Jewish Labor Committee

June 29, 2009 – New York: The Jewish Labor Committee congratulates its president Stuart Appelbaum for becoming the first lay-leader of a national Jewish organization and international labor leader in the United States to openly affirm that he is gay. Appelbaum’s announcement came as part of the ongoing effort to secure marriage rights for same-sex couples in New York State. Last month, President Appelbaum joined the board of directors of the Empire State Pride Agenda Foundation, the non-profit educational affiliate of ESPA, New York State’s LGBT lobbying group.

“I have always believed that the only way to challenge injustice is by organizing people for change,” Appelbaum told The Huffington Post on June 18. “That's why I first became involved in the labor movement. But change also requires being honest with each other and ourselves. For me, that means recognizing that the time has long passed for me to step forward and say: `yes, I'm gay.’”

Sybil Sanchez, Executive Director of the Jewish Labor Committee, congratulated President Appelbaum on his openness. “Stuart is a leader above the fray for the labor movement and the Jewish community, and now for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered people in their fight for equal rights,” noted Ms. Sanchez. “His bravery in publicly connecting his personal life story with his political beliefs is to be admired and emulated and we are proud of him.”

Continue reading "Jewish Labor Committee Congratulates President Stuart Appelbaum for Affirming His Gay Identity" »

The Jewish Labor Committee has been working both nationally and locally to support the Employees Free Choice Act (EFCA). Hundreds of people across the country have signed onto the JLC’s petition {you can add your name here}.

In Philadelphia, the traditionally secular organization has organized something distinctive: a rabbinic appeal to Senator Arlen Specter. JLC Philadelphia Director Rosalind Spigel has enlisted 25 local rabbis plus rabbinical students to sign an open letter urging Pennsylvania’s newly minted Democratic senior senator to put Jewish values to work and help safeguard the rights of employees who wish to secure union representation.{Additional signatories are of course welcome – see here.} Congress is currently considering the Employee Free Choice Act. While Sen. Specter previously supported the legislation, most recently he indicated a disinclination to support this legislation.

On Tuesday, June 9, a rabbinic delegation of the Philadelphia JLC met Senator Arlen Specter to urge his support for the Employee Free Choice Act. Included in the delegation were Rabbis Anna Boswell-Levy, Reba Carmel, Leonard Gordon, and Alan LaPayover; also participating were Philadelphia JLC Vice President William Epstein {who is communications director for Local 1776 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, and board member of the Jewish Social Policy Action Network}, Philadelphia JLC President Jeff Hornstein {who is district organizing coordinator of SEIU Local 32 BJ}, and Philadelphia JLC Director Rosalind Spigel.

Continue reading "“Rabbis for Workers’ Choice” debuts in Philadelphia" »

Trade union leaders from three continents have announced the launch of a new global movement "to challenge the apologists for Hamas and Hizbollah in the labour movement" and to fight for a two-state solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The movement is called TULIP - Trade Unions Linking Israel and Palestine, and recently had a launch in New York on the steps of City Hall.
The leaders are Paul Howes, national secretary of the Australian Workers Union, Stuart Appelbaum, President of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (USA-Canada), and Michael J. Leahy, OBE, General Secretary of Community ( United Kingdom ).

(l-r: AWU President Paul Howes, RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum, and NYC City Council Members Melinda Katz and Eric Goia.)

In remarks from the New York event, Stuart Appelbaum noted that "support for boycotting, divesting from and sanctions against Israel appears to be growing by leaps and bounds.

Continue reading "TULIP - Trade Unions Linking Israel and Palestine" »

{Any rabbis or rabbinical students interested in adding their names to this letter, click here.}

Dear Senator Specter:

We, the undersigned rabbis and rabbinical students, write to express our strong support for the Employee Free Choice Act.

Every major religion is sympathetic to the laborer. Judaism was early among the major religions in its assertion that labor involved more than mere economic activity. The commandment to observe the Sabbath was as much an affirmation of human dignity as of divine authority. “Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work.” But the seventh day was to be holy—holy in the eyes of God, but equally important—holy in its respect for all who work. As it is written in Deuteronomy: “You shall not abuse a needy and destitute laborer, but you must pay him his wages on the same day, for he is needy and urgently depends on it.” (24:14-15)

It is not always easy to translate the sanctity of labor into terms that have meaning today, a time in which the marketplace seems to have been elevated above all other holy altars. We believe that the Employee Free Choice Act presents an opportunity to give concrete meaning to the often frustrated dream of a just society.

Continue reading "Philadelphia-Area Rabbis and Rabbinical Students Speak out for Employee Free Choice Act" »

The Jewish Labor Committee is part of a coalition of Jewish organizations' campaign aiming for “Progress by Pesach” on comprehensive immigration reform. The campaign will call on the new Administration in Washington to direct Immigration and Customs Enforcement to curtail the use of workplace raids as a primary tool of immigration enforcement. "PbyP" has a goal of 10,000 signatures on a petition -- see below -- by April 8, the first night of Passover.

Your participation would be very helpful - and simple. Please print out this petition {note: 8-1/2" x 14"} and background article {8-1/2" x 11"} - you may want to print more than one of each - and add your name to our petition. If you can secure the support of others willing to sign on, that would be great. But please send the petitions -- even if not all of the spaces are filled in, even if it's just one person - you - signing onto the sheet -- back to us soon. Send it back to us via fax -- 1-212-477-1918.

Continue reading "Progress by Pesach – for just and fair immigration reform" »

February 5, 2009

Senator Edward M. Kennedy
317 Russell Senate Building
Washington D.C. 20510

Dear Senator Kennedy,

On behalf of the Jewish Labor Committee, I am writing to encourage the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee to expedite the appointment of Congresswoman Hilda Solis as Secretary of Labor. Please share this letter with committee members.

Representative Solis has repeatedly demonstrated her dedication to working men and women and we believe she is the right choice for Secretary of Labor. Her work in Congress has advanced Americans’ needs on issues related to environmental justice, health care, education, and veterans’ benefits. She is an advocate for women’s rights and civil rights.

As early as 1996, JLC awarded Congresswoman Solis the Abe Levy Chaver Award for her contributions. We would be especially proud as American Jews in labor to welcome Solis as the nation’s first Latina cabinet member.

Continue reading "JLC Supports Hilda Solis for Secretary of Labor" »

Miller Photography

NEW YORK, February 6, 2009 – Mayor Michael Bloomberg today joined Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Jewish Labor Committee, Greg Rosenbaum, owner and CEO of Empire Kosher and Wendell Young, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776 to present a large donation of 50,000 pounds of poultry to the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty (Met Council) for needy families and the frail elderly who rely on kosher food pantries. The presentation took place at the Oneg Shabbos Food Pantry in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn. William Rapfogel, president of the Met Council accepted the food donation on behalf of the anti-poverty organization.
Empire Kosher, the Jewish Labor Committee and the Met Council are working together to provide emergency food for thousands of needy New Yorkers. Empire Kosher Poultry, Inc. is the largest kosher poultry producer in the world with facilities in central Pennsylvania. Empire produces kosher chickens and kosher turkeys for the North American market through a fully integrated process starting with breeder farms, egg hatchery, feed mill, grow out houses and processing facilities.

Continue reading "JLC and Empire Kosher Poultry Announce Substantial Kosher Food Donation to NYC's Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty for Community Food Pantries" »

The Jewish Labor Committee is pleased to announce that Sybil Sanchez has been named the organization's Executive Director. Ms. Sanchez succeeded the organization's Acting Director, Rosalind Spigel.
With a background in Jewish communal organizing, strategic advocacy, and international work, Sanchez was selected “in order to build on our organization's unique contribution to workers' rights and Jewish concerns and to help us move forward during this unique moment in American history,” said JLC President Stuart Appelbaum. “She will lead us through changing times as new Federal legislation, such as the Employee Free Choice Act, is advanced within the new Congress and Administration.”

Continue reading "Sybil Sanchez named new JLC Executive Director" »

January 9, 2009: The Jewish Labor Committee deeply mourns the loss of innocent life and expresses its sorrow for the suffering in the escalation of violence in Gaza and Israel.

Hamas has sent thousands of rockets of different ranges over the border into Israel, including those that can strike Israeli cities as far as Ashdod. These attacks have been launched by Hamas, which refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist and has over two years violated the de facto cessation of hostilities with Israel.

Israel has taken great lengths to avoid this sort of escalation, including an appeal by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Arab television to stop the firing of rockets and mortar shells so that a military response could be avoided. No country can be expected to tolerate continuous and unrelenting attacks against its civilian population. With a terrorist group engaged in active warfare and an international community that failed to intervene, and with Hamas formally ending the cease fire that it regularly violated, Israel was left with no choice but to defend itself and dismantle Hamas's ability to launch more missiles.

Continue reading "Jewish Labor Committee Statement on Gaza" »

Sydney New South Wales, December 18: The shared values of the trade union movement and the Jewish community were highlighted on International Migrant Workers Day when the Australian Workers' Union and the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies co-sponsored the first ever `Union Chanukah' celebration. Representatives of both the trade union community and the Jewish community came together to light Chanukah candles, dedicated to, among other values, Solidarity, Justice, Empowerment, Trust and Freedom. Chanukah, which lasts eight days, began at sunset, December 21.

Continue reading "Australia: Lighting Chanukah candles on International Migrant Workers' Day" »

On December 7th, fifth-grade students from the Workmen’s Circle Jewish Sunday School in Brookline, MA marched down Harvard Street to protest the practice of Commercial Cleaning Services, a Boston area company. More than 50 people from the Jewish Labor Committee, Brookline PAX, SEIU Local 615, MassCOSH, and the Moishe/Kavod Jewish Social Justice House joined the students, whose statement can be found here.
{Note: This march was highlighted on the front page of the December 12 issue of Boston's Jewish Advocate.}

Continue reading "Brookline MA: Students on the March for Workers' Rights" »

JLC Chicago Chair Mike Perry demonstrates on December 10th against Bank of America after the bank cut off credit to the Chicago-based Republic Window and Door factory, forcing the company to close, and lay off all 260 workers, members of Local 1110, United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America.
Some 200 workers at Republic conducted a six-day occupation of the shuttered factory.
Community pressure led to a settlement this evening, totaling $1.75 million. It will provide the workers with

Continue reading "Chicago IL: Republic Window and Door workers sit in, win settlement!" »

A summer study program in Poland and Israel for U.S. secondary school teachers.

Thank you for your interest in our Summer Seminar Program on Holocaust and Jewish Resistance, initiated by Vladka Meed in 1984. This year's program is scheduled for July 5 - 23, 2009. Our seminar includes educational activities in Poland and Israel with the participation of scholars from Israel's Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and the Study Center of the Ghetto Fighters' House at Kibbutz Lohamei HaGeta'ot. On this web site, there is an online application for you to print out, complete and send back to us. [Just hit "continue reading", below, and scroll down]

Continue reading "2009 Holocaust & Jewish Resistance Teachers Program" »

The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is critical Federal legislation that would help protect the rights of workers in the U.S. to organize and form unions. The law would give more workers a way to form unions and negotiate for better wages, health care and working conditions.*
The Jewish Labor Committee has joined in a multi-organizational coalition to support the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) and we urge you to join the campaign to give American workers the rights that they deserve!
You are invited to sign our petition, that will be presented to the new President and Congress, by clicking here.

Questions? Here are some resources we've prepared:
>> A basic backgrounder that debunks some of the anti-EFCA arguments floating around. Download file
>> An article by Sybil Sanchez, our Executive Director, and Jonathan Zimet, our rabbinic intern. Download file

*The EFCA, when passed, would amend the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, by requiring employees to recognize a union when a majority of workers sign cards authorizing union representation [so-called card-check]. When passed, EFCA would also strengthen penalties for companies that coerce or intimidate their employees and establish binding arbitration mechanisms when employers and workers are unable to agree on a first contract.

Continue reading "Support the Employee Free Choice Act" »

To read the most recent articles on the situation, click here. For items on blogs, here.

On Sept. 10, 2008, Stuart Appelbaum, President of the Jewish Labor Committee, issued the following statement on the latest developments regarding the Agriprocessors kosher slaughterhouse and meat processing plant in Postville, Iowa:

The 9,311 child labor violations issued by the Iowa Attorney General yesterday confirms our opposition to Agriprocessors’ workplace practices for over two years.

The Jewish Labor Committee hopes that all appropriate legal penalties be applied to the firm. The public must know that the need to respect all labor laws – including, but not limited to, child labor laws -- is taken seriously by the relevant government agencies as well as by employers, and that violations of these laws will be taken seriously as well.

Continue reading "On the Latest Developments re Agriprocessors" »

by Stuart Appelbaum

In August 2006, a worker at a Rite Aid Distribution Center in Lancaster, Calif., was fired. Her name was Debbie Fontaine.

Her offense? Taking part in a campaign to organize a union. It’s an incident that may not make many of us think about our responsibilities as Jews, but this Labor Day it should.

Like her co-workers, Fontaine, 48, had a growing list of complaints against the company. But it wasn’t until they began to organize to have a union that she discovered how brutal her employer could be.

Workers supporting the union say they were spied on and threatened with the loss of their paychecks, even their jobs. One worker who did lose her job was Fontaine.

Continue reading "Jews, justice and the workplace" »

More than 1,000 people rallied in Postville, IA on July 27th in defense of immigrants' rights, and to express concern over the mid-May ICE raid at the Agriprocessors meat processing plant in that community that resulted in nearly 400 workers being detained for up to five months, at which time they are expected to be deported; many of their spouses have been forced to wear GPS bracelet tracking devices, and, when their spouses are deported, they will go into detention.
Bus-loads of protestors went to Postville from Chicago, IL, St. Paul, MN, and Wisconsin.

[Photo of Eli Fishman, Chicago Director, JLC, taken by Abbey Fishman Romanek, a Chicago JLC board member; Matt Wolkowicz, a New York City member of the JLC's Educators Chapter, also traveled to the rally in Postville.]

Continue reading "Postville, Iowa, rally to support Agriprocessors workers" »

Bill Lucy, President of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists President and Secretary-Treasurer of AFSCME, addresses protestors in Washington DC on July 21st.

Nearly 100 trade unionists, human rights activists and concerned Zimbabweans marched outside that country's embassy in Washington, DC. Dozens of activists rallied in Washington DC outside the Embassy of Zimbabwe in near 100-degree heat to demand justice for the Zimbabwean people following the corrupt presidential runoff elections in June. Demanding fair and free elections and an end to government-sponsored violence against opponents, trade unionists, human rights activists, concerned Zimbabweans abnd others chanted, "Hey, hey, ho, ho, Mugabe has got to go" and read and delivered a "People's Indictment" to Embassy officials that charged Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and his administration, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank with crimes against humanity.

NOTE: See Postscript at end of this article.

Continue reading "Demonstration in Washington DC in support of "Justice for Zimbabwe"" »

Some 400 people came together on July 9th at the Hilton New York to attend the 2008 Human Rights Award Dinner of the Jewish Labor Committee’s Trade Union Council for Human Rights. Our three honorees were: Anna Burger, International Secretary-Treasurer, SEIU and Chair, Change to Win; William Lucy, International Secretary-Treasurer, AFSCME and President, Coalition of Black Trade Unionists; and Christian W. E. Haub, Executive Chairman of the Board of The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., Inc.
[l-r: Rosalind Spigel, Acting Director, Jewish Labor Committee; Christian W. E. Haub; Anna Burger; William Lucy, Arlene Holt Baker, Executive Vice President, AFL-CIO; Joseph T. Hansen, International President, United Food and Commercial Workers International Union; Stuart Appelbaum, President, Jewish Labor Committee, and President, Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, UFCW.]

The Educators' Chapter of the JLC heard Philip Dine, journalist with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and author of the acclaimed new book, "STATE OF THE UNIONS: How Labor Can Strengthen the Middle Class, Improve Our Economy, and Regain Political Influence," at the Biennial Convention of the American Federation of Teachers, held in early July in Chicago, IL.

Demonstration on Thursday, June 19th, of workers, family members and supporters.

On Monday May 26, 2008, twenty long-term employees at Flaum Appetizing Company, a major distributor of high-end kosher products in Williamsburg, Brooklyn New York, lawfully stopped work to protest of the firing of one of their co-workers, Maria Corona. At this point, instead of negotiating with them, management locked out and fired these workers. Previously required to work more than sixty hours per week without legally-mandated overtime pay, without sick leave, holidays, vacations, or even drinking water on the job, the workers joined the Food and Allied Workers Union 460/640, IWW.

Continue reading "Support Workers Fired at Flaum Appetizing Company in Williamsburgh, Brooklyn!" »

BIDMC in heated battle with healthcare union
by Lorne Bell / The Jewish Advocate / Friday May 30 2008

Marya Axner, center, director of the JLC New England Office, stands with other JLC and Workmen’s Circle members at a May 9 rally in Longwood to encourage greater healthcare worker membership in SEIU 1199. Hundreds attended and the Dropkick Murphys performed. [Photo courtesy of The Jewish Advocate]

Two weeks ago, members of the Jewish Labor Committee of New England and the Boston Workmen’s Circle gathered near the Longwood Medical Center to rally in support of local 1199, a division of the Service Employees International Union now organizing across Boston’s medical community. But at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, the union and hospital CEO Paul Levy are accusing one another of using unscrupulous tactics to influence workers.
“There has been a very poor history on the part of [the hospital’s] management in dealing with workers who are organizing,” said Mike Fadel, executive vice president of 1199SEIU.
Fadel said that the union has fielded several complaints from Beth Israel Deaconess’ workers. In April, Anthony Patti, a former Beth Israel Deaconess maintenance employee, spoke out against the hospital in an SEIU advertisement in the Boston Herald.
“When our managers found out [that we were organizing], they hit us with a campaign of intimidation and misinformation,” wrote Patti. “They said if we voted to unionize they’d replace us with outside contractors. In my case, my director reminded me that my children wouldn't have insurance if I lost my job.”

Continue reading "Boston: Jewish labor groups support SEIU Local 1199's efforts to organize" »

This is an evolving issue. You can find the latest articles here, and latest items in the blogosphere here.

New York: May 23, 2008 -- As an organization committed to the defense of human rights, the Jewish Labor Committee has long condemned the abuse of workers by any employer for any reason. For this reason, the JLC has vigorously opposed the employment practices of Agriprocessors, Inc. since we first learned of them two years ago.

In reviewing the complaints of Agriprocessors’ employees, the JLC learned that there is a clear pattern of employer negligence and even lawlessness. Among the most troubling practices by Agriprocessors are:

• abuse of child labor laws;
• failure to pay workers the full amount of wages they have earned;
• unnecessary exposure of workers to dangerous -- even life-threatening -- working conditions;
• sexual harassment.

The JLC has also learned that Agriprocessors is actively waging a campaign of intimidation and harassment against workers who have expressed an interest in exercising their legal right to union representation.

Continue reading "Agriprocessors: JLC Policy Statement" »

A number of significant articles appeared within a few weeks of Stuart Appelbaum’s Opinion piece, American Labor Can Help Right Anti-Israel Left, being published in the March 28 issue of The Forward. Most notable is

Union chief retreats from Israel advert [The Australian, April 6, 2008]: “The head of the Maritime Union of Australia has distanced himself and his union from an allegedly anti-Semitic advertisement linking Israel's statehood to `racism and ethnic cleansing', after his Sydney branch endorsed the ad.
Paddy Crumlin, the MUA's national secretary, said the advertisement published in The Australian last month had used `an appalling choice of words'.

Continue reading "Australian union chief retreats from [anti] Israel advert" »