January 27th, 2025: President's Message

We still don’t know what killed Brian Deforge.

What we do know is this – the 46-year-old Syracuse man died at work. He was a custodian at a charter school which have expanded throughout Central New York in recent decades – the Syracuse Academy of Science (SAS).

Brian’s family believes that carbon monoxide killed him.

We will have to wait for a coroner’s report to verify his cause of death.

But we do know this: carbon monoxide levels in the building where he worked, the Syracuse Academy of Science High School, were high enough to set off alarms carried by first responders. We know from the City of Syracuse that the building was operating without carbon monoxide detectors, in violation of the law. We know that five staff members at the school went to the hospital due to exposure to the deadly gas.

And we know this – an outside inspection just a month ago failed to note that the school’s kitchen did not have the life saving and legally required CO detectors.

In a union shop, there are insider inspections that take place every day. Safety concerns are noted in real time by union members who make up workplace health and safety committees. These workplace H&S committees formulate simple solutions for simple problems and know when the safety concerns demand experts to resolve them. In either case, employees can voice their concerns and resolve the issue without risking their jobs. That is why the safest workplace is a union workplace.

We mourn with our community the loss of a good hard-working man.

But we have a saying in the labor movement. It comes from Mary Harris Jones, better known as Mother Jones, an immigrant from Ireland who became a school teacher and labor organizer, mostly among mine workers, more than a century ago. Mother Jones told workers, after a mine disaster, to “Pray for the dead, and fight like hell for the living.”

Let’s join our voices in prayer for Brian Deforge. And let’s fight like hell that the way he died not be forgotten. Let’s fight like hell to organize workers and strengthen unions in places like SAS which hide their unsafe conditions.

Charter schools receive public funding and yet avoid public scrutiny. Without a Union, this and other Charter School personnel will continue to lack the support needed to keep their job while exposing and correcting dangers at their work place. Most, if not all Union contracts guarantee the "right to a safe and healthy workplace". Regardless of the State and Federal OSHA Standards enacted to protect workers, without a Union, Charter School personnel will not be assured of health and safety protections until they decide to challenge the system and vote to become union members. Brian Deforge, you have given all you can give, may you rest in peace.