John
F. Sullivan |
"Hang Together, or Hang Separately"
Dear Colleagues,
The growth of unions in general, and the birth of ESSAA in particular are ready and immediate examples of the idiomatic expression, United We Stand, Divided We Fall, which was also the rallying cry of our Founding Fathers. Early union activists faced strong opposition from “the powers that be,” just as did the leaders of the American Revolution.
Unions were opposed not only by the big corporations but also by those from within their own ranks who should have known better. So were the Revolutionaries in the Colonies, who couldn’t count on the support of many of their neighbors, who called themselves “Loyalists,” but usually only when they thought that Britain was going to win.
Ben Franklin warned the Continental Congress: “We must all hang together, or surely we must all hang separately.” We have to wonder if he was not also shouting this admonition into the future - to us - for certainly his words of wisdom are just as relevant now as they were then. Are not union leaders across the country today agonizing over the same problems? Don’t we still have a few self serving members who undermine the needs of the organization by spying for the “other side” and trading whatever integrity they may have for a personally larger piece of the pie?
On Sunday evening March 16, HBO aired the long awaited presentation of David McCullough’s biography of John Adams. With superior casting, a flawless script, authentic scenery and a successful effort to depict life as it was, you could not watch it without regaining a profound respect for our Founding Fathers, and the absolute impossibility of the task they had undertaken.
I often tell young school administrators who wonder when the time will come for them to begin looking for another job: then people begin to forget how bad things were before you arrived, it’s time to move on. Have we in the labor movement forgotten how life was before there was a movement at all? When I see and hear of the disloyalty, distrust, and at times contempt that some colleagues have for each other, I have to wonder if we have become so self-absorbed that we have lost the true meaning of union.
School administrators may be in for some rough times in the months to come as the seeds of uncertainty loom throughout the capitals in Albany and Washington. The sudden and unexpected departure of our Governor has once again tossed us into the unknown, as have the ups and downs of the election process. Our hope of course, is that new leadership will bring with it a new respect for public education and all that it has accomplished. All we can do now is to reconnect with a value system that has served us well and: mutual support, respect and locality to our brothers and sisters who are in this mess with us.
United We Stand, Divided we Fall.
Sincerely,
John F. Sullivan
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