N.J. Gov. Chris Christie's budget cuts may bring back power behind teachers unions
By Bob Braun/Star-Ledger Columnist
May 23, 2010, 4:00PM

TRENTON — She sat on the sidewalk, back against one of those iron fences that adorn the alleys between old brownstones lining West State Street across from the Statehouse. From a bag, she pulled a sheath of papers — math tests — and began to correct them.

"Talk to someone else," she said. "Please. I don’t want to be involved in this."

Trish Hosgood, a calculus teacher from Cherry Hill High School West, could not see she made a perfect poster model for the rally of tens of thousands of people going on around her. There she was, spending a Saturday correcting papers while, at the same time, sensing the need to make some sort of statement about teaching. She finally relented about talking.

"I’m here because I don’t understand," said Hosgood, a teacher for nine years. "It happened so suddenly. People are taking sides and I’m on one side. I didn’t know there were sides."

Hosgood also could not see she illustrated the problem facing public workers and their unions, especially teachers. They are a generation removed from the militance that marked the rise of public union bargaining in the 1960s. They enjoyed a long period, not just of labor peace, but of increased salaries and benefits won, virtually without a fight.

"But this is going to bring back militance," insisted Bob Russo, the former Montclair mayor who was jailed for his role in the 1971 Newark teachers strike.

He was at the same rally in Trenton Hosgood attended, but has a different vision of their profession. Russo, now president of a college faculty union, knew a time when teachers accepted poverty level salaries and were willing to defy the law to earn more. They thought sticking their fingers in the eyes of authority would earn them respect.

"We were missionaries," said Susan Miksza, who rose from teacher to acting superintendent of the Clark schools and is now retired. "That’s the kind of money we made. Now, here I am, still marching, still trying to earn respect."

But more teachers are like Hosgood than like Russo or Miksza. Gov. Chris Christie’s attack on the successes of teacher unionism has thrown younger teachers off-guard. They feel they have been sucker-punched and don’t know how to react.

"It’s like we woke up one morning and the world had changed," said Linda Mirabelli, a music teacher in Livingston, where Christie’s mother worked.

"Everything is different. What people thought of us. What we think of ourselves. We were liked and respected and now, overnight, people have turned against us."

It’s been a shock and even the public employee unions have had a difficult time reacting. Barbara Keshishian, the president of the New Jersey Education Association, simply isn’t a union firebrand even if she did call Christie a liar in print.

She was the featured speaker at Saturday’s rally — well-attended and well-organized — but she is no rhetorical match for Christie, a politician with the skills of the prosecutor he was once. He knows how to make people look like bad guys.

So what do these teachers do?

"Militance is not off the table," said John Abeigon, a staff member of the Newark Teachers Union, at Saturday’s rally.

But militance against whom? School boards are not the enemy, but fellow victims of school aid cuts. Will teachers strike to save the non-tenured among them from layoffs?

Anxiety felt by teachers might strengthen the NJEA and other unions. "We’ve got to support Barbara," Mary Hepburn, a 43-year-veteran of the Jersey City schools, said of Keshishian. "She’s taking the hits, and she’s trying to protect us."

If the governor’s attacks on teachers and their unions strengthen the NJEA’s leadership, he may yet regret them. Without the militance of 30 years ago, the union was facing irrelevance. Now, it may lay a new claim on the loyalties of instructors.

But teachers and other public employees face a bigger battle than Chris Christie. They need to persuade the hurting working people of New Jersey — those without union protections, those without good benefits — that all middle-class and working people, private sector and public, are in the same, leaky economic boat.

The most fiery speaker day, Chris Shelton, a vice president of the Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO, made the point repeatedly: public employees have to join with private sector workers, shed their fears, and persuade a jaded public that the nonrich "are not going to take it anymore."

"Rise and rise again, until lambs become lions," he shouted, stealing a line from the new movie version of "Robin Hood."

Yet, not far away, a young man was giving out "Recall Christie" magnets, very popular with the rally crowd. He was asked his name, but he declined to reveal it.

"I’m a non-tenured teacher," he explained.

So much for lions.

Trish Hosgood, a calculus teacher from Cherry Hill High School West, could not see she made a perfect poster model for the rally of tens of thousands of people going on around her. There she was, spending a Saturday correcting papers while, at the same time, sensing the need to make some sort of statement about teaching. She finally relented about talking.

"Everything is different. What people thought of us. What we think of ourselves. We were liked and respected and now, overnight, people have turned against us."

By who? I haven't heard anyone praise a teacher or our education system in 20 years. Way to live with your head in the sand.

By who? I haven't heard anyone praise a teacher or our education system in 20 years. Way to live with your head in the sand.

For all that there are plenty of problems with our education system, it is not, nor has it ever been as bad as you appear to be implying. There are plenty of praiseworthy teachers out there working today.

Yeah Hopwin, but you specifically stated "a teacher" in your comment, to which is what I, and I believe Aizle, were to responding.

Ah, that makes sense. The quote in the article says "we" used to be respected, etc... so I should have said I have not heard teachers as a profession praised in 20 years.