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. 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.
PICTURED: From left: Tom with his mother and father. Anne Hobart with her two sons, Tom and Charles. Tom was called to active duty in the U.S. Army Reserve during the Berlin crisis of 1961. Elizabeth and Catherine sit next to their dad while Thomas Y. Hobart III is on his lap.
Tom Hobart is used to challenges. He learned to handle loss at the age of 12, when his father died from complications of tuberculosis. "My father was a high-level engineer, and back then we lived at the top of society," he said. His mother was left to raise two boys on her own, until her remarriage to Charles Molloy, a pharmacist.
If not for his mother's encouragement, Hobart would have never become a teacher.
"Everyone assumed I'd be an engineer like my dad," said Hobart, recalling some of the coursework was so against his nature and such a struggle that he decided to join the Air Force with a buddy. Both passed the first physical and went off to Massachusetts, but Hobart's poor eyesight failed the second physical.
"They had a big party for me when I left and I remember feeling like I was just sneaking back in to Buffalo," he said. He was proud to later go on to serve in the U.S. Army Reserve.
He got two jobs, one in the circulation department of the Buffalo Evening News and the other at Bethlehem Steel. Yet his mother insisted he continue his education.
"So the only reason I went to Buffalo State was to please her, and it wasn't until I practice-taught that I realized, I really liked this and I can see doing this."
After earning his degree, Hobart began working in 1959 as an industrial arts teacher in Buffalo where his boyish appearance had him frequently mistaken for a student.
Although he only made $3,500 a year as a teacher, he agreed with the prevailing thinking that unions and teachers did not belong together. Before long, he changed his mind. "I remember attending a board meeting where we were asking for a $100 raise.
"The school board president got up and said, 'That wasn't enough. You deserve a $1,000 raise. But since we can't even afford the $100, we're going to show our appreciation.'
"Then they all stood up and applauded. That's when I realized teachers needed to join together and get collective bargaining rights."
He was sporting a Buddy Holly look when he enrolled in the graduate program at Canisius College and met Dorothy Gay, an English teacher who says she "loved those black glasses. He looked so intellectual and cute." The two married in 1963.
"I thought we would just have a normal life, like so many other teachers who marry each other," said "Dottie" Hobart. Their family grew as first Elizabeth, then Catherine, Thomas Y. Hobart III and Jennifer were born.
In 1964, Hobart became a building representative for the Buffalo Teachers Federation and was elected president in 1969. Marcella Fugle, a science teacher in the Hamburg schools and union activist, recalled: "Even back then, he had a vision for public education and the role of professional development of teachers that was far ahead of its time."
Arnold Gardner was a lawyer and president of the Buffalo school board in 1970 at the time Hobart led 3,700 teachers in a district of 70,000 students. "It was clear even then that Tom's standard was representation and advocacy in the interest of both children and teachers," said Gardner.
In 1971, at 34 years old, Hobart was elected the youngest president of the 105,000-member New York State Teachers Association. He would spend the next year working toward a merger of that union with its rival, the United Teachers of New York, led by the legendary Albert Shanker.
At this time of extraordinary pressure, the Hobarts experienced a personal tragedy. Their youngest, infant Jennifer, contracted a strep infection that entered her bloodstream. She died in January 1972.
"It was a horrible loss and for so many couples the loss of a child often creates such friction," Dorothy Hobart said. "But we grieved together and that was so very, very important, that I think it drew our family even closer together.
PICTURED: The merger negotiations team included, back row: Emanuel Kafka, Ken Deedy, Dan Sanders, Abel Blattman, Antonia Cortese, Walter Tice; front row: Sandra Feldman, Ed Rodgers, Al Shanker, Tom Hobart, and AFT President David Selden.
After months of intense negotiations and meetings around the state, the merger agreement was signed on March 30, 1972. Hobart and Shanker directed the interim governance structure of the 200,000-member statewide union until the new organization's first Representative Assembly was held in March 1973. That election marked Hobart's first victory as president, and installed a slate that included Vice President Antonia Cortese, who would serve with Tom until she was elected American Federation of Teachers executive vice president in 2004. "Tom always started out of the gate a couple miles ahead of the rest of us," Cortese recalled.
"No one was more loyal or," Hobart says with a grin, "more hard on me than Toni. You need people who will tell you when you're wrong because that will at least slow you down."
While Shanker was a well-known activist from New York City, it was Hobart who sold the rest of the state on merger, noted Sylvia Matousek, president of the North Syracuse Education Association and a veteran NYSUT Board member.
"That saying, 'all for one and one for all' was just a saying for many of us when we thought about merger with the 'radical' downstaters," she said. "But having Tom there made us feel more secure. Shanker could not and would not have sold merger on his own. It was Tom's reputation on the line with all the upstate locals," Matousek said, noting that his availability became his trademark.
"He wouldn't let a meeting go unattended or a member's question unanswered," she said. "His commitment simply never ended."
Hobart's first major task was to solidify the merger and, in fact, he and Shanker had high hopes for a national merger. After helping to form the National Council for Unity, NYSUT leaders traveled across the country talking up the dream of a national merger of the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association. Working with Al Shanker during that year was "one of the greatest honors of my life. There were so many things he taught me,"Hobart said. "He was a remarkable mentor."
Dorothy Hobart agrees: "He always said the greatest privilege was working with Al." By this time in their marriage, she had realized that she had to share her husband with the union: "In the beginning, when he became president of the BTF, I thought it was a short-term thing, but then as it kept growing, and I saw how dedicated he was to this cause of helping people, I realized I would have to do some adjusting."
That included taking on the primary responsibility of raising the children during the week while Tom was away on union business. Perhaps it helped that teaching was her chosen profession and she agreed with the cause, Dottie Hobart said. "I've heard him say the union was his fifth child. I tell people it's his first love - I'm only half joking. He loves this organization and the work, and I support that, although there have been times he's driving back to Albany from a meeting late at night, and I've asked why he drives himself so," she said.
Perhaps Hobart's drive was fueled in part by one of the union's earliest failures. While merger was successful in New York, it did not catch on nationwide. A mainstay during this time was one of Shanker's lessons to never give up.
"We've had setbacks, but we've also had a lot of victories," Hobart said. "The only way you get the victories is if you learn from your failures.
"A very important thing Al taught me is to listen to the objections to your argument," Hobart said. "There were many times Al would push for something, and it was clear we had enough votes to do it, but he'd back off."
In 1975, officers learned some locals in New York were moving to disaffiliate from NYSUT to join another state organization set up by the National Education Association. NEA fell far short of its prediction that it would win 50,000 members away from NYSUT. Still, Hobart would describe that period as a dark time as NYSUT was forced to temporarily lay off 12 employees because of uncertain membership: "Laying off staff was one of the worst things I had to do in this job," he said. However, the layoffs were short-lived. NYSUT emerged from that period as the pre-eminent education union in New York state. Ironically, more than three decades later, as Hobart announced his plans to step down, he would again be leading a team in unification talks with NEA/New York.
PICTURED: Gov. Hugh Carey greets NYSUT leaders Antonia Cortese, Dan Sanders and Tom Hobart.
In 1976, Hobart crossed paths again with Buffalo lawyer Arnold Gardner. This time he and Gardner were both appointed to a Regents Advisory Board on Teacher Education. Gardner recalled how that report was visionary for such now customary practices as mentoring and internships for new teachers and for the creation of teacher centers to provide professional development.
Hobart, who was working in tandem with Cortese on educational issues, was specifically "pushing for the creation of a professional practice board that would parallel the licensing and standards board in other professions," Gardner said.
Gardner said discussions during that task force deepened his appreciation for the leader Hobart was becoming. "Of course NYSUT had and has specific responsibilities to its membership for economic matters, security concerns and personal status issues," said Gardner, who went on to serve as a trustee of the State University of New York and now serves on the state Board of Regents. "During our discussions at the task force, Hobart's commitment to the mission of public education and the role of education in the personal fulfillment and upward mobility of students, the quality of their citizenship and even the human capital needs of the state, was recognized more fully."
In 1978, Hobart was challenged from within when Executive Vice President Dan Sanders ran against him for president and lost.
Jim Wood, who served on the NYSUT Board of Directors at that time, reflected that challenges to leadership are part of the union democracy. "I remember that the challenge did bring up issues that needed to be addressed, such as hiring a comptroller for the growing organization and establishing a public relations operation that would coordinate efforts between the state organization and needs of local unions. Tom worked very hard to address them and made the union stronger."
NYSUT's mission statement says: "Through a representative democratic structure, New York State United Teachers improves the professional, economic and personal lives of our members and their families, strengthens the institutions in which they work, and furthers the cause of social justice" through the union movement.
Hobart attributes a great deal of NYSUT's strength to the union's structure which, as a representative democracy, promotes consensus among the wide variety of local unions and constituency groups.
Each year, the union has a policy-making convention called the Representative Assembly. Local unions elect delegates who vote through open ballots so members know where delegates stand.
That representative democracy means elected officers serve the organization based on direction received from the delegate body from year to year.
Don Benker, president of the Kenmore Teachers Association in western New York, said the structure was developed after observing pitfalls with other unions.
"When Tom ran as president for NYSTA, it was radical for teachers to have more say in their union than administrators, and for the elected leaders to have more power than the staff," Benker said.
Jim Wood was on the NYSUT Board and teaching in Rome in 1974 when Hobart asked him to come to work at NYSUT. He subsequently became assistant to the president and, in 1988, executive director of Field and Legal Services. "What developed," Wood said, "was a balance between staffers who were grounded in the union structure and politics, as well as staffers who are grounded in technical skills the union needs."
PICTURED: Hobart recognizes SRP members of the Hempstead Teaching Assistants Association on their 35th union anniversary in 2002.
When NYSUT was a fledgling organization, "no one ever imagined we'd have over a half-million members just 30 years later," said Paul Cole, a former social studies teacher in the Lewiston-Porter schools who is secretary-treasurer of the state AFL-CIO.
From the beginning, Hobart recognized the value of strength in numbers. To imbue staff and fellow officers with his own unwavering focus on NYSUT's mission, he was known for invoking from his store of apt aphorisms. He repeatedly quoted Vito deLeonardis, NYSUT executive director during the '70s and '80s, who said: "No union is the same size next year. You either get bigger or you get smaller."
Hobart saw common ground with many constituencies. One of the fastest growing membership areas was School-Related Profes-sionals. Glenn Lucas was a custodian and building rep in the New Rochelle schools in the lower Hudson Valley when he met Hobart at one of the first statewide conferences for SRPs in the late 1970s. Hobart's commitment to SRPs led to many legislative gains on their behalf, as well as high-profile roles in union governance and committees, said Lucas, a NYSUT Board member.
"I remember he spoke about how important it was for SRPs to get more involved in the state union, not to just look at what the union could do for them," Lucas said.
PICTURED: Hobart listens as nurse Nancy Barth Miller reports on health care resolutions at the 2002 convention. Carol Braund of UUP looks on.
NYSUT had always represented many nurses, a role that expanded when nurses in non-school facilities and other health care professionals joined the union. Anne Goldman, R.N., who chairs NYSUT's Health Care Professionals Council, recalled meeting Tom in the early 1980s: "He was wearing one of his plaid suits. How could you miss him?" she joked.
NYSUT has fought for nurses on whistle-blower legislation and a whole range of issues related to pay and patient care, she said. Hobart was "always so approachable, you don't know he's president of a statewide organization."
From its earliest days, NYSUT also had affiliated thousands of higher education members, including United University Professions at SUNY; the Professional Staff Congress at CUNY; private four-year colleges; and community college locals across the state. The union was strengthened by adding employees at a wide range of service and government institutions.
Ellen Schuler Mauk, president of the Faculty Association of Suffolk Community College, recalled: "Several years ago, after a rather difficult and prolonged round of negotiations, Tom joined me and the negotiating team as we explained the details to members. He was as interested in our settlement as we were and his presence at our meeting sent a very clear message to my membership that NYSUT is more than a label, it's an organization that cares about its locals. That's the personal touch that he has brought to the organization."
UUP President William Scheuerman characterized Hobart as "the glue that held NYSUT together."
PSC, led by Barbara Bowen, lauded Hobart as "a steady, guiding influence in the labor movement, a strong advocate of coalition-building, and a major presence in the struggle for human rights."
As the union grew, so did the challenges by politicians who sought to reverse gains made by workers over the previous 50 years. While many unions were barely holding onto members, NYSUT bucked that trend and was actually growing.
Cortese credited the growth to Hobart's vision and "unbounded energy. "The word 'no' is never in his vocabulary. Tom always believed that if he had six things to do during a day, there was no reason why he couldn't do eight," Cortese said. "Tom loved his job, and everyone who served with him had to meet the same high standards. That's why we are so unified."
Tony Bifaro, assistant to the president since 1980, says Hobart's ability to balance the needs of the union's largest locals, such as the 100,000-member United Federation of Teachers in New York City, with the smallest locals, is a key part of his legacy: "He's always able to project the importance of unity, staying together."
North Syracuse's Matousek agreed that among Hobart's strengths is how he balances differing agendas. "Since the day this union was birthed, he has fashioned a vision for this union and has done it by working with a tremendous number of people and causes. He's done it by listening and making the compromises so everybody had enough of their agenda met so that we could move forward together," she said.
Many have remarked at how approachable Hobart is.
In the late 1970s, Lois Burn was a speech therapist in the Mill Neck Manor schools on Long Island, a state-supported private school serving students with hearing, speech and language disabilities. Staffers there were not in a union, but they turned to NYSUT. "We needed to be part of something bigger, but everyone you met at NYSUT treated you like an equal, regardless of the size of your local," she said.
Burn, who became local president, recalled meeting Hobart at a conference in the early 1980s. "With everything else going on, he took the time to meet with me and another new president from the Lexington School for the Deaf and listen to our concerns. We were just a tiny little group, but he made us know how important we were to the larger union."
Now a speech therapist and member of the Jericho Teachers Association, Burn said she still gets that feeling when she attends NYSUT conferences.
As NYSUT grew, so did its clout. It took a lead role in the commissioner's 1988 Task Force on the Teaching Profession, which recommended raising standards for teacher preparation. This followed by a year the formation of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, a result of NYSUT's early advocacy for national teacher certification.
"All of this was done amidst a huge amount of anti-labor sentiment," said Benker, a member of NYSUT's Board of Directors, who said he was "most proud" of the union's response to the 1983 report, A Nation at Risk, which shocked the nation by charging "a rising tide of mediocrity" was threatening public education.With Hobart and Cortese taking the lead, NYSUT "didn't run and hide. We addressed the criticisms. We expanded our Research and Educational Services Division because the union was integral to raising standards."
Hobart had enthusiastically endorsed Cortese's 1979 launch of the Effective Teaching Program, which would evolve into the Education and Learning Trust, a broadly expanded resource for members seeking professional development and graduate credits. Under Hobart's watch, the union developed a nationally renowned Legal Division and a Member Benefits Department offering extensive services for NYSUT members and their families.
A significant area of growth has been in services for retirees, whose participation in NYSUT has strengthened under Hobart's administration.
PICTURED: As membership has grown, so has the need for office space. Hobart initiated a major construction project that resulted in a 2002 state-of-the-art office complex. The building, constructed by union labor, came in on time and under budget. It professionally and efficiently addresses the needs of members, leaders and NYSUT employees.
PICTURED: In 2002, Tom Hobart celebrates the first recipients of the Not For Ourselves Alone Outstanding Leadership Awards, AFT's Sandra Feldman and NYSUT's Antonia Cortese.
Hobart has made sure he practiced what he was asking people to do in his columns in New York Teacher. When the union asked members to fast for economic justice for migrant workers, Hobart went without meals for two days. When NYSUT sent delegations to examine how the 1993 free trade agreement was worsening conditions in Mexican border towns, he went on one himself, meeting workers and hearing their difficulties. When the national union asked members to support efforts against the AIDS crisis in Africa, he went to that country to meet children, teachers and doctors for himself.
But first and foremost, he was there when called to meet with members. Glenn Lucas, the union activist on School-Related Professional issues, remembers that several years ago Hobart drove two hours to attend a meeting that, because of the weather, only a handful attended.
"I can't remember him ever saying 'no' to a meeting," said Lucas. "He might have to say he couldn't make it a particular day, or particular time, but he would never turn down a request."
Hobart said it's his main duty as president to respond to requests.
PICTURED AT LEFT: President Bill Clinton accepts a NYSUT VOTE-COPE shirt from Tom Hobart at the union's annual convention in Rochester in 2001.
"I learned from Al, you never ask someone to do something unless you'll do it yourself," he said. "I thought about that this fall when we worked on John Kerry's campaign," he said. As part of the American Federation of Teachers' mobilization, he worked phone banks and went door-to-door in Michigan.
NYSUT has played a pivotal role in its national affiliate, the American Federation of Teachers, and in the larger labor movement. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney called Hobart "a great leader who has an amazing ability to listen to what others are saying and give great advice. Tom has been very much involved in the trade unions."
Hobart signaled the importance of labor ties by ensuring that NYSUT's affiliated local unions were paid-up members of their AFL-CIO Central Labor Councils.
"That was also a radical idea," said Cole, the former teacher who became a state AFL-CIO officer. "Then we saw first-hand the advantages of being involved."
The clear advantage was AFL-CIO support on the legislative front. Having the trade unions support aid to education, pension improvements and tenure spoke volumes. Teachers returned the favor. A notable early effort came in 1981, when more than 10,000 NYSUT members traveled to Washington for the AFL-CIO's first Solidarity Day.
Said state AFL-CIO President Denis Hughes: "Tom played a vital role in helping to shape and build the state AFL-CIO into a viable political and legislative force." NYSUT members make up about one-fourth of the state's AFL-CIO's more than 2 million union members.
PICTURED: Tom Hobart with Alan Lubin, left, urges support for striking workers at a Glens Falls paper plant in 2001
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."
PICTURED: Serving as officers in 2004-05 are from left, Ivan Tiger, secretary-treasurer; Maria Neira, vice president; Tom Hobart, president; Alan Lubin, executive vice president and Richard Iannuzzi, vice president.
NYSUT Vice President Richard Iannuzzi, who is a candidate to succeed Hobart as president, said he's learned a lot about Hobart during long car rides together over the last several months.
"We've logged thousands of miles driving across the state together and during every trip, Tom shares a piece of history or the inside story as a lesson of how unions should work and interact with members," Iannuzzi said. "When you put all the conversations together, this is a man who loves the union he represented."
Iannuzzi admires Hobart's incredible drive, his "sincere effort to work hard at it every day" even after more than three decades of service. He also noted Hobart's hallmark of service to members.
"He has always emphasized how important it is to get back to leaders and members," Iannuzzi said. "He'd say, 'If they're taking their time to reach out to you, you owe them a response. You simply have to find the time to keep the lines of communication open.'"
PICTURED: From right, Tom Hobart, AFT's Edward McElroy, NYSUT's Alan Lubin and UUP President Bill Scheuerman cheer on other higher education advocates at a rally for more state funding in 2002.
The union achieved a milestone in 2003 when NYSUT organized an extraordinary May rally to protest draconian budget cuts in public education. In his RA speech, Hobart foreshadowed the need for "every member, every day" to join the fight for what students need.
"On one side are those who would use the budget crisis to end opportunity," he said, noting the growing call for givebacks and cutbacks. On the other side are "all of us, the people who do the work - every member, every day."
Hobart asked people to come to Albany on a Saturday in May to remind lawmakers that New York's future is in its classroom and they needed to fund public education and health care.
Tony Bifaro recalled the trepidation before the May 3 event. "It was like Field of Dreams, where we really weren't sure how many were going to come," he said.
They came by car, bus, train and even planes. And more than NYSUT members: Other unions, parents, children and community groups answered the call.
The tens of thousands of activists called on lawmakers to do what had happened only twice since 1872: override a governor's veto. Which they did, restoring millions to education.
PICTURED ABOVE: The Hobart family has been constant at conventions. From left: Dorothy, Elizabeth, Stella, Emily, Tom and Catherine. BELOW: Four generations includes Anne Molloy holding her first grandchild, Eric. Standing next to Tom is his oldest child, Elizabeth.
Hobart is proud of the union's many gains, including a strong focus on increasing diversity in NYSUT. Peggy Barmore, Tom's assistant since 1999, noted he "literally walked the walk to increase diversity within the union. He ensured staff and management were reflective of the membership by hiring more women and minorities and appointing them to senior-level positions."
Typically, he reflects on his legacy in the way he has always approached his job: by sharing credit. "I've had so much help, it's not really my legacy," he says, ticking off a long list of fellow unionists with whom he's worked.
As NYSUT enters its 34th year, new challenges abound. But Hobart is confident that NYSUT is up to the task. When he announced his retirement in November, he promised to "devote all my energy and talents to ensuring a seamless transition."
"I had the best job in the world, I'm certainly not looking for a lesser job," said Hobart, whose term will conclude April 9 at the Representative Assembly,
He and Dorothy are looking forward to spending more time with family. Daughter Elizabeth is returning to the teaching profession in western New York; Catherine is a partner in a law firm in Atlanta, Ga.; and Thomas Y. Hobart III is an executive with a software firm in western New York. They have four grandchildren: Eric, Emily, Stella and Thomas Y. Hobart IV, who goes by his middle name, Yale.
"We're looking forward to playing golf in the summer and skiing in the winter, and traveling for pleasure, not business," Dorothy said from their home in Amherst. "It's hard to imagine what it's going to be like, because he's just been so busy all these years."
PICTURED: In October, with his wife by his side, Tom receives a standing ovation by members of the NYSUT Board of Directors for his years of service to the union.
When the merger agreement for United Teachers of New York and the New York State Teachers Association was signed March 30, 1972, Hobart said: "We have made a commitment to working together instead of working at cross-purposes. By joining together, and forming the largest employee organization in New York state, teachers will now have the power to improve the quality of education for every child and to raise the status of the teaching profession."
Looking back, Hobart is content to know NYSUT met those goals.
"This is the right time for NYSUT and for me to move on," he says with a smile. "NYSUT's success on behalf of half-a-million members is the greatest accomplishment and satisfaction of my union life.
"I haven't lost the passion or the drive. I still get pumped up when I hear 'Solidarity Forever.' It's just that the union is ready for the next generation of leaders."
Text by Betsy Sandberg with editing by Deborah Hormell Ward and Frank Maurizio. Photos courtesy of the Hobart family and New York Teacher archives. We thank Dennis Gaffney for sharing taped interviews.
By Tom Hobart, President, New York State United Teachers
A few weeks ago, a reporter working on a story about my career with NYSUT asked me if I had any advice for my successor. I told her the same thing Al Shanker told me so many years ago: Love the union, and listen to the members.
For 33 years, I've tried to do just that. I love this union of ours. I've been blessed with the greatest job in the world, working with the greatest people in the world. I'm just a kid from Buffalo, but I've met presidents, senators, members of Congress, governors and world leaders. I've shaken hands with Nelson Mandela and Lech Walesa. I've witnessed a world in transition, and helped form teachers' unions in former Soviet bloc countries, watching teachers revel in the freedom that Americans so often take for granted. Our own union, NewYork State United Teachers, has accomplished amazing things for our members and the children and citizens we serve. It's been an extraordinary experience, both exhilarating and humbling.
The most thrilling part of the past 33 years has been the second part of that equation: listening to the members. Nothing has been more rewarding than meeting the people I work for: in health care and in every level of education from pre-K through post-grad - all of the great, caring, dedicated professionals who make up NYSUT. From the early days, when we were struggling for basic rights and living wages, to the May 3rd Rally two years ago, when thousands of you marched on Albany to save public education, NYSUT members have stood up for the principles this great union was founded upon.
I was lucky enough to be the face of our union, but all of you are the heart and soul.
John Adams once wrote: "Let us . cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge." You are that means, whether you teach in a classroom or lecture hall or drive a bus or run the book loan at your school or work in a health care facility. When I look back on more than three decades, I cherish each and every NYSUT member, current and retired, for your contributions to our union and to society.
A few years ago, in my speech at the RA, I called on "every member, every day" to work to make our union stronger. I really didn't have to make that call. For 33 years, it's been my privilege to witness that firsthand: every member working every day, doing the job you were hired to do with professionalism, dedication and commitment.
NYSUT faces many challenges. The current administration in Washington would like nothing more than to see the labor movement stumble and fall. Public education is under attack from those who would deny educational opportunity to the children who need it most. Our health care system is underfunded and our health care professionals are overworked. Public colleges and universities have been neglected for years. The president is looking to tear down Social Security, one of the greatest programs our nation has ever created, as the first step in eliminating FDR's New Deal. The road ahead is not without peril.
But I leave NYSUT with a confidence born of experience. NYSUT has never backed away from a challenge. We've never abandoned our principles because the fight was too hard, or the road too difficult. NYSUT has, as FDR put it, "always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world beyond the horizon."
Because we stand together in solidarity, united and strong, I know NYSUT will continue to face the challenges and tear down the walls put in the way of progress toward that better world.
NYSUT.org. Copyright New York State United Teachers. 800 Troy-Schenectady Road, Latham, New York, 12110-2455. 518.213.6000. http://www.nysut.org.