Fallen FF Memorial

My speech at the 2011 Houston Fallen Firefighter Memorial

To the families of our fallen, honored guests and friends… welcome and thank you for joining us today to be a part of our ceremony.

 I was once told by a priest that he learned everything he needed to know about public speaking from his father by the time he was ten years old. “My father wanted all us kids to be brief and be gone,” he said. So I’m taking that advice to heart today.  I will be brief and be gone and be followed by Fire Chief Terry Garrison.

As president of the Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association I have the honor of speaking on behalf of nearly four thousand professional firefighters in the city of Houston.  That is a daunting task under the best circumstances.

Recent events have made that daunting task a difficult one, but don’t misunderstand me, I still regard it as an honor. 

It would be easy to focus on the challenges we face today and ignore everything else, but occasions like this one remind us we cannot do that. Houston’s firefighters face both a hostile political and a tough economic environment. It would be easy, as I said, but as I often tell my three kids easy is almost never synonymous with right.

And so for today we set aside those challenges before us for the righteous path of paying homage to our fallen brothers and sister. We do so not because it is our duty, we do so with honor.

As many of you know, I recently attended the Harvard Trade Union Program. There were students from various Labor organizations from all over the US, Canada, the UK, Japan and Australia.

One of my classmates was a scrappy Australian fellow named Chris Christodoulou. Between classes and in the evening Chris went about asking everyone in class to read a group of statements and choose the one that best described them. Well, Chris didn’t reveal why he was asking the questions until later. It turns out he is a poet and he had written a poem which corresponded with each of the statements we were to choose from. We were all given a copy of our selection.

There was only one other firefighter in class, Eddie Boles from the Uniformed Fire Officers of New York. Without knowing what the other had done, he and I both chose the following statement: “At least once a year I take time out to honor workers killed at work”. I think that selection by both of us speaks volumes about Labor leaders in the fire service.

You see, I believe our union is the foundation on which our brotherhood is built. More than a labor organization focused on wages and benefits, it is the repository of our organizational values. It is the place where beliefs like:

·        an injury to one is an injury to us all, AND

·        we leave no one behind, AND

·        we will never forget

 are born, breed and reinforced.

We have made a commitment and it will forever be honored. We will never forget.

You, the family members and friends, of our sister and brothers listed on this wall have given so much. You should know that we appreciate the sacrifice that your loved ones made and recognize the toll that it takes on you even today.  Thank you so much for all that you do and all that you’ve done to help us remember and honor our fallen comrades and thank you for coming out and sharing your time and memories with us. Thank you.

The Price of Silence in the Face of Injustice

First they came for the Communists,

  and I didn’t speak up,

    because I wasn’t a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews,

  and I didn’t speak up,

    because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics,

  and I didn’t speak up,

    because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me,

  and by that time there was no one

    left to speak up for me.

This version of a well known poem by Rev. Martin Niemoller (taken from TIME Magazine, Aug 28, 1989) is one of many slightly different versions. The author of the poem is often not mentioned, but I think it is important to note the words come from a man who declared that he “would rather burn his church to the ground, than to preach the Nazi trinity of ‘race, blood, and soil.’”
Niemoller’s position in the church and influential friends protected him until 1937. Eventually, he was arrested for sedition. He was found guilty, but initially only given only a suspended sentence. He was almost immediately re-arrested on Hitler’s direct orders. From then until the end of World War II, he was held at the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps where he narrowly escaped execution.

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.

Fwd: Schaitberger on the Ed Show Vows to Fight the Battle

Fighting Back Against Unfair Political Attacks On radio and television, General President Harold Schaitberger has discussed the IAFF's new "Fighting Back" campaign to defend fire fighters and paramedics against politically-motivated attacks by public officials who are blaming fire fighters' wages, pensions and benefits for budget shortfalls. "This is an attack to try to take out America's Labor Movement," President Schaitberger said last week on Ed Schultz's nationally syndicated radio show. "All this is about trying to undermine the pensions, retirements and benefits that fire fighters have earned." Listen to the interview here.  Last night, Schaitberger appeared on Schultz's television show on MSNBC to reiterate the message that the assaults across the country on fire fighters' retirement benefits are driven by opportunists who want to use the recession as an excuse to skewer fire fighters' pensions with little regard for the truth. "Attacks on fire fighters' pensions are unwarranted and unfounded," he said. "It's a myth that so many of our pension plans are in drastic condition. The fact of the matter is that over 80 percent of public pension plans are 80 percent funded or better." Watch the Ed Show interview here. The IAFF launched its campaign earlier this month with a full-page ad in USA Today, followed by an ad in Politico to warn against Newt Gingrich's scheme to allow states to file for bankruptcy. These ads are available to IAFF affiliates to print as posters or for other uses in their own communities. In addition, a viral video produced by the IAFF has been viewed more than 60,000 times, and was featured on a Jacksonville, Florida news broadcast. This video is available for all IAFF affiliates to use in their local media markets. Some IAFF members have asked why the IAFF hasn't appeared on television networks like Fox News. The IAFF has reached out to political commentators like Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly and other Fox journalists, but they have not expressed any interest in discussing this pension issue. In support of the IAFF, members are sending emails to political commentators like Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly. If you'd like to see the IAFF on these shows (see below), we encourage you to send emails as well.   Glenn Beck Sean Hannity Rush Limbaugh Bill O'Reilly Fox News Watch America's Newsroom "We need to make sure that the public has the facts," says Schaitberger. "We're going to fight the battle."   Click here to unsubscribe

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What Kind Of A World Do You Want To Live In?

A reoccurring conversation throughout the Harvard Trade Union Program has been about our desire to develop a theme around which the engines of the labor movement may be reignited. Last night I think I stumbled across that theme.

Every day we hear our political leaders say we have to cut spending to pay down the deficit. I think there is an argument that not only do we need to avoid cuts but, cutting in this economy is actually the wrong thing to do. Cuts most affect the people who need public services the most. Cutting spending has a disproportionate affect on the very old, very young and disadvantaged Americans. They would be subject to the foibles of the market.

I was in a conversation last night with the staff member of a conservative Congressman. He seemed apprehensive about funding two much needed firefighter staffing bills. I explained the importance of the bills to the smaller communities they would help and then I asked a simple question.

When people call for help and there is no one to come, what then? When all of the cuts are done and the public sector is gone, what do you think that world looks like? What kind of a world do you want to live in? That sounds like a dangerous world to me. It is a world without quality EMS and fire services. It is a world with inadequate police protection. It is a world without quality public education. It is a world without a social safety net. It is a Darwinian world where life is, in the words of Thomas Hobbes “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”. That is nightmare not the American Dream.

Prof. Noam Chomsky