The Georgia Teachers Organization (GTO) is an organizational body that desires to create improved work
conditions and environments for all educators in the state of Georgia. Since there was no single body for speak out for the educators in the state of Georgia, GTO has its objective to do what is missing behalf of
the educators who are in the state of Georgia. They believe that they could more effectively talk out for issues such as high salaries,
improved retirement gains and the abolition of state salary step structure by which the veteran teachers are discriminated, if all
200,000 Georgia educators united. Through The Georgia Teachers
Organization, they could effectively communicate with the members and coordinate actions on important matters that concern Georgia educators.
Volunteering
The Georgia Teachers Organization states that they do not have "luxury" office apartments and none of their members run for elected
office. The organization is purely run by the volunteers who wish to do some service behalf
of the educators who are doing an outstanding service for the state of Georgia. One of the goals that GTO desires to accomplish is that to educate all
Georgia educators about the critical issues that concern their profession and seek the necessary action when it is needed. Using an email communication network, the organization will extend and notify their member of all the
relevant issues. The GTO is requesting the educators in the state of Georgia to join the organization by paying $25 annual fee.
Motivating the Educators
The
Georgia Teachers Organization is activily working towards establishing legislations for better educator gains, so it will uplift the
spirit of the educators According to the organization every state that borders Georgia has full retirement gains for educators after 25 years of service without an
early retirement penalty but Georgia does not offer this benefit. Other than for the core benefits of the educators, The Georgia Teachers Organization
also works on many extra areas for enhancing and bettering the benefits of the educators in the
state of Georgia.
The organization also state that the retirement benefit for each year of service should be increased to 3%. As a result 25 years of service would provide
75% (25*3%) salary upon retirement in contrast to the presently provided 60%. At present, Georgia state employee receive 90% of the salary in their retirement plan and The Georgia Teachers Organization argues that it should be same for the educators.
Making Opportunities
When one joins the Georgia Teachers Organization one gets several benefits such as being included in an action list
which notifies who to contact when important issues break and also receiving email notifications about pending lawmaking
pertaining the profession. The contact details of the individuals, parties, and
organizations are given to The Georgia Teachers Organization’s members, so they can directly have a dialog with the parties who are working to improve the standards for Georgian
educators. Moreover, members would get the opportunity to attend local, regional and state assemblies and meetings to gain first-hand knowledge about
the ideas that other teachers might present to better the working conditions.