Woodley McGillivary No More
Tom Woodley, Missing in Action
Tom Woodley, longtime IAFF legal counsel and managing partner at his law firm has (been) disappeared.
Woodley worked with and for the IAFF for decades, going all the way back to when the firm was known as Mulholland and Hickey, more on that later.
Woodley advised former IAFF presidents McClennan, Gannon and Whitehead before his stint with president-for-life Harold Schaitberger.
Prez-for-Life
Tom Woodley, loyal soldier, was also a gentleman who helped to bring at least the illusion of compassion to an often cutthroat style of business.
Tom’s loyalty to Schaitberger may be at least partly responsible for his ghosting.
I say “ghosting” because according to the firm’s website, he seems never to have existed.
They say,
McGillivary Steele Elkin LLP (formerly Mulholland & Hickey) is a top-rated law firm devoted to protecting and enforcing the rights and interests of labor organizations and employees in both the public and private sectors. Established over 50 years ago in the nation’s capital, McGillivary Steele Elkin LLP’s practice is national in scope.
What happened to Woodley and McGillivary, the firm’s name for decades?
There’s a delicious bit of irony here.
After Schaitberger became IAFF president, the firm suddenly changed from Mulholland & Hickey to Woodley McGillivary.
I was told at the time that Schaitberger was the reason; he told Woodley it was time for a name change.
Poor Ed Hickey was ghosted by his own firm.
Schaitberger tried a version of the same thing with Al Whitehead, his predecessor as IAFF president.
When Schaitberger became president he decreed that all written materials with Whitehead’s image be destroyed, even training manuals paid for by the federal government.
The dumpster at IAFF headquarters was full.
These, of course, are the actions of a confirmed narcissist; it’s also reminiscent of Comrade Stalin who famously air-brushed out anyone who disagreed with him.
No one, no matter how peripheral or tangential, is allowed to cast a shadow across Schaitberger’s paunchy universe.
But there is something much more sinister, as well.
This is how Schaitberger repays decades of hard work and loyalty: once he is done with you, he will make you disappear completely, as if you never existed, a truly cruel bit of narcissistic play on his part.
We can only hope that when his days are up that he will be consigned to the same fate; he richly deserves it.
Did Greg ghost Tom–to assuage Harold’s ever present need to be alone on the stage?
William Shakespeare get’s the last word here:
What is past is prologue.
