Alan Grayson on Living Through NYC's Legendary Teachers Strikes.

>>>My parents were both teachers when the teachers union went on strike during that period. It was quite an experience. We had no income while they were on strike, we had no idea how long it would last, and they couldn’t get another job. My mother was pretty torn up. She didn’t want her students to fall behind and miss out, so they set it up where kids and teachers could come to a community center and study if they wanted to. So while she’d teach for several hours a day, she didn’t get paid for it.

It was dicey. We shut down all sorts of voluntary expenditures: no movies, no restaurants, no allowance. Nothing. The hardest thing was the worrying, not knowing when the strike would end. [Visibly shaken by the recollection, Grayson excuses himself and returns minutes later.] Sorry, but I haven’t thought about this in years.

What I learned then was that people can accomplish a lot if they just stick together. To have any one teacher stand up to the mayor would have been a joke. Having them all stand up together was not a joke. It was a showing of power that in the end was successful. It demonstrated to me if you are willing to stand together in the face of personal trauma, you can accomplish a lot.>>>>

There was a biggie in '68 and another biggie in '73. Turned at-will employment into a respectable profession. And not just in NY. All over the country.

So many sacrificed so much. Only to see it all sold off by the next generation.

I found this little gem here: http://www.orlandomagazine.com/Orlando-Magazine/February-2009/Alan-Grayson-Super-Achiever/