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The larger stage
PICTURED: In the fall of 2003, Tom met South African children while on an AFT delegation investigating the AIDS crisis there.
 Hobart has worked closely with AFT presidents Al Shanker, Sandy Feldman and current President Ed McElroy, and served on the AFT's executive council. McElroy, who previously served 25 years as president of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers, said, "Tom's work in expanding NYSUT membership over the years has been pivotal to the growth and success of the entire AFT. Tom is the gold standard by which we should judge all union leaders."
As the new Illinois Federation of Teachers president in 2002, Jim Dougherty still recalls how much it meant when Hobart offered his help.
"Among the state feds, it's just accepted that when you want the model on how to do things right, you turn to NYSUT," said Dougherty. The IFT sent a team to NYSUT's organizing institute several years ago and this winter sought NYSUT's help to improve its technology for elections. "We wanted the best so we turned to NYSUT."
Marcia Reback of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers said that, since her 1994 election as an AFT vice president, Hobart has been "a reference point for sensibility."
While she agreed with the tributes to Hobart's vision, leadership and instincts which have helped grow the national union, she thinks he also has made sure the union stays on task.
"We joke about Tom with his stopwatch, but the fact that he makes sure meetings start on time, that we move the agenda forward and that we end on time is invaluable," she said. "He also serves that role as someone who is very quiet, but then when he speaks, he cuts right through and gets to the essential nub of the discussion."
PICTURED: AFT's Ed McElroy and Tom Hobart in South Africa in 2003.
 Under the AFT's auspices, Hobart has traveled to more than 40 nations, helping to found or strengthen free trade unions in former communist countries such as Poland and Bulgaria, and serving as a poll watcher in Chile and Argentina.
Hobart has represented the AFT within the labor movement and abroad, including as an AFT delegate to the AFL-CIO convention and to the Education International World Congress. He has participated in numerous AFT and AFL-CIO missions overseas to promote union democracy and civic education.
"I've marveled at the great depth of service he provides," said Dougherty.
As have others. When AFL-CIO historians asked him why he took on the extra work, Hobart replied: "We are unionists. We have a special interest consideration that is very important to the well-being of the state: the education of our children, higher education and health care."
His wife worried about the toll.
"There are times I think he almost endangers himself when he takes on some of these missions," said Dorothy Hobart. "He has such a great love for others and their welfare and he's always felt it was an obligation of those who are able to help those who are less fortunate." Hobart has received numerous awards for his leadership, including the Ellis Island Medal of Honor and the Four Freedoms Award from the Italian-American Labor Council. He has served on the Regents and Governor's Task Force on Equity and Education and co-chaired the task force on learning and teaching, In 1982, he became a charter member of the New York State Martin Luther King Jr. Commission and, in 2002, he received the Cleveland Robinson Labor Award from the Albany chapter of the Coalition for Black Trade Unionists.
Hobart is the co-founder, along with Albany Roman Catholic Bishop Howard Hubbard, of the New York State Labor-Religion Coalition, which is dedicated to helping provide economic justice.
Hubbard said the rest of the state is fortunate that Hobart "has always had a wider sense of commitment to justice that demands that teachers and labor be in the forefront of the fight for human dignity for all in our society."
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