THE CROTON SCHOOL BOARD DOES NOT PLAY WELL WITH OTHERS--A LETTER FROM PAUL STEINBERG

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To the Editor:

Andrew Carnegie was a leading progressive of his age: friend of the workingman, benevolent employer, philanthropist without equal.  Unfortunately even saintly men require respite, and one summer Carnegie went off to his Scottish retreat where he was (supposedly) unreachable by the outside world. He returned from Scotland and was shocked—shocked—to discover that his deputy Henry Frick had triggered a massive strike by the union at his Homestead steel plant, which required 300 Pinkerton agents and 8500 National Guardsmen to put down.

Historians now have access to the communications sent between Carnegie and Frick, and it turns out that the Scottish retreat was not so isolated after all. Carnegie wrote to Frick: “We… approve of anything you do. We are with you to the end.” After much bloodshed, Carnegie broke the union. “Life is worth living again!” he wrote to Frick.

Carnegie used Henry Frick and Pinkerton agents. Today the Croton-Harmon school board uses the School Superintendent and the school district lawyer to crush the union while keeping their hands clean.

At least the Homestead union members had community support, which is more than can be said of the union members in Croton. For decades now, we have been living off a reputation won by leaders of the original Progressive movement. We support union labor just so long as it stays out of Croton.

As first reported in The Croton Chronicle, Croton-Harmon’s school board has taken union-busting to new depths. Union President Jean Avolio has been speaking out in the media about poor pay and the refusal of the employer to offer a reasonable contract. That is what a union President is supposed to do, but free speech is often unwelcome in Croton and this is one of those times. So the school district’s attorney sent a letter to the parent organization (NYS United Teachers) warning that the Croton local was advocating something “similar” to a work stoppage and the attorney warned that he would be talking to the district about it.

I realize that this involves school, but the spectacle of a bully (attorney) ratting out Jean to her boss (NYSUT) and threatening to tell Mom (Sarah Carrier)… Seriously—are we back in fifth grade?

President Avolio despairs of the Croton-Harmon school board ever negotiating in good faith, to the point of saying that members should consider finding jobs elsewhere. That is not a call to concerted activity, it is career advice. If you can’t be Norma Rae, at least be Johnny Paycheck.

It is true that quitting your job is literally a work stoppage, but quitting is not covered by any collective bargaining agreement I have ever seen. I don’t see that it is covered by the Croton CBA Article XVI(B).

I challenge any resident to look at the near-minimum wage pay scale and benefits (or rather, lack thereof) given to the Croton teacher aides and tell me they think it is fair. But if the Croton-Harmon school board is not going to negotiate a fair contract, they should have the guts to say so.

More to the point: if the Croton-Harmon school board members are determined to break the union, they should have the decency to get their hands dirty rather than relying on oblique threats from a hired-gun legal bully. In his later years, Carnegie was ashamed of what he did at Homestead.

I doubt Superintendent Walker is ashamed of his failure to negotiate in good faith, but isn’t there at least a single member of the school board who will come out publicly in support of a fair contract?

--Paul Steinberg, Croton-on-Hudson

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YOU MAY ALSO HAVE AN INTEREST IN THE NEW EVERYTHING CROTON: CHRONICLE EDITORIAL: CROTON-HARMON SCHOOLS, STOP THE THUGGERY AND GIVE LOW-PAID AIDES AND LUNCH WORKERS A LIVING WAGE