The making of an advocate often has its roots in a single defining moment, when a worker realizes there’s no other place to turn except the union.

Barbara Habenstreit, one of UUP’s most stalwart activists, can remember the day 20 years ago when she sought help from her union for the first time. She’s never looked back since then.

New York state had instituted a systemwide job reclassification for professionals at SUNY, and Habenstreit — a journalist and author turned administrator at Brooklyn HSC — suddenly realized that she needed help appealing the much lower salary cap in her new classification.

“So I turned to the union, which I had never needed before,” recalled Habenstreit, the chapter vice president for professionals at Brooklyn HSC. “And suddenly I needed it, because I was going to appeal, and that was the only way you could appeal it — through the union.”

Habenstreit ended up volunteering to help her chapter process the more than 300 appeals during the reclassification, in a gesture that set the pattern for her hands-on approach to unionism. And UUP came through for her: She ended up with a higher salary cap for her job classification.

That experience, Habenstreit recalled, “showed me what the union can do. It was something I took very seriously.”

Habenstreit retired in December 2005 after 27 years at Brooklyn HSC, where she was the administrator of preventive medicine and community health. She completed her final term as chapter vice president for professionals this past June.

With her will go an exceptional record of service to UUP, and a reputation for advocacy that will be difficult to replace, said Brooklyn HSC Chapter President Rowena Blackman-Stroud.

“Hers is really a history of advocacy,” Blackman-Stroud said. “People get involved in the union for different reasons, but hers is one of total advocacy. And it was the way she did it — she gave it her all.”

Among Habenstreit’s credits: Service on the statewide UUP Outreach Committee; a stint as statewide VOTE/COPE coordinator; and longtime membership on the Joint Labor/Management Committee on Employment.

Prior to joining Brooklyn HSC, Habenstreit worked as an editor, magazine journalist and author, who produced seven nonfiction books, mostly about civil liberties and the U.S. government. She turned that background into union service as the editor of her chapter newsletter.

She also served on the UUP Negotiations Team in 2000, where her vast experience, record of advocacy and involvement in many social justice projects through her union work and her job made her a trusted advisor to then-Chief Negotiator Thomas Matthews of Geneseo.

“She was always the one I could depend on for a straight, honest assessment of whatever we were dealing with,” Matthews recalled. “As a Team member, her insights were critical.”

Habenstreit has many good memories of special projects at Brooklyn HSC that dovetailed the union’s focus on community service with her dedication to the health care field. Among her favorite projects: Bringing free pap tests and breast cancer screenings to neighborhood clinics that targeted low-income women, who often lacked regular health care.

“That was very rewarding work,” Habenstreit recalled. But the clinics operated mostly on grants, she added, and as a result, they continue on a much smaller scale. The effort to serve the often high-need population in the hospital’s own back yard, and the effort to obtain adequate funds with which to do that, have been driving forces in Habenstreit’s long record of advocacy at Brooklyn HSC.

For this longtime unionist, the advocacy never ends.

“If we keep at it, and keep working on it, we can succeed,” Habenstreit said.

— Darryl McGrath