A pair of baby shoes is a treasured item in my trove of childhood mementos. My dad’s employer gifted them to my parents upon my birth. Printed in gold on the bottom right sole is my name, on the other sole is my birth date. My four older siblings have the same gift from Esco, where my dad was a union foundryman. My youngest brother doesn’t have the same memento; by the time he was born, my dad had left Esco and had gone into sales. The promise was that his vibrant personality and natural hustle would bring in more money than his foundry job. And, for a time it did pay off. But, with dynamic economic dips it was too volatile. My cousins whose fathers stayed at the foundry had financial security throughout the decades; we did not. Their dads retired in their 60s and lived into their 80s. At 70 years old, my dad was back to hourly work, now at Home Depot.
On a weekend off, my dad suffered massive heart failure and died from complications. He never experienced retirement. I can’t help but think that the economic ups and downs that Dad weathered took a toll on his health as much as his wallet and that the move out of union employment with a secure pension eventually proved fatal.
I didn’t learn from my dad’s story right away. But, after years of hustling in the private sector as a business owner and then as an arts administrator, I accepted that although I was earning a decent living, I was not capitalized to survive economic downturns. I needed the safety of union work for stability and to build a retirement. Following my wife’s lead, I headed into a UCATS job at NYU. By taking a lower level position at a big institution, rather than staying at lead positions at smaller organizations, I initially felt that I had succumbed to defeat.
However, time showed that labor organizing is at the heart of who I am. When I discovered a hazardous indoor air quality situation at NYU, I worked with UCATS and NYCOSH to get it abated. I’ve since joined the Health & Safety Advisory Council of NYSUT to support workers across the state. Given this and my diverse career history, I could not be better prepared to be your next President of UCATS and it will be my honor to serve our membership.
Kate Conroy for
UCATS President
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