members might be required to attend RCO orientation meetings. These are usually very helpful.

After you are registered, or have decided to work with an existing RCO, schedule a time and place for the tabling. Every campus has a busy area, and it is best to have the table up in the middle of the day, on one or more of the busiest (most classes scheduled) day of the week. You can also usually get tables and chairs set up for your event. Discuss the details with the office which handles student groups.

We suggest holding the table from 11-3, with two shifts, 11-1 and 1-3. Depending on how many people you have to help out, you might want to only be there for 2 hours. If you have lots of people interested in helping, send them around campus with fliers or petitions, or hold the tabling event on more days or in different locations.

Good luck, and questions, suggestions, or comments on individual experiences with tabling are welcome. Please email Brooke@StudentsForSocialSecurity.org.

Organizing Campus Teach-ins
Here are some examples of teach-ins being held on College campuses. Teach in at UCLA . As we gain more experience in holding these events, we will update this section.

Hold Education Forums for Community Leaders
Here is an example of a Social Security Seminar, held for community leaders in Santa Rosa, organized by the Group of 41.

Gray Panther's Organizing How to's
- Use the Social Security Action Steps to perfect your organizing efforts
- How to Build a Successful Coalition, by Howard Vincini of the San Francisco Gray Panthers

How to Teach Students about Social Security

- Recommended Readings about Social Security
a. Hunter, Robert. (1904). Poverty: Social Conscience in the Progressive Era. Peter d'A. Jones, Ed. New York: Harper Torchbooks (1965), 318-340. Excerpt available online.
A Reccommendation from Professor Fay Lomax Cook from our March 2006 newsletter:
Fay Lomax Cook, Professor of Human Development & Social Policy at Northwestern University and Director of the Institute for Policy Research, uses a book written in 1904 by Robert Hunter, titled Poverty: Social Conscience in the Progressive Era to convey to her students the state of our Nation before the implementation of the various social insurance and public assistance programs we have today. Hunter details the wrenching poverty of the early 20th century when neither the government nor industry offered citizens any protection against the normal risks of life. Additionally, he offered policy suggestions aimed at enhancing the lives of the poor - many of which, though not seriously considered at the time, are strikingly similar to programs that exist today. Dr. Cook contends that using this text, in her undergraduate and graduate social and public policy courses, allows her students to better grasp the consequences of rejecting the social contract in favor of privatization and the tyranny of the market. In particular, she asserts that the text demonstrates the greater risk that was born by individuals in the absence of social insurance programs that provided retirement security, or help for those with disabilities, who are unemployed, or who are faced with the death of a spouse or caretaker. Furthermore, her students gain from the Hunter reading a better understanding of the political hurdles that had to be surmounted in order to change the status quo and implement social insurance and public assistance programs. (For her discussion of these points, see pages 7 to 9 of her book: Fay Lomax Cook and Edith J. Barrett. Support for the American Welfare State: The Views of Congress and the Public. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992.)

b. Conason, Joe. (2005). The Raw Deal: How the Bush Republicaions Plan to Destroy Social Security and the Legacy of the New Deal. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. California: PoliPointPress, LLC.

c. Geyman, John P. (2005). Shredding the Social Contract: The Privatization of Medicare. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press.

d. McGovern, George. (2006). Social Security and the Golden Age: An Essay on the New American Demographic. Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing.

e. Marmor, Theodore R. & Mashaw, Jerry L. (21 March 2006). Understanding Social Insurance: Fairness, Affordability, and the 'Modernization' of Social Security and Medicare. Health Affairs Web Exclusive.

f. Quadagno, Jill. (2005). One Nation, Uninsured: Why the U.S. Has No National Health Insurance. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

g. The Century Foundation. (2005). Social Security Reform (Revised 2005 Edition): A Century Foundation Guide to the Issues. New York, NY: The Century Foundation Press.

h. The Century Foundation. (2006). The Basics: Public Policy in an Aging America. New York, NY: The Century Foundation Press.

i. Baker, Dean. (2006). The Conservative Nanny State. Washington, D.C. Center for Economic and Policy Research. Available as a free e-book.

- UFT treasurer Mel Aaronson's How to teach your students about Social Security
- Site Lesson Plan: Social Security and its Effects
- IRS lesson plan on the history and purpose of SS
- Taxony of Terms on Social Security
- Visual Educational Materials on Social Security
- Websites on Social Security
- Comments to Stimulate Class Discussion
- Final Exam Questions about Social Security

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