Jeff Caynon's HTUP Graduation Remarks

I am proud to offer a few words on behalf of the sisters and brothers of this, the one hundredth session of the Harvard Trade Union Program. Our class is most unique. We are a collection of leaders representing five nations including the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Australia and the United States.
We speak Spanish, French, Japanese and at least three different versions of English. As diverse as we are in nationality, we are equally so in race and gender. Despite our cultural differences we are unified in our pursuit of a better life for people who work and a better world for us all.
We, like our forbearers in the Labor movement, seek to better ourselves, our members and our world. When asked, “What does labor want?” American Federation of Labor founder Samuel Gompers famously said, “We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures.” Gompers’ dream is still our dream today.
Massachusetts, it seems, is a good place for dreamers. I had the opportunity during my stay here to visit the library of a man celebrated for his dreams…  John F. Kennedy. I find it interesting that we started this session of the Trade Union Program on the week of the fiftieth anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s renowned “City on the Hill” speech.
At the time, President-elect Kennedy was set to leave his beloved home state of Massachusetts for the Oval office.
In his address he said, “For those to whom much is given, much is required… the high court of history sits in judgment on each one of us–recording whether in our brief span of service we fulfilled our responsibilities…”
And so it is for us, the members of the Trade Union Program’s one hundredth class, at what may be the most pivotal time in the history of the Labor Movement we are presented with a challenge of epic proportions.
We have lived and worked together these past six weeks under the weight of that responsibility. We have shared our personal and professional stories of success and failure. We have studied and read together. We have broken bread and on rare occasion even raised a glass together. We have become friends, forged bonds and built solidarity which will extend beyond our time at Harvard.
Our instructors have given us foundation, framework and the tools necessary to go home to tackle the difficult task of elevating the material and moral condition of working people the world over.  
It is therefore apropos that I speak now for the class and offer our most sincere thank you to all of the instructors.
We want you to know that aside from merely a message to provide working people with access to a better life, you have inspired in us a dream. That dream has become our mandate.
It is to do better what unions have always done… build stronger, safer communities and as a consequence build a stronger, safer and more democratic world.