Ensure that the sacrifices made by our predecessors were not in vain!

[by Suzanne Donahue]

In 1968 I had just started 7th grade at Wade JHS when our teachers went out on strike. I remember being out of school until mid-November and when we came back we had to stay for an extra period each day to make up for the time we missed.

Since my house was across the street from the school, we would pass the teachers on their picket lines whenever we went out to the store or to a friend’s house.

I can still hear my mother (a founding member of ILGWU) telling me that the teachers would win because they had a very strong union and a leader who would not give up: Albert Shanker. She said they were fighting for us – their students – as well as for themselves, because they wanted us to have a good education. They couldn’t do that if they were always afraid they would loose their jobs at the whim of the mayor or local school board, as 13 teachers had been in Ocean Hill – Brownsville in May of that year.

I always knew that I wanted to be a teacher. Seeing how my teachers stuck together and fought for what they believed in only made me more determined to become one. But I had no idea of what the true cost was, things a 12 year old could never comprehend.

In September 1983 I began teaching at my Alma Mater, Walton H.S. and became a member of this incredible union. Shortly after I began teaching, I learned a great deal about the sacrifices those teachers made back in 1968.

Since they were out of work, they did not get paid. Naturally, this meant that they could not pay their bills, or their rent, or their mortgages. Some members lost their homes because of the strike, some families fell apart. Many took night jobs so they could support their families and were still out their in the morning on the picket line standing up for what they believed in.

I knew then, as I know now, that I would do whatever it takes to preserve the rights those teachers fought so hard to gain, the most important of which was due process. Ironically, here we are, 43 years later, fighting for the same thing. We can not allow our profession to be stripped of this fundamental right. If we are, we loose the ability to stand up for our own welfare and the welfare of our students. We would be at the mercy of the mayor and the DOE and whatever political agenda they are obsessed with at the moment.

I proudly served on the Executive Board of our chapter at Walton H.S. and after it closed its doors in 2008 and I began teaching at one of the small schools on the Walton campus. I am currently the Chapter Leader for my school: The High School for Teaching and the Professions.

We must do whatever it takes to ensure that the sacrifices made by our predecessors were not in vain!

Yours in Solidarity,

Suzanne Donahue