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Mr. NYSUT

The enduring legacy of outgoing President Tom Hobart

April 2005

The story of Thomas Yale Hobart Jr. is the story of New York State United Teachers. In 33 years as president, he built an enduring legacy of accomplishment and service.

Tom Hobart remembers when it hit him that he, a young industrial arts teacher and guidance counselor in Buffalo, was destined to become a union activist.

It was the early 1960s. Struggling on a beginning teacher's salary of about $3,500, Tom still lived with his mother, Anne Molloy, in Amherst. At the time, Hobart shared the commonplace view that teachers - unlike plumbers, electricians, meatpackers or other blue-collar workers - had no need to unionize.

Still, Hobart had joined a campaign to improve benefits and wages in his district. He was also vocal about the need to improve working conditions. That's the way he was, the way he is: an advocate for fairness, for making things better.

But a unionist? No! He was a teacher, a professional.

Anne Molloy disagreed.

"She got a dictionary and opened it up to 'union,''' Hobart recalls. "She read the definition that said a union was an organization that fights for salary and benefits, tries to protect the rights of members and defends them if they're going to get fired.

"Then my mother asked, 'Is this what you do?' And it was. And it made me realize that I wouldn't fight being called a unionist any longer."

Barely a decade later, this once-reluctant unionist would emerge as a leader in the movement that brought New York's educators together under the banner of organized labor. He went on to build New York State United Teachers into an organization serving more than half-a-million members in education and health care, widely regarded as one of the most respected, influential and effective unions in the nation.

Just one month before retirement, the president of New York State United Teachers is meeting with a New York Teacher reporter in between briefings on the legislative session and the latest update on the Regents, the state's education policy board.

"We didn't get everything we wanted on middle-level discussions, but we got more than anyone had expected," Tom Hobart says, finding a place to sit among the packing boxes in his fourth-floor office. Also pressing that day is an update on the state budget and a meeting to go over details of the union's annual convention, the last he will oversee as NYSUT president.

In his 33 years as president, Hobart, who turned 68 in December, has been a constant through five governors and seven U.S. presidents. A low-key, unassuming leader, Hobart is a "kid from Buffalo" who in more than three decades at NYSUT's helm forever changed the face of education and politics in New York state.

Before Tom, teachers struggled to support their families, faced capricious dismissal on administrators' whims and anticipated a threadbare, if not poverty-stricken, retirement. School-Related Professionals too often were not valued for the work they did. Before Tom, nurses and other health care professionals could be ordered to scrub floors rather than care for patients. Before Tom, higher education unions typically had to go it alone in their fight for rights and contracts.

Because of Tom Hobart - and the union he led for more than three decades - these dedicated professionals now share strength in numbers. He has built an encompassing union of professionals, made strong by diversity as well as size.

Now, salaries for teachers across New York state are among the highest in the nation. School-Related Professionals have made gains in salary, benefits and respect on the job. Higher education unionists can rely on their K-12 colleagues in a shared fight for equity and excellence. Health care professionals harness a mighty voice on behalf of patient care, pay and working conditions. And retirees face the future, not with fear, but the assurance of pensions and benefits earned through years of dedication.

Tom was central to every fight, every challenge and every victory. Under his leadership, NYSUT has grown in numbers, in stature and in the services it provides to members. It has expanded its mission to give voice, not only to classroom teachers and SRPs, but also to higher education and health care professionals and retirees, as well as workers in wide-ranging professional jobs who need an advocate.

While NYSUT has had great success on bread-and-butter issues, it's not only about terms and conditions of employment. During Tom's presidency, NYSUT has led the way in strengthening public education, from pre-K through post-graduate. And the union made its mark on a wide range of humanitarian issues across the state and across the globe.

NEXT: "A mother's influence"