Striking Teachers’ “Good Trouble” Remembered

by Allan Appel The New Haven independent

Linda Powell (right), with son Nik.

When Lee High School history teacher Linda Powell nervously called her union longshoreman father from jail that day in 1975, he applauded her, saying, “You stay there as long as you have to. You did the right thing.”

But years later at all those parent-teacher nights when Powell visited her own child’s middle school, he remembered how upset he got because no matter what the circumstances, no matter how right her son thought he was, his mom always but always took the side of the teachers.

Thursday afternoon those kinds of memories — personal, familial, political, and historical — were at the center of a spirited commemorative gathering of some 75 now-retired New Haven teachers who walked picket lines or were jailed in the historic two-week New Haven teachers strike that began on Nov. 8, 1975.

Click here to read more details about the strike, in an article about how the group gathered, in June of this year, for a photo shoot, on the steps of the courthouse where they were tried and sent off to jail 50 years ago.

The year of commemorative events partnering with the New Haven Federation of Teachers Local 933 (Retired), chaired by Nancy Charest, was organized by Dr. Pamela Monk-Kelley, who is now in her 49^th year of teaching in the city’s public school system.

About a dozen of the leaders in the core group of 90 who were jailed in facilities across the state were in attendance at the Carmen di Vega Restaurant on upper Whalley Avenue, along with other strikers, picketers, friends, family, and supporters. They gathered to check out old photographs, to reminisce, and to lend their ideas and support to the current teachers union contract negotiations that are now under way.

Although many were no longer as spry as they had been in front of a classroom, they still demonstrated their “teacher voice” in loudly applauding Dario Sulzman, a current Wilbur Cross High School teacher, as he brought them up to speed on the focal points of current contract negotiation demands of the union: Reduction in class sizes, better facilities for both students and teachers — he referenced ceiling tiles falling down in various locations at his school — and salary raises that do more than barely cover, if are not completely washed away by, the increased costs for health care premiums.

Dr. Marc Blosveren, who was supervisor of science for the district from 1989 to 2004, called out, “What’s the current class size?”

When Sulzman answered that he thought it 27 students, at the high school level, Blosveren recalled that on his first day in front of a class, in 1969, he was facing –count em — 38 students! In the early 1970s two much smaller union strikes, in which just a handful were jailed, reduced class size, Blosveren recalled, first to 35, then to 30. And the historic strike of 1975 brought that number down to 27, where it remains today.

Although public employees such as teachers are still now not able legally to strike, the historic nature of the 1975 strike, which drew broad local community and then massive statewide organized labor support, in essence made the union an equal partner in negotiations, former teachers union President Frank Carrano recalled.

Why did Powell take the risk of walking out and going to jail?

There was, she recalled, of course, the influence of the union household in which she grew up. But there was more: “I grew up with Vietnam, civil rights, and the women’s movement in the 60s. To participate was natural for me.”

Still, going to jail (she was sent to Camp Hartell, a National Guard facility, in Windsor Locks) was serious business for Powell, who had just started her career.

“Jail was a real watershed for me. But you wanted to be a good example for the students. When they asked why, I said, we’re fighting for smaller class size, more support. Sometimes you have to break the law to change the law.”

“The ‘New Haven 90’ in 1975 made some good trouble,” said Charest, as Thursday’s meal wound down and she called on all the jailed teachers to stand, to enthusiastic applause.

Then she asked the other strikers to stand. Then those who walked the picket line to stand. “The current union stands on the shoulders of these giants. This was very much an historical event.”

Before lunch concluded and perhaps taking a page from 1975, Sulzman announced, “We’re trying to have not just a negotiation but a campaign, like a rally.”

He announced that the first installment of the campaign will take place on Oct. 27 at 4:00 p.m. at the King/Robinson school. “A NHFT rally,” he said, “to get the things we need for students and schools to do well.”

Linda Powell taught history for 35 years and still works in the New Haven system processing applications for school volunteers.

The next and final event of the 50^th anniversary strike reunion year takes place on Nov. 8 at noon at the New Haven Museum. That’s (close to) the actual anniversary date of the strike, which began on Nov. 10, 1975. There will be a panel discussion; some show-and-tell of strike materials already in the UConn labor historical archive, and strikers are being asked to bring in personal memorabilia of the event.