Thoughts from the Mobilization

I am on day three of a mobilization here at AFT Connecticut.

I am surrounded by activists, by people to whom this MOVEMENT is not a job, it is a calling, a way of life.

Some of them are professionals, some of the came to it through an organizing drive in their own shop, some through a grassroots effort they became involved in, and some were elected into it.

Some have incredible insight and skills, some have much to learn, but all have the desire.

Some wear their passion on their sleeve, some keep it deep inside, but all feel it.

I am invigorated!

I am renewed!

I am inspired!

We ofen talk about organizing a new shop so that we can give these workers a voice.

We should organize, either new or existing shops, to help people find and use the voice they have.

“Why is it,” Jonathan puzzled, “that the hardest thing in the world is to convince a bird that he is free, and that he can prove it for himself if he’d just spend a little time practicing? Why should that be so hard?”

He spoke of very simple things- that it is right for a gull to fly, that freedom is the very nature of his being, that whatever stands against that freedom must be set aside, be it ritual or superstition or limitation in any form.

"Set aside," came a voice from the multitude, "even if it be the Law of the Flock?"

"The only true law is that which leads to freedom," Jonathan said. "There is no other.”
― Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull

We call ourselves a Union of Professionals at AFT and that is true, but I hope it is not completely accurate.

My hope and I think our goal should be that we are part of a MOVEMENT of ACTIVISTS, a people finding and using our voices.
That......is what this mobilization is about.