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January 01, 2006

What is the Jewish Labor Committee?

What is the JLC?
The Jewish Labor Committee is an independent secular organization that helps the Jewish community and the trade union movement work together on important issues of shared interest and concern. Our national headquarters are in New York City; we have staffed local/regional offices in Boston, MA; New York, NY; Philadelphia, PA; Chicago, IL; Detroit, MI; Los Angeles -- and volunteer-led JLC or JLC-affiliated groups in such places as Washington, DC; Cleveland, OH; Miami, FL; Phoenix, AZ; Las Vegas, NV, San Francisco, CA; and Seattle, WA.

When was it formed?
The Jewish Labor Committee was formed in February, 1934, by Yiddish-speaking immigrant trade union leaders, and leaders of such groups as the Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring, the Jewish Labor Bund, and the United Hebrew Trades, in response to the rise of Nazism in Germany.

A four-page history of the JLC can be found here:
70 Years Strong: The Jewish Labor Committee Story

An excellent introduction to the Holocaust-era history of the JLC can be found online at:
LABOR AND THE HOLOCAUST:
The Jewish Labor Committee and the Anti-Nazi Struggle

About this website.
This website is a work in progress. We're including basic information on the organization, recent activities, contact information for JLC around the United States, basic readings on the Jewish Labor Movement, as well as the U.S. trade union movement in general, and links to other relevant websites.
You will also find a page called "Join the JLC!"
You are cordially invited to join our organization. Every member helps us in our activities, one way or the other.

Final note: if you have any questions about the JLC, please do not hesitate to contact us.
E-mail might be easiest: JLCExec@aol.com

Join us!

You are Cordially Invited to Join the Jewish Labor Committee

For 71 years, the JLC has served as the bridge linking the Jewish community and organized labor in a shared commitment to economic and social justice. You can be a part of this historic tradition of working together to advance the cause of the Jewish people and to help create a better future for all.

You can join the outreach to the millions of families who are union members and all of the allied organizations and groups which support the labor movement.

If you share our concerns for human rights, respect for all in our increasingly diverse world, and Israel, you belong in the JLC. Individual dues are only $40 a year. By joining the JLC, you will be part of a progressive, community-oriented organization that will make your voice heard on behalf of justice and human rights.

E-mail us here JLCExec@aol.com with your name and address; we'll send you a membership form. Join the Jewish Labor Committee as we embark on a new century of struggle and service for the Jewish people.

Recent Activities: Arizona

The Arizona JLC is working the Arizona Minimum Wage Coalition, which has brought together unions, community groups and a number of small businesses. One focus is a ballot initiative, filed with the secretary of state last November – to be decided by voters November 2006. There currently is no state minimum wage in Arizona; only the Federal minimum wage of $5 .15 an hour.

The initiative specifies that employers pay workers no less than $6.75 starting Jan. 1, 2007. It also mandates that the minimum wage be annually adjusted for inflation, based on the percentage increase in the U.S. Department of Labor's consumer price index over a one-year span. Businesses with yearly gross revenue less than $500,000 would be exempt from these requirements. Their employees would keep the federal government's minimum wage.

Earlier in 2006, the Arizona Chapter focused on two major issues: The Wal-Mart Campaign and a new state-wide campaign: Raise the Minimum Wage for Working Arizonans. We were briefed by Mike Vespoli, Political Action Director in Arizona of the United Food and Commercial Workers, who outlined the difficult campaign to organize Wal-Mart workers and showed excerpts of the film, "The High Cost of Low Wages," Paul Rubin, Arizona JLC Chair and Secretary-Treasurer of UFCW Local 99, a state-wide local, who chaired the meeting and described the recently concluded strike and lockout in California.

Arizona JLC Representative Herman Brown serves as a delegate to the Maricopa Area Labor Federation from the Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans; both are entities of the AFL-CIO [MALF replaced the former Phoenix Central Labor Council and the Alliance replaced the Senior Action Council.] He notes that he always introduces himself as Arizona Representative of the Jewish Labor Committee, as well as a delegate of the Arizona ARA.

And here are some activities from 2005:
In January, National JLC Representative Herman Brown, based in the Phoenix area, and previously Regional Director of the NE JLC, attended the first meeting of the Arizona Coalition to Protect Social Security, sponsored by the Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans and chaired by Doug Hart, formerly of SEIU. “At Doug’s request,” reported Brother Brown, “I agreed to serve as Chair of an Outreach Committee. It is our hope,” he concluded, “to involve leaders of the Jewish community in the work of the Coalition.”

The Arizona JLC Chapter held a Labor Seder in April, cosponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) of the Greater Phoenix Jewish Federation, and held in the Federation’s headquarters in Scottsdale. The cost of the Seder was contributed by Malka Arony, an Arizona JLC Chapter member, in memory of her late brother, Michael Arony. Representative Brown reported that among those present at the Seder were key staff of the Arizona State AFL-CIO, including its president and executive director, the president and secretary-treasurer of the statewide Local 99 UFCW, the executive director of the JCRC, a vice president of the Labor Committee for Latin American Advancement, the newly-appointed Arizona representative of the AFL-CIO, the president of the Arizona Federation of Teachers, and leading members and staff of the Arizona Education Association, the American Federation of Government Employees, and Local 135 United Union of Roofers.
Representative Brown represented the Arizona JLC at the annual convention of the Arizona Coalition to Protect Social Security, held at the Wyndham Hotel in August. He also participated in the Convention of the Arizona Alliance, in September. He was elected a Vice President of the Alliance at a September Executive Committee meeting, and represents the Alliance [as well as the JLC] at the newly-formed Maricopa Area Labor Federation, which succeeded the Phoenix Central Labor Council.
The Arizona JLC has been involved in defense of the rights of immigrant workers and their families. Earlier, we helped form an Immigration Committee of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix; later, we were able to help the JCRC pass a resolution on immigrant rights. Brother Brown was at the first meeting of, and the Arizona JLC subsequently joined, the newly-formed Arizona Coalition for Migrant Rights. JLC is represented on the Coalition’s Leadership Training and Capacity Building Committee.

Recent Activities: California-Western Region

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Last December, the California-Western Region of the Jewish Labor Committee joined members of the Communication Workers of America, California Nurses Association, members of USW Locals 675, 2801 and others rallying in Long Beach, CA during a nationwide day of support for Goodyear Tire and Rubber workers. On October 5th, responding to unacceptable contract offers Goodyear management, over 14,000 USW members went out on strike for job security and the guarantee of healthcare in their retirement. 86 days later, the union members at Goodyear ratified a new three-year contract. All striking Steelworkers returned to work January 2, 2007. [Photo by Cookie Lommel]

This year's Los Angeles Labor Seder, the "Entertainment Industry Labor Passover Seder," will be held at the headquarters of the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists. The seder was a projecty of the California-Western Region of the Jewish Labor Committee and AFTRA, in conjunction with Habonim Dror, Ameinu and Na’amat USA.

CA-WR JLC is active in the Hotel Workers Rising Campaign of UNITE HERE, and has been since we participated in its launch at the downtown Sheraton Hotel in Los Angeles in February. This campaign is aimed at highlighting poor working conditions and help increase wages for hotel workers who are not making a living wage. The hotel industry is one of the faster growing industries in America. Notables at the event included Senator John Edwards and actor Danny Glover, who were among a range of celebrities, labor leaders and community activist who joined several hundred hotel workers to launch a mu1ti-city awareness campaign.

On Saturday, April 1st, at Historic Olvera Street in downtown Los Angeles, California-Western Region JLC members and staff joined thousands who gathered to celebrate the 8th Annual Cesar Chavez Walk L.A. We’ve participated in these walks since their inception.

CA-WR JLC joined with faculty members, students other community supporters of the California Faculty Association at a rally held in February during the California State University Board of Trustees budget meeting in the CSU Board of Trustees Auditorium in Long Beach. The purpose of this gathering was to draw public attention to the increased student fees, low wages for the professors, lecturers, librarians and counselors on 23 CSU campuses through the California State University System.

CA-WR JLC is supporting IATSE Local 33 in its dispute with Temple Shalom for the Arts. IATSE Local 33, the union representing theatrical stage hands, has launched an educational campaign at the Wilshire Theatre in Beverly Hills, California. For the first time in 30 years, the Wilshire Theater's new owner, Temple Shalom for the Arts, has turned staging over to a non-union company, leaving 50 IATSE workers without work.

Since Temple Shalom purchased the Wilshire Theatre late last year from the Nederlander Organization, its leadership has refused to negotiate with Local 33. As a result, IATSE Local 33 has launched a campaign to let Temple Shalom's officers, board of directors and congregants know about the anti-union stance in order to bring them to the table. This is a complicated matter, as most of the congregants who attend Temple Shalom for the Arts are members of entertainment industry unions and guilds. IATSE Local 33 has a long history with both the Wilshire Theater and the Temple Shalom for the Arts - Local 33 members have worked at the Wilshire Theatre when Temple Shalom held its High Holy Day services there in the past. However, when the Temple held its most recent services, for their annual Shared Heritage of Freedom service, on March 17, 2006, the stagehands were non-union.

Director Lommel was a guest on KPCC Radio "Talk of the City with Host Kitty Felde,” a broadcast roundtable discussion commemorating the 40th anniversary of the City of Los Angeles Human Relations Commission.

CA-WR JLC is now represented by Director Lommel on the Council of Affiliate Organizations (CAO) of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, Executive Committee; as a result, JLC has greater visibility within the Jewish Federation and gives our work in the community a higher level of exposure. CAO is the only place in the Jewish Federation where individuals can run for a seat on the Federation board and the only place where potentially, all Jewish organizations and synagogues could come together.


And here are some activities from 2005:
California - Western Region [CA-WR] Director Cookie Lommel noted JLC coordinated two debates of Los Angeles mayoral candidates, held in January, 2005 at two major synagogues. Approximately 200 people attended each event.

Also in January, Director Lommel was active in the national AFL-CIO Martin Luther King, Jr., weekend observance, January 13th - 17th, held for the first time in Los Angeles.

This April’s Labor Seder in Los Angeles, “the Jewish Labor Committee Annual Entertainment Industry Labor Seder,” was cosponsored by two entertainment industry unions, the Writers Guild of America West, and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. Among the 90+ attendees were the mayor of Los Angeles, actor Ed Asner, the secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles Federation of Labor, the president of Local 434B SEIU, representatives of the California Nurses Association, and the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners.

On June 5th, the CA-WR JLC held its Annual Awards Recognition Brunch, marking the 71st Anniversary of the founding of the Jewish Labor Committee. The Honorable Fabian Núñez, Speaker of the State Assembly; William S. Lambert, Director of Government Relations of the United Teachers Los Angeles; Jim Santangelo, President of Joint Council 42, IBT, and Shirley Roberts, community activist and Vice President of the CA-WR JLC, were the awardees at this event in Hollywood. Also present was Mayor-elect and JLC member Antonio Villagarosa.

In August, CA-WR JLC endorsed Proposition 79, the “Cheaper Prescription Drugs for California” Act, intended to provide affordable prescription drugs for eight to 10 million low- and moderate-income Californians who need help with high prescription drug costs, including seniors, the working uninsured, and people with chronic illnesses. The Act harnesses the state’s purchasing power to negotiate enforceable discounts from prescription drug companies.

In September, Local 685, AFSCME, the Los Angeles Probation Officers Union, reached out to JLC for assistance – they had been working without a contract and were having a problem with the Board of County Supervisors. We were able to arrange a meeting with Rabbi Steven Carr-Rueben, president of the Southern California Board of Rabbis to advance the officers complaint. Later in the year, we spoke with high school age students of Rabbi Carr’s congregation on the labor movement, the history of the American Jewish labor movement, and today’s work of the Jewish Labor Committee.

Recent Activities: Chicago

Chicago JLC has been working with AFSCME Council 31 campaign, now over two years old, to organize 8,000 workers - including 2,000 nurses - at Resurrection Health Care, the second largest hospital system in the Chicago area. At a press conference in November, more than two dozen Resurrection nurses cited inadequate staffing levels, lax infection controls, deteriorating and outdated equipment and insufficient supplies as impediments to their ability to care for patients safely.

Chicago JLC reaches out to community synagogues and temples to hold Labor on the Bimah programs every year. Local JLC members have been active in numerous congregational and other Jewish community events; we are among the sponsors of the annual Walk for Israel / Israel Solidarity Day. Chicago JLC President Mike Perry is the Chair of the Domestic Affairs Commission of the local Jewish Community Relations Council.

Chicago JLC has been working locally in support of UNITE-HERE’S efforts to organize Cintas workers. In mid-September, the Illinois Attorney General's Office filed suit against Cintas subcontractor Sewing Systems, a Chicago apparel factory that sews garments for Cintas, for violations of the minimum wage.

Chicago JLC joined with other picketers at the Congress Plaza Hotel. Workers, affiliated with Local 1 of UNITE HERE, have been on strike since June 2003, after hotel owners cut wages and benefits; hundreds of customers complained of poor service and hazardous and unsanitary conditions. With support from many labor, religious and community organizations, the striking workers have maintained the picket line for a year and a half. Dozens of groups and conferences have moved or canceled their events after learning of the strike.
Chicago JLC has worked with Local 4, SEIU, to secure better working conditions for nursing home employees throughout Illinois, and ensure quality services for those living in these facilities.

Chicago JLC is part of the Healthy Illinois Campaign, a statewide coalition of nearly 1000 small businesses, health care providers, labor, religious organizations and churches, elected officials, urban and civic associations, and non-profit organizations that are currently working throughout the state in support of The Healthy Illinois Act (Senate Bill 11) - to significantly expand access to quality, affordable health insurance for all Illinoisans.

Chicago JLC works with the Chicago Interfaith Committee on Worker Issues on a number of campaigns, including some of those mentioned above.

Recent Activities: Cleveland

Since reconstituting the Cleveland Jewish Labor Committee, “we have been busy with our outreach work to connect the Jewish and Labor communities,” Cleveland JLC Treasurer John W. Ryan says. Among their recent activities were:
* assuring more Jewish communal construction projects are built union by stimulating discussion with their construction resource committee;
* holding events bringing together the Jewish and labor communities, including a breakfast briefing and Labor Seders;
* attempting to resolve a dispute between the IBEW and a local business owned by a Jewish individual, when the employer gutted the existing contract, including stripping away Jewish holidays;
* joining the community campaign against anti-workers practices at Wal-Mart;
* constructing, with volunteers including members of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, a Sukkah for working-class residents of the Cedar Center Apartments.

Recent Activities: Michigan

In February, JLC Michigan Regional Director Selma Goode was asked by the President of the Detroit City Council to serve on the Community Advisory Committee of the new Health Authority for Detroit; a key focus has been on providing medical care for the uninsured. Michigan JLC works with the Michigan Universal Health Care Network (MichUCAN); in October, MichUCAN held a forum with Congressman John Conyers on the medical coverage crisis. The event, co-hosted with Local 6000, UAW and the Labor Party, brought together over 200 people.

This year, Michigan JLC has participated in number of demonstrations in support of workers’ rights. In March, we marched in support of Detroit city workers, represented by AFSCME, to protest laying off hundreds of city workers, as well as curtailing all midnight - 5 a.m. bus service. In May, Michigan JLC joined a UNITE HERE demonstration at a new restaurant in downtown Detroit that refuses to bargain with its workers. Also mid-year, we participated in a demonstration by the five unions representing public school personnel to register our opposition to what were described as “enormous” lay-offs scheduled by the CEO of the school system. [Detroit's city government has no say in how the schools are run.] Michigan JLC works with the Action Coalition of Strikers and Supporters (ACOSS), which this May was planning a 10th anniversary commemoration of the newspaper strike/lockout in combination with a benefit for the Youngstown, OH newspaper workers “who have been on strike for some time now.” In October, Michigan JLC was there again, when ACOSS, in conjunction with Local 174, UAW, participated in a car caravan and dinner in support of mechanics on strike at Northwest Airlines. When a new cleaning firm began work in a large building in downtown and laid off several janitors, the Service Employees International Union held a rally – and Michigan JLC was there.

On April 18th, the Michigan JLC held a Labor Seder at Congregation Beth Shalom. Attendees included the president of the Michigan Federation of Teachers and School-Related Personnel, representatives from UNITE HERE, the secretary-treasurer of the Michigan AFL-CIO, a representative of the Jewish Community Council, a business agent from the Operating Engineers, the chair and director of the Michigan Workmen’s Circle/Arbeter Ring, a representative of the local Interfaith Coalition on Worker Issues, and the president of the Michigan Ameinu [formerly Labor Zionist Alliance].

In August, in the middle of Hillel Day School contract negotiations, and four days after the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled that another parochial school did not have to comply with a Michigan Employment Relations Commission ruling that allowed its teachers to vote on unionizing, the management at Detroit’s community-supported Hillel Day School announced it was withdrawing recognition of the teachers’ union and ended contract negotiations. The Hillel Day School teachers have had union affiliation for 40 years. The teachers – one-third of whom were new hires – were told by management to sign individual one-year contracts, and give up their collective bargaining rights. Michigan JLC has been meeting with several of the teachers, and working on enlisting the help of elected officials and in the Jewish community and the community-at-large supportive of the teachers’ effort to get the school management to voluntarily recognize the union. Additional activities included a full-page ad in the Detroit Jewish News, and soliciting letters sent to the press.

Michigan JLC is an affiliate of the Detroit Interfaith Committee on Worker Issues, has been involved fo some time in a local Sweat-Free Campaign. We are working with high school students who are organizing campaigns in two Catholic schools and one public school to adopt sweat free purchasing policies.

Recent Activities: New England

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On October 16th, JLC members and staff pasrticipated in a “Be Fair to those who Care” 1199SEIU rally in support of organizing hospital workers in Boston. Among rabbis present were Rabbis at rally included Rabbi Toba Spitzer (Congregation Dorshei Tzedek and President of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Assembly); Rabbi Barbara Penzner (Temple Hillel B'nai Torah, immediate past President of Massachusetts Board of Rabbis); Rabbi Victor Hillel Reinstein (Nehar Shalom community synagogue; and Rabbi Moshe Waldoks of Temple Beth Zion.

At the end of this past summer, as part of its annual Labor on the Bimah work, JLC New England reached out to 130 rabbis in the region; Regional Director Dolev’s Op-Ed article on Labor Day appeared in Boston's Jewish Advocate.

JLC NE has continued its support of the campaign for workers at the Smithfield meat-processing firm. In July, and August, together with Jewish community participation that we recruited, JLC NE staff and activists participated in two interfaith delegations to a local supermarket in Somerville, MA, part of a statewide strategy to protest the selling of Smithfield products made at the Tar Hell Smithfield Plant.
9For some time now, JLC NE has been trying to ensure that the Hebrew Senior Life (HSL) Project, a $130 million building project that includes the senior home and a Jewish day school project, is built union. Because as of June it was still not clear which parts of the project would be done union, JLC NE board members participated in meetings and discussions to explore how we can make sure that as much of it is done by unionized labor as possible. [In July, we learned that the main contractor had been selected, and he was committed to using almost all union sub-contractors.]

The Boston Carpenters, the JLC NE and the Torah Academy joined forces for three Sunday events in May: "Talmud Stands made by the Boston Carpenters Apprenticeship and Training program focus of student's journey between Lag BeOmer and Shavuot." This opportunity for the JLC NE to engage with a sector of the Jewish community with whom we do not often connect, as well as help youngsters learn new skills, was reported in Boston's Jewish Advocate.

We had a joint booth with the N.E. Carpenters/Boston Building Trades at the Combined Jewish Philanthropies Israel Day Celebration in May. Two JLC NE activists offered hands-on activities for participants and distributed material on JLC and apprenticeship programs in the building trades - JLC Co-Chair David Borrus (Pile Drivers Local 56 member / Carpenters organizer) and Ed Marenburg (Sheet Metal Workers Local 17 organizer).

Also in May, several students at Harvard went on a hunger strike in support of university security guards, negotiating a contract with Allied Barton, the largest security firm in Boston. JLC NE Director Dolev spoke at a rally in support of the guards, and took part in an interfaith delegation. In July, JLC NE activists took part in a rally calling upon real estate owners to be responsible employers. After much community pressure, a contract was signed, and JLC NE Vice Chair Dick Bauer (co-president, GBL/SAU, UAW Local 2320) represented us at two events to celebrate this victory.

In April, JLC NE Director Dolev represented JLC NE in an advocacy day program at the State House organized by the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition.

Also in April, JLC NE vice-chairs Dick Bauer and Corey Hope Leaffler participated in a program in support of the "Fair Contract for Janitors in New England," organized by SEIU Local 615 and community supporters; in June, new JLC NE Board member Becky Hearst and Regional Director Dolev participated in a march for the campaign.
Because the NE janitors' contract was to expire August 31st, four JLC NE Board members, as well as Rabbi Moshe Waldoks, took part in an interfaith press conference in August, calling upon real estate owners to be responsible employers. Rabbis Jonah Pesner [a member of our Board] and Waldoks spoke at the event. The same month, JLC NE took part in an SEIU 615 `open house' as well as a community briefing; we have also been doing outreach to Jewish real-estate owners.

On March 21st, JLC NE held a Labor Seder at Congregation Kehillat Israel together with the Kavod House and JALSA; 130 people attended, including representatives of labor, the Jewish community, and students. Rabbi Bill Hamilton, President of the Massachusetts Conservative Rabbinic Assembly, led the Seder.
And also in April, JLC NE Director Dolev represented JLC NE in an advocacy day program at the State House organized by the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition.

In February, JLC NE board members met with leadership in the organized Jewish community to secure their support for a three-year effort of 1199 SEIU to organize healthcare workers in Massachusetts.
In conjunction with the Hotel Workers Rising campaign, and in advance of the April 1st expiration of Boston hotel workers, JLC NE began work in February to get pledges from Jewish organizations to not cross picket lines and not hold events at four hotels in the Boston areas, but to use other, unionized, hotels instead. In March, we were able to secure pledges from the Jewish Funds for Justice and the Rashi School, and were working on securing pledges from a number of other Jewish communal agencies. Several JLC NE members took part in a March rally in support of the hotel workers. Boston's Jewish Advocate ran a number of articles on the support JLC NE and other Jewish organizations have been giving to the campaign.
UNITE HERE Local 26 authorized the leadership to declare a boycott or strike anytime after April 1st. Respecting the campaign, in April, AIPAC and the Jewish Funds for Justice relocated events to other facilities. JLC NE Regional Director David Dolev participated in a delegation to Starwood management to deliver pledges from organizations not to cross picket lines. In May, it was announced that the Hotel Workers Rising campaign was successful, and JLC NE was given substantial credit. We organized an event to thank people for their support; 23 people attended, including seven rabbis, five labor representatives, seven JLC members, two potential members, and one JALSA representative.

Early in 2007, after learning that the South Area Solomon Schechter Day School would be engaging in a $16 million renovation of a new building in Canton, MA, JLC New England chair David Borrus reached out to encourage the school to build union.

Recent Activities: New York

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[Photo by Arieh Lebowitz]
Dec. 6th: Rabbinical student Ben Greenberg gives a Hanukkah message of solidarity to cafeteria workers on strike at New York Life near Manhattan's Madison Square Park; fellow rabbinical student, Steven Exler, joined United Hebrew Trades-New York JLC Coordinator Carolyn De Paolo, PEF member Charles Davis and PSC/CUNY member Jim Perlstein at a simultaneous picket at 55 Water Street in New York's Wall Street District. 30 cafeteria workers, members of Local 100, UNITE HERE, are entering their fourth week on strike against Aramark, trying to secure a renewal of their contract, with job, wage and benefit, and pension security. Many of the cafeteria workers have been working without contracts for upwards of a year and a half.

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[Photo by Zita Allen]
United Hebrew Trades – New York JLC joined the Retail Action Project (RAP), an effort of the Good Old Lower East Side [GOLES] community organization, community and religious leaders, elected officials including Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer – speaking - and former workers on July 13th to expose widespread violations of minimum wage laws, abusive treatment and unhealthy working conditions at the retail chain Yellow Rat Bastard (YRB) and seven affiliated stores in Manhattan’s NOHO/SOHO neighborhood. Also at the press conference outside the YRB SOHO store were NYC Assembly Member Sylvia Friedman and NYS Senator Martin Connor, as well as representatives from U.S. Congress Member Nydia Velasquez, NYC City Council Member Rosie Mendez and NYC City Council Member Alan Gerson.

In March, following a request by the New York State Labor-Religion Coalition to support efforts to defeat the proposed Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) legislation that was being debated in Congress, the United Hebrew Trades - New York JLC reached out to over 600 rabbis in key Congressional Districts, urging them to contact their representatives, indicating their opposition.

Also in March, UHT Coordinator Carolyn De Paolo reported, the UHT participated in the annual commemoration of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, at the site of the fire, just east of Washington Square Park, on March 24th .

UHT reached out to Mayor Bloomberg in March to voice our concern that directors and assistant directors in day care facilities funded by New York City had not had a raise in five years. Although the Mayor had publicly stated that he would tie raises to productivity gains, his representatives have refused to sign a contract with the Council of Supervisors and Administrators [Local 1, AFSA] even after they proposed changes which should lead to productivity gains. We can’t claim credit, but the CSA News reported that “on April 21, CSA represent-atives met with the city’s Office of Labor Relations and the Day Care Council and came to an agreement regarding CSA’s 450 Day Care Directors and Assistant Directors.”

On April 19th, over three dozen people celebrated Passover at the United Hebrew Trades - New York JLC’s first Labor Seder. UHT Coordinator Carolyn De Paolo reported that among those who attended were representatives from the American Federation of Musicians, UNITE HERE, the Communications Workers of America, AFSCME, the New York City Jewish Community Relations Council, the Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, the IBEW, and Meretz USA.

Since August, the UHT as well as national JLC have been working with students of the Graduate Students Organizing Committee of New York University, affiliated with Local 2110 of the UAW. Even though the graduate workers -- research and teaching assistants -- had secured union recognition a few of years ago, the school’s administration appealed to the National Labor Relations Board, challenging their status as workers. The NLRB decided that they were not workers, and as such not entitled to union representation. GSOC/Local 2110 members have been on strike since November 9th, demanding that the university enter into collective bargaining with the local, and negotiate a fair contract.

Recent Activities: Philadelphia

Philadelphia-area participants in this summer's Israel Institute for Labor Leaders debriefed Philadelphia JLC Regional Director Rosalind Spigel on their many positive experiences and informative meetings. Participants also met with Philadelphia AFC-CIO Council President Pat Eiding and Legislative Director Liz McElroy to report on their trip. Subsequently, Brother Eiding invited them to brief the delegates to the city's monthly AFL-CIO council meeting in October. A meeting has been scheduled with the Israeli Consul General.

In October, the Philadelphia JLC and the Jewish Community Relations Committee of the Jewish Federation held a debriefing with the In August, PJLC reached out to area rabbis to participate in this year's Labor on the Bimah program; we suggested that they highlight one of a number of issues particularly of concern to working people, such as health care reform; handgun safety; the Employee Free Choice Act; meaningful immigration reform.

In July, PJLC hosted a book signing on July 12th with Mr. Tsvi Bisk, author of The Optimistic Jews; A Positive View of Jewish Life in the 21st Century. Mr. Bisk, an Israeli, was in the country promoting his book and to attend a conference of the World Futurist Society.

In June, for the third year in a row, Religious Leaders for Justice at Comcast made an appeal to CEO Brian Roberts at the annual Comcast shareholders meeting. Regional JLC Director Spigel joined a number of clerics in asking questions and making comments on behalf of workers who had been unfairly treated. Mr. Roberts agreed to meet with a delegation from the Religious Leaders the following month. This meeting came on the heels of a letter, signed by 10 rabbis, to Mr. Roberts, raising the connection between Passover and the theme of injustice as experienced by former Comcast employee Will Goodo, and a full-page ad in Philadelphia's Jewish Exponent, "Mr. Roberts, Does Comcast Really Care?" The delegation from Religious Leaders did meet with David Cohen, Executive Vice President of Comcast, and Arthur Block, the company's General Counsel. Ms. Spigel participated in this meeting, addressing a variety of concerns regarding how Comcast workers were treated.

Earlier in the year, as part of her ongoing work in support of the Comcast workers organizing drive, Ms. Spigel, representing Religious Leaders for Justice at Comcast, testified at an event hosted by the Philadelphia Council AFL-CIO's President Pat Eiding and the SouthEast Pennsylvania Area Labor Federation's Steve Sarno. Ms. Spigel spoke on behalf of Comcast workers who were too fearful of personal repercussions, including losing their jobs.

On May 17th, PJLC joined the second of a series of delegation visits to the Jones Apparel Group's corporate offices in Bristol, PA. Organized by United Students Against Sweatshops, the delegation - a similar group went in February (and PJLC also participated back then) - pressed JAG to end the repression of workers in Africa and Central America who were organizing for justice and dignity in factories supplying products sold by the apparel group.

In April, PJLC activists participated in the annual Workers' Memorial Day, observed to focus attention on working men and women who lost their lives on the job. Families remembered loved ones; Rabbi Mordechai Liebling delivered a moving prayer and plea for action to safeguard workers' lives and health. AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka was keynote speaker at the event.

Also in April, PJLC again joined the Coalition of Labor Union Women, UNITE HERE, members of the Philadelphia City Council and others to observe Equal Pay Day in city council chambers. The Equal Pay Day ceremony raises awareness about disparities in pay for women and ethnic and racial minorities in the U.S. It is observed in April to symbolically demonstrate how much into the following year members of these groups have to work to earn as much as men earn in a year.

As part of a multi-city Stand with Darfurians Rally and March initiative, JLC members joined a city-wide action in April to call for U.N. Peacekeeper protection, a sustainable peace agreement, punishment for the perpetrators of genocide, and PA divestment from Sudan.

PJLC formally joined the Pennsylvanians United for Affordable Health Care coalition in April [it was a busy month!] to make a fundamental reform to that state's health care system. As a member of coalition, PJLC participated in Cover the Uninsured Week, meeting with and attending a press conference with Governor Edward Rendell. PJLC arranged for a rabbi to speak at the April 26th meeting to briefly discuss Jewish values and health care.

Regional Director Spigel, representing the PJLC, participated in a panel on volunteer opportunities to the diverse members of Birthright Israel Alumni Association, the National Museum of Aerican Jewish History, the collaborative, the Jewish graduate Student Network, and Havarah. At this event, geared towards local Jews in their 20s and 30s looking for ways to engage as volunteers or professionals in social change and/or advocacy work, Ms. Spigel highlighted the PJLC's work linking the organized Jewish community and organized labor as well as other community groups. She noted how we work together on social justice issues such as a higher Minimum Wage, better labor conditions, health care reform, better public transportation, Medicare and meaningful immigration reform.

In March, PJLC again organized a workshop on Teaching the Lessons of the Holocaust at the annual conference of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. This workshop, organized with local alumni of our internationally-acclaimed Holocaust and Jewish Resistance Teachers Program, had child survivor and author Anne Fox, and alumni Steffanie Connelly, as presenters. The panel and following discussion were moderated by JLC member Professor Art Shostak.

Also in March, PJLC held our annual Labor Seder, co-sponsored with the JCRC of Greater Philadelphia. Led by JLC Executive Director Avram Lyon, the ceremony tied the story of the exodus of the oppressed Hebrew slaves from ancient Egypt with the stories of those in our midst who struggle every day for dignity and freedom, especially a measure of economic freedom. Selected individuals, lighting one each of four candles and reading specific texts, interspersed the ritual with lively discussion on the importance of freedom and delivering hope for a better day. Among the participants were leadership from the JCRC, the Shomrim [Jewish members of the police officers], the UFCW, the IBEW, and the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers.

And in March the student group Kol Tzedek, Penn Hillel and PJLC sponsored `Working for Liberation in 2007: The Tzedek Hechsher Initiative' -- a pre-Passover social justice program at the University of Pennsylvania. Our featured speaker, Mr. Lyon, explored the genesis of the Conservative Movement's new tzedek hechsher initiative, which grew out of an examination of theworking conditions at the Agriprocessors kosher slaughtering facilities in Postville, IA.

Also in March, PJLC cosponsored a presentation by British academic, Dr. David Hirsh, on Anti-Semitism in Polite Company, distinguishing between diverse types of anti-Semitism, and how anti-Semitism has become often attached to criticism of Israel. Israel, Zionism and Zionists are often portrayed as bad guys, noted Dr. Hirsh, who has been part of the campaign to combat anti-Israel resolutions, including boycott Israel resolutions, from academic unions in the UK and elsewhere, illustrated his thesis with cartoons, press and other statements. The program was organized by PJLC and co-sponsored with the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, the Jewish Community Relations Council, the ADL, Brit Tzedek V'Shalom, and Hadassah of Greater Philadelphia.

When concern was raised about the introduction of racial prejudice into the city's mayoral race, PJLC joined with the ADL, Asian Americans United, CONGRESO, the League of Women Voters, the Committee of Seventy, and the Urban League of Philadelphia in reaching out to mayoral candidates urging them to prevent racial bias from entering the campaign.

Among our diverse local labor campaign activity, PJLC has continued to be working in support of workers at the King of Prussia Mall, as part of a multi-group campaign of SEIU 32BJ, Jobs with Justice, the Laborers, and others.

Ms. Spigel participated in a public discussion at the beginning of the year with Jewish Council for Public Affairs Director Rabbi Steve Gutow. The a wide-ranging discussion of the Philadelphia JCRC explored challenges facing the Jewish community in the areas of Israel advocacy, interfaith and intergroup relations and public policy. The local JCRC Policy Board hosted the event.

Readings on the American Jewish Labor Movement

General Works; Specific Unions, Organizations and Movements; Autobiographies, Biographies, Memoirs; Unpublished Works.

AbolishChildLabor.jpg

"ABOLISH CH[ILD] SLAVERY!!" in English and Yiddish, probably taken during May 1, 1909 labor parade in New York City. George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress).


GENERAL WORKS

Abramsky, Chimen, “The Jewish Labour Movement: Some Historiographical Problems,” in Soviet Jewish Affairs, vol. 1, no. 1, (June 1971)

Asher, Robert, “Jewish Unions and the American Federation of Labor Power Structure, 1903-1935,” in American Jewish Historical Quarterly, vol. 65 (1976)

Baum, Charlotte, Paula Hyman and Sonya Michel, “Weaving the Fabric of Unionism: Jewish Women Move the Movement,” in THE JEWISH WOMAN IN AMERICA (New York: Dial Press 1976)

Bell, Daniel, “Jewish Labor History,” in Publication of the American Jewish Historical Society, Vol. 46, no. 3 (March 1957)

Berman, Harold, "The Decline of Jewish Labor," in THE REFLEX (October 1927)

Berman, Hyman, “A Cursory View of the Jewish Labor Movement: An Historiographical Survey,” in American Jewish Historical Quarterly, vol. LII [52], no. 2 (December 1962)

Bloom, Bernard H., “Yiddish Speaking Socialists in America, 1892 - 1905.” in American Jewish Archives, vol. 12, no. 1 (April, 1960)

Brandes, Joseph, “From Sweatshop to Stability: Jewish Labor Between the World Wars,” YIVO Annual XVI (1976)

Buhle, Paul, “The Roots of Jewish Labor: Will the Vision Be Renewed?” in Genesis 2 (Boston Feb., 1983)

————, “Jews and American Communism: the Cultural Question,” in Radical History Review 23, (Spring, 1980)

------------, “Yiddish Left,” in ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE AMERICAN LEFT, (New York: Garland Publishing, 1990)

Danish, Max D., “The Jewish Labor Movement: Facts and Prospects,” in THE JEWISH PEOPLE - PAST AND PRESENT, Volume IV (New York: Jewish Encyclopedic Handbooks 1948)

David, Henry, “The Jewish Unions and their Influence upon the American Labor Movement,” in Publication of the American Jewish Historical Society, Vol. 41, no. 4 (June 1952)

—————, “Jewish Labor History: A Problem Paper,” in Publication of the American Jewish Historical Society, vol. 46, no. 3 (March 1957)

Davidowicz, Lucy S., “The Jewishness of the Jewish Labor Movement in the United States,” in A BICENTENNIAL FESTSCHRIFT FOR JACOB RADER MARCUS, ed. by Bertram Wallace Korn (New York: American Jewish Historical Society/KTAV 1976 {Reprinted in THE AMERICAN JEWISH EXPERIENCE, ed. by Jonathan D. Sarna [New York: Holmes & Meier 1986]})

Dubofsky, Melvyn, “Organized Labor and the Immigrant in New York City, 1900 - 1918,” in Labor History 2 (Spring 1961)

Epstein, Melech, JEWISH LAB OR IN THE UNITED STATES; AN INDUSTRIAL, POLITICAL AND CULTURAL HISTORY OF THE JEWISH LABOR MOVEMENT, 1882 - 1952, Two Volumes (New York: Trade Union Sponsoring Committee 1950, 1953 [ Reprinted, New York: KTAV, 1969])

—————, THE JEW AND COMMUNISM, (New York 1959)

Feingold, Henry L., “Matching Power and Responsibility: The Jewish Labor Movement,” in A MIDRASH ON AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY (Albany: SUNY Press 1982)

Frager, Ruth A., SWEATSHOP STRIFE: CLASS, ETHNICITY, AND GENDER IN THE JEWISH LABOUR MOVEMENT OF TORONTO, 1900 - 1939 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1992)

Frankel, Jonathan, “The Jewish Socialists and the American Jewish Congress Movement,” in YIVO Annual XVI (1976)

——————-, “Class War and Community: The Socialists in American Jewish Politics, 1879 - 1918,” in PROPHECY AND POLITICS: SOCIALISM, NATIONALISM AND THE RUSSIAN JEWS, 1862 - 1917 (New York 1981)

Friedman-Manor, Tami, ed., WORKERS AND REVOLUTIONARIES: THE JEWISH LABOR MOVEMENT, (Tel Aviv: Beth Hatefutsoth, the Museum of the Jewish Diaspora 1994)

Glanz, Rudolph, “Source Material on the History of Jewish Immigration to the U.S., 1800-1880,” in YIVO Annual VI (1951)

———————, “Some Remarks on the Jewish Labor Movement and American Public Opinion in the Pre-World War I Era,” in YIVO Annual XVI (1976)

Glenn, Susan A., DAUGHTERS OF THE SHTETL - LIFE AND LABOR IN THE IMMIGRANT GENERATION (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1990)

Goldstein, Yaacov N., JEWISH SOCIALISTS IN THE UNITED STATES: THE CAHAN DEBATE, 1925-1926 (Brighton - East Sussex, UK: Sussex Academic Press 1998)

Goren, Arthur, “The Jewish Labor Movement and the Kehillah,” in QUEST FOR COMMUNITY: THE KEHILLAH EXPERIMENT, 1908 - 1922 (New York 1970)

Green, Nancy L., JEWISH WORKERS IN THE MODERN DIASPORA, (Berkeley : University of California Press, 1998)

Gross, Feliks and Vlavianos, Basil J., STRUGGLE FOR TOMORROW: MODERN POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE (New York 1954)

Hardman, J. B. S., “The Jewish Labor Movement in the United States: Jewish and Non-Jewish Influences,” in Publication of the American Jewish Historical Society, vol. 41, no. 4 (Dec. 1952)

—————-, “Jewish Workers in the American Labor Movement,” in YIVO Annual VII (1952)

Herberg, Will, “The Jewish Labor Movement in the United States,” in American Jewish Year Book, vol. 53 (1952)

Hiebert, Daniel, "Jewish Immigrants and the Garment Industry of Toronto, 1901–1931: A Study of Ethnic and Class Relations," in Annals of the Association of American Geographers, volume 83 Issue 2 (June 1993)

Howe, Irving, “Jewish Labor, Jewish Socialism,” in WORLD OF OUR FATHERS (New York 1976)

—————, “The Significance of the Jewish Labor Movement,” in THE JEWISH LABOR MOVEMENT IN AMERICA: TWO VIEWS (New York: Jewish Labor Committee 1958)

——————, and Libo, Kenneth, “Labor and Socialism,” in HOW WE LIVED: A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF IMMIGRANT JEWS IN AMERICA, 1880 - 1930 (New York 1979)

Knox, Israel, “Jewish Labor - The Reality and the Ideal,” in THE JEWISH LABOR MOVEMENT IN AMERICA: TWO VIEWS (New York: Jewish Labor Committee 1958)

Kosak, Hadassa, CULTURES OF OPPOSITION: JEWISH IMMIGRANT CULTURE, New York 1881-1905 (Albany: SUNY Press 2000)

Leviatin, David, FOLLOWERS OF THE TRAIL: JEWISH WORKING-CLASS RADICALS IN AMERICA (New Haven: Yale University Press 1969)

Levin, Nora, “The American Jewish Labor Movement,” in WHILE MESSIAH TARRIED: JEWISH SOCIALIST MOVEMENTS, 1871 - 1917 (New York: Schocken Books 1977)

———————, “Socialist Intellectuals Encounter Jewish Workers in America, 1881-84,” in Gratz College Annual of Jewish Studies, vol. II (1973)

Liebman, Arthur, JEWS AND THE LEFT (New York: John Wiley & Sons 1979)

McCreesh, Carolyn Daniel, WOMEN IN THE CAMPAIGN TO ORGANIZE GARMENT WORKERS, 1880 - 1917 (New York & London: Garland Publishing 1985)

Mendelsohn, Ezra, “The Jewish Socialist Movement and the Second International, 1889 - 1914: The Struggle for Recognition,” in Jewish Social Studies, Vol. 26 (1964)

———————, “The Russian Roots of the American Jewish Labor Movement,” in YIVO Annual XVI (1976) [Repr. in EAST EUROPEAN JEWS IN TWO WORLDS: STUDIES FROM THE YIVO ANNUAL, Deborah Dash Moore, ed. (Evanston: Northwestern University Press 1990)]

Menes, Abraham, “The Jewish Labor Movement,” in THE JEWISH PEOPLE, PAST AND PRESENT, Volume IV. (New York: Jewish Encyclopedic Handbooks 1955)

———————-, “The East Side and the Jewish Labor Movement, in VOICES FROM THE YIDDISH, Irving Howe and Eliezer Greenberg, eds. (Ann Arbor 1972); also in MANY PASTS: READINGS IN AMERICAN SOCIAL HISTORY, 1865-THE PRESENT, vol.. 2, Herbert G. Gyutman and Gregory S. Kealey, eds. (Prentice Hall 1973)

Mergan, Bernard, “Another `Great Prize’: The Jewish Labor Movement in the Context of American Jewish History,” in YIVO Annual XVI (1976)

Michels, Tony, "`Speaking to Moyshe,': The early socialist Yiddish press and its readers," in Jewish History, Volume 14, Number 1 (January 2000)

------------------, “Socialism with a Jewish Face: The Origins of the Yiddish-Speaking Communist Movement in the United States, 1907-1923,” in YIDDISH AND THE LEFT; PAPERS OF THE THIRD MENDEL FRIEDMAN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON YIDDISH, ed. by Gennady Estraikh and Mikhail Krutikov (Oxford: European Humanities Research Centre, 2001)

--------------------, A FIRE IN THEIR HEARTS: YIDDISH SOCIALISTS IN NEW YORK (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005)

Mishkinsky, M., "The Jewish labor movement and European socialism," in Cahiers d’Histoire Mondiale 11 (1968)

Perlman, Selig, “America and the Jewish Labor Movement: A Case of Mutual Illumination,” in Publication of the American Jewish Historical Society, vol. 46, no. 3 (March 1957)

———————, “Jewish-American Unionism: Its Birth Pangs and Contribution to the General American Labor Movement,” in Publication of the American Jewish Historical Society, Vol. 41, no. 4 (June 1952)

Reich, Nathan, “Some Observations on Jewish Unionism,” in Publication of the American Jewish Historical Society, vol. 41, no. 4 (June 1952)

Rich, Jacob C., “The Jewish Labor Movement in the United States,” in THE JEWISH PEOPLE - PAST AND PRESENT (New York: Jewish Encyclopedic Handbooks 1948)

—————, Sixty Years of the ‘Jewish Daily Forward’,” in The New Leader (June 3, 1957)

Rischin, Moses, “The Jewish Labor Movement in the United States: A Social Interpretation,” in Labor History 4 (Fall, 1963)

——————, THE PROMISED CITY: NEW YORK’S JEWS, 1870 - 1914 (New York: Cambridge University Press 1962)

Rogoff, Abraham Meyer, FORMATIVE YEARS OF THE JEWISH LABOR MOVEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES, 1890-1900 (New York 1945 [Reprinted Westport: Greenwood Press 1979])

——————————-, “Jewish Labor in the American Political Scene,” in JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA, ed. by Maurice Samuels (New York 1945)

Rosenblum, Gerald, IMMIGRANT WORKERS: THEIR IMPACT ON AMERICAN LABOR RADICALISM (New York: Basic Books 1973)

Rosenstein, Irv, OUR LEGACY: JEWS AND THE AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENT (Philadelphia 1991)

Ruchames, Louis, “Jewish Radicalism in the U.S.,” in THE GHETTO AND BEYOND: ESSAYS IN JEWISH LIFE IN AMERICA, Peter I. Rose, ed. (New York: Random House 1969)

Salutsky, J.B., “The Jewish Labor Movement in the United States,” American Jewish Year Book, 1916

Sanders, Ronald, THE DOWNTOWN JEWS: PORTRAIT OF AN IMMIGRANT GENERATION (New York: Dover 1987)

Schappes, Morris U., A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF THE JEWS IN THE UNITED STATES, 1645-1875 (New York: Citadel Press 1950)

—-----------——— series on Jewish Labor Movement in Jewish Life, “Socialist Traditions of Jewish Labor,” May 1950; “Jewish Labor in the (18)90s,” June 1950; “Appeal of Jewish Workingmen’s Union 1885,” May 1952; “`Jewish Workers’ Victory - 1890,” April 1953; “The 1880s - Beginnings of Jewish Trade Unionism,” September 1954; “The Nineties - Ups and Downs of Jewish Trade Unions,” October 1954; “The New Century Opens - Jewish Labor Movement Grows,” December 1954; “The Heroic Period of Jewish Labor, 1909-1914,” January 1955.

Seidman, Joel, THE NEEDLE TRADES (New York: Farrar and Rinehart 1942)

Seligman, Ben B., “Needle, Thread and Thimble: The Story of Jewish Labor in the U.S.,” Jewish Frontier, September 1953.

Sherman, Charles Bezalel, “Nationalism, Secularism and Religion in the Jewish Labor Movement,” Judaism, Vol. 3, Fall 1954 (reprinted in VOICES FROM THE YIDDISH, ed. Irving Howe and Eliezer Greenberg, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.)

Shuldiner, David P., OF MOSES AND MARX: FOLK IDEOLOGY IN THE JEWISH LABOR MOVEMENT OF THE UNITED STATES, (Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey 1999)

Sidorick, Daniel, "The 'Girl Army': The Philadelphia Shirtwaist Strike of 1909-1910," Pennsylvania History, No. 71 (Summer 2004)

Sorin, Gerald, THE PROPHETIC MINORITY: AMERICAN JEWISH IMMIGRANT RADICALS, 1880-1920 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press 1985)

—————, “Tradition and Change: American Jewish Socialists as Agents of Acculturation,” American Jewish History, vol. 59, no. 1 Autumn 1989)

Stein, Leon, ed., OUT OF THE SWEATSHOP: THE STRUGGLE FOR INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY (New York: Quadrangle/The New York Times Book Co. 1977)

-----, THE TRIANGLE FIRE (Philadelphia: (Ithaca, NY: J. P. Lippincott, 1962 - [Reprints: New York: Carroll & Graf 1985; Ithaca, NY:: Cornell University Press, 2001])

Szajkowski, Zosa, “Paul Nathan, L. Wolf ... and the Jewish Revolutionary Movements in Eastern Europe, 1903 - 17,” in Jewish Social Studies, (January 1967, April, 1967)

Tax, Meredith, “The Uprising of the Thirty Thousand,” in THE RISING OF THE WOMEN: Feminist Solidarity and Class Conflict, 1880-1917, by Meredith Tax (New York and London: Monthly Review Press 1980 [reprinted - Champaign, IL University of Illinois Press 2001)

----------------, RIVINGTON STREET (Champaign, IL University of Illinois Press 2001)

----------------, UNION SQUARE (Champaign, IL University of Illinois Press 2001)

Tcherikover, Elias, THE EARLY JEWISH LABOR MOVEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES, translated and edited by Aaron Antonovsky (New York: YIVO 1961)

Trunk, Isaiah, “The Cultural Dimensions of the Jewish Labor Movement,” in YIVO Annual XVI (1976)

Tyler, Gus, THE JEWISH LABOR MOVEMENT: A LIVING LEGACY (New York: Jewish Labor Committee n.d.)

—————, “The Legacy of the Jewish Labor Movement,” in Midstream (March 1965)

Von Drehle, Dave, TRIANGLE : THE FIRE THAT CHANGED AMERICA (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003)

Wahl, Edward, “American Jewish Labor Movement,” in Chicago Jewish Forum, vol. 5 (Spring 1947)

Waldinger, Roger D., THROUGH THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE; IMMIGRANTS AND ENTERPRISE IN NEW YORK’S GARMENT TRADES (New York: New York University Press 1986)

Weinryb, Bernard D., “The Adaptation of Jewish Labor Groups to American Life,” in Jewish Social Studies, vol. III, No. 4 (1946)

Weinstein, Bernard, JEWISH UNIONS IN AMERICA, United Hebrew Trades (New York 1929)

Weinstock, Nathan, TERRES PROMISES: AVATARS DU MOUVEMENT OUVRIER JUIF AU-DELÀ DES MERS AUTOUR DE 1900 : ETATS-UNIS, CANADA, ARGENTINE, PALESTINE (Geneva: Metropolis 2001)

Yellowitz, Irwin, “American Jewish Labor: Historiographical Problems and Prospects,” in American Jewish Historical Quarterly, vol. 65, no. 3 (March, 1976)

————————, Jewish Immigrants and the American Labor Movement, 1900 - 1920,” in American Jewish History, vol. 71, no. 2 (December, 1981)

———————, “Labor Movement,” in JEWISH- AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE: AN ENCYCLOPEDIA, ed. by Jack Fischel and Sanford Pinsker (New York & London: Garland Publishing 1992)

STUDIES OF SPECIFIC UNIONS, ORGANIZATIONS, MOVEMENTS

Alperin, Aaron, SEVENTY YEARS OF LABOR ZIONISM IN AMERICA (New York: Labor Zionists of America 1976)

Avrich, Paul, “Jewish Anarchism in the United States,” in ANARCHIST PORTRAITS, by Paul Avrich (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1988)

Barbash, Jack, “The ILGWU as an Organization in the Age of Dubinsky,” in Labor History IX, Special Supplement (New York 1968)

Beck, Burt, A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE AMALGAMATED (New York: Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America [now UNITE] 1974)

Belsky, Joseph, I, THE UNION: BEING THE PERSONALIZED TRADE UNION STORY OF THE HEBREW BUTCHER WORKERS OF AMERICA (Yonkers, NY: Raddock & Brothers, Ltd. 1952)

Bender, Daniel E., SWEATED WORK, WEAK BODIES. ANTI-SWEATSHOP CAMPAIGNS AND LANGUAGES OF LABOR (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press 2004)

Brenner, Paul, “The Formative Years of the Hebrew Bakers’ Unions, 1881- 1914,” in YIVO Annual XVIII (1983)

Bookbinder, Hyman H., TO PROMOTE THE GENERAL WELFARE: THE STORY OF THE AMALGAMATED, (New York: Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America [now UNITE] 1950)

Brooks, Tom, “The Terrible Triangle Fire,” in American Heritage 8 (1957)

Budish, J. M., A HISTORY OF THE CLOTH HAT AND CAP AND MILLINERY WORKERS INDUSTRIAL UNION (NYC 1925)

—————— and George Soule, THE NEW UNIONISM IN THE CLOTHING INDUSTRY (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Howe 1920)

Carpenter, Jesse Thomas, COMPETITION AND COLLECTIVE BARGAINING IN THE NEEDLE TRADES, 1910 - 1967 (Ithaca 1972)

Cohen, Julius Henry, THEY BUILDED BETTER THAN THEY KNEW (New York 1946)

Danish, Max D., ILGWU NEWS-HISTORY, 1900 - 1950 (New York 1950)

Dauber, Jeremy, “Yiddish Proletarian Theatre: The Art and Politics of the Artef, 1925-1940,” in American Jewish History, vol. 88 (2000)

Eisner, J. M., “Politics, Legislation and the ILGWU," in American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 28 (1969)

Erlich, Victor, "Jewish Labor and the `Daily Forward'," in Modern Review, vol. 1, no. 7 (September 1947)

Estraikh, Gennady, “Metamorphoses of Morgn-frayhayt,” in YIDDISH AND THE LEFT; PAPERS OF THE THIRD MENDEL FRIEDMAN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON YIDDISH, ed. by Gennady Estraikh and Mikhail Krutikov (Oxford: European Humanities Research Centre, 2001)

Foner, Philip S., “Revolt of the Garment Workers I and II,” in HISTORY OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES, Vol. 5 (New York: International Publishers 1980)

——————, “THE FUR AND LEATHER WORKERS UNION: A STORY OF DRAMATIC STRUGGLES AND ACHIEVE- MENTS (Newark: Nordan Press 1950)

Fraser, Steven, “Landsleit and Paesini: Jews and Italians in the Amalgamated Clothing Workers,” in STRUGGLE A HARD BATTLE: ESSAYS ON WORKING CLASS IMMIGRANTS, ed. by Dirk Hoerder (Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press 1986)

Green, Charles H., THE HEADWEAR WORKERS: A CENTURY OF TRADE UNIONISM (New York: United Hatters, Cap and Millinery Workers International Union 1944)

Green, Nancy L., READY-TO-WEAR AND READY-TO-WORK: A CENTURY OF INDUSTRY AND IMMIGRANTS IN PARIS AND NEW YORK (Durham [N.C.] : Duke University Press, 1997)

Hardman, J. B. S., “The Needle Trade Unions: A Labor Movement at Fifty,” in Social Research, vol. XXVII, no. 3 (Autumn, 1960)

Hardy, Jack, THE CLOTHING WORKERS (New York 1935)

Helfgott, Roy B., “Trade Unionism Among the Jewish Garment Workers of Britain and the United States,” in Labor History, vol. 2, no. 2 (1961)

Hertz, Jacob S. [Yakov Sholom], THE JEWISH LABOR BUND: A PICTORIAL HISTORY 1897 - 1957 (NYC: Farlag Unser Tsait 1958)

Holmes, John & Lebowitz, Arieh, “Jewish Socialist Federation,” in ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE AMERICAN LEFT, 2nd edn., edited by Mari Jo Buhle, Paul Buhle, and Dan Georgakas (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998)

Hurwitz, Ariel, ed., AGAINST THE STREAM: SEVEN DECADES OF HASHOMER HATZAIR IN NORTH AMERICA (Israel: Givat Haviva 1994)

Hurwitz, Maximillian, THE WORKMEN'S CIRCLE: ITS HISTORY, IDEALS, ORGANIZATION AND INSTITUTIONS (New York: Workmen’s Circle 1936)

Kaminsky, Y, FORTY YEARS WORKMEN'S CIRCLE: A HISTORY IN PICTURES {FERTSIK YOR ARBETER RING : A GESHIKHTE IN BILDER} (New York: Workmen’s Circle 1940)

King, Elliot, ed., BUILDERS AND DREAMERS: HABONIM DROR LABOR ZIONIST YOUTH IN NORTH AMERICA (New York: Cornwall Books 1993)

Korman, Gerd, “Ethnic Democracy and Its Ambiguities: The Case of the Needle Trade Unions,” in American Jewish History, vol. 75, no. 4, 1986

Kopold, Sylvia and Ben M. Selekman, “The Epic of the Needle Trades,” in Menorah Journal, vol. XV, nos. 4, 5, and 6, (Oct, November & December 1928) and vol. XVIII, no. 4 (April 1930)

Laslett, John H. M., “Jewish Socialism and the Ladies Garment Workers of New York,” in LABOR AND THE LEFT (New York 1970)

Lebowitz, Arieh, “The Jewish Labor Committee: Past and Present,” in Shofar [Midwest Jewish Sudies Association, Purdue University] (West Lafayette, IN Spring 1994)

Lebowitz, Arieh and Gail Malmgreen, ROBERT F. WAGNER LABOR ARCHIVES, NYU: PAPERS OF THE JEWISH LABOR COMMITTEE (New York: Garland Publishing 1993)

--------------------, “Socialist Zionism,” in ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE AMERICAN LEFT, (New York: Garland Publishing, 1990)

Levin, Nora, “The Influence of the Bund on the Jewish Socialist Movement in America,” in Gratz College Annual of Jewish Studies, vol. V (1976) pp. 51-68

Loft, Jacob, “Jewish Workers in the New York City Men’s Clothing Industry,” in Jewish Social Studies 2, (January 1940) pp. 61-77

Lorwin, Louis [Levine, Louis, pseud.] THE WOMEN’S GARMENT WORKERS: A HISTORY OF THE INTERNATIONAL LADIES GARMENT WORKERS UNION (New York: B. W. Heubsch 1924)

Malmgreen, Gail, “Labor and the Holocaust: The Jewish Labor Committee and the Anti-Nazi Struggle,” in Labor’s Heritage, Vol. 3, no. 4 (Oct. 1991)

Markowitz, Ruth Jacknow, MY DAUGHTER, THE TEACHER: JEWISH TEACHERS IN THE NEW YORK CITY SCHOOLS (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press 1993)

Munts, Raymond and Mary Louise, “Welfare History of the ILGWU,” in Labor History IX, Special Supplement (1968)

Nadel, Stanley, “Reds Versus Pinks: A Civil War in the International Ladies Garment Workers Union,” in New York History, January 1985

Nahshon, Edna, YIDDISH PROLETARIAN THEATRE: THE ART AND POLITICS OF THE ARTEF, 1925-1940 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998)

O’Neal, James, A HISTORY OF THE AMALGAMATED LADIES GARMENT CUTTERS’ UNION, LOCAL 10 (New York 1927)

Potofsky, Jacob, “Profile: The Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America,” in American Labor, December 21-27, 1969

Robinson, Donald B., SPOTLIGHT ON A UNION: THE STORY OF THE UNITED HATTERS, CAP AND MILLINERY WORKERS INTERNATIONAL UNION (New York: Dial 1948)

Schlossberg, Joseph, ed., DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF THE AMALGAMATED CLOTHING WORKERS OF AMERICA, NEW YORK 1914-1916 (New York: ACWA 1920[?])

Schappes, Morris U., “The Political Origins of the United Hebrew Trades,” in Journal of Ethnic Studies 5:1 (Spring 1977)

Seidman, Joel, THE NEEDLE TRADES (New York 1942)

——————-, “The ILGWU in the Dubinsky Period,” in Labor History IX, Special Supplement (1968)

Seller, Maxine S., “The Rising of the 20,000: Sex, Class and Ethnicity in the Shirtwaist Makers Strike of 1909,” in Dirk Hoerder, (ed.), STRUGGLE A HARD BATTLE: ESSAYS ON WORKING CLASS IMMIGRANTS (Dekalb, IL: Northern Illinois Univ. Press 1986)Shapiro, Judah J., THE FRIENDLY SOCIETY: A HISTORY OF THE WORKMEN’S CIRCLE (New York: Medial Judaica / Workmen’s Circle 1970)

Shavelson, Clara L., “Remembering the Waistmakers General Strike, 1909,” Jewish Currents (Nov. 1982)

Soyer, Daniel, “Landsmanshaftn and the Jewish Labor Movement: Cooperation, Conflict, and the Building of Community,” in Journal of American Ethnic History, Vol. 7, no. 2 (1988)

Stolberg, Benjamin, TAILOR’S PROGRESS: THE STORY OF A FAMOUS UNION AND THE MEN WHO MADE IT (New York: Doubleday, Doran and Co. 1944)

Stowell, Charles Jacob, THE JOURNEYMEN TAILOR’S UNION OF AMERICA (University of Illinois Studies in the Social Sciences, vol. VII, No. 4 1918)

Strong, Earl D., THE AMALGAMATED CLOTHING WORKERS OF AMERICA (Grinnell, IA: Herald-Register Publishing Co. 1940)

Taft, Philip, UNITED THEY TEACH: THE STORY OF THE UNITED FEDERATION OF TEACHER [of New York City] (Los Angeles: 1974)

Tyler, Gus, A VITAL VOICE: 100 YEARS OF THE JEWISH FORWARD (New York: The Forward Association, Inc. 1997)

————, LOOK FOR THE UNION LABEL: A HISTORY OF THE INTERNATIONAL LADIES’ GARMENT WORKERS’ UNION (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1995)

Waldinger, Roger, “Another Look at the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union: Women, industry, structure and collective action,” in WOMEN, WORK & PROTEST: A CENTURY OF U.S. WOMEN’S LABOR HISTORY, ed. by Ruth Milkman (London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1987)

Weiler, N. Sue, “The Uprising in Chicago: The Men’s Garment Workers Strike, 1910-1911,” in A NEEDLE, A BOBBIN, A STRIKE: WOMEN NEEDLEWORKERS IN AMERICA, ed. by Joan M. Jensen and Sue Davidson (Philadelphia: Temple University Press 1981)

Wertheimer, Barbara Mayer, “The Rise of the Woman Garment Worker: New York, 1909-1910 [Chapter 16],” and “Women in the Men’s Clothing Trades: A New Union, 1910-1914 [Chapter 17],” in WE WERE THERE: THE STORY OF WORKING WOMEN IN AMERICA (New York: Pantheon Books 1977)

Zaretz, Charles Elbert, THE AMALGAMATED CLOTHING WORKERS OF AMERICA: A STUDY IN PROGRESSIVE TRADES-UNIONISM (New York: Ancon Publishing Co. 1934)

Zitron, Celia, THE NEW YORK CITY TEACHERS UNION, 1916 - 1964 (New York 1968)

AUTOBIOGRAPHIES, BIOGRAPHIES, MEMOIRS

Antler, Joyce, “Radical Politics and Labor Organizing,” [on Emma Goldman, Rose Pastor Stokes, Rose Pesotta and Rose Schneiderman] in THE JOURNEY HOME: JEWISH WOMEN AND THE AMERICAN CENTURY (NY: Free Press 1997)

Bisno, Abraham, ABRAHAM BISNO, UNION PIONEER; AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ACCOUNT OF BISNO'S EARLY LIFE AND THE BEGINNINGS OF UNIONISM IN THE WOMEN'S GARMENT INDUSTRY [Madison: University of Wisconsin Press 1967]

Cahan, Abraham, PAGES OUT OF MY LIFE (New York: Forward Association 1926/8)

———, THE EDUCATION OF ABRAHAM CAHAN, trans. by Leon Stein (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society 1969)

Chaberg, John, EMMA GOLDMAN: AMERICAN INDIVIDUALIST (New York: HarperCollins 1991)

Chobanian, Peter, “Sidney Hillman: A Bibliography,” in Bulletin of Bibliography, Vol. 51, No. 3 (September 1994), pp. 265-268

Danish, Max D., THE WORLD OF DAVID DUBINSKY, (Cleveland 1957)

Drinan, Richard, REBEL IN PARADISE: A BIOGRAPHY OF EMMA GOLDMAN (Chicago: University of Chicago Press - orig. 1961)

Dubinsky, David and Raskin, A. H., DAVID DUBINSKY: A LIFE WITH LABOR, (New York 1977)

Endelman, Gary, SOLIDARITY FOREVER: ROSE SCHNEIDERMAN AND THE WOMEN’S TRADE UNION LEAGUE (NYC: Arno Books 1982)

Epstein, Melech, PAGES FROM A COLORFUL LIFE (Miami 1970)

——————, PROFILES OF ELEVEN (Detroit: Wayne State University 1965; reprinted Lanham, MD: University Press of America 1987)

Fink, Leon, “A Memoir of Selig Perlman and His Life at the University of Wisconsin,”in Labor History 32 (1991)

Fliegel, Hyman, LIFE AND TIMES OF MAX PINE (New York: Hyman J. Fliegel 1959)

Folsom, Michael Brewster, “The Education of Michael Gold,” in PROLETARIAN WRITERS OF THE THIRTIES, ed. by David Madden (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press 1968)

Fraser, Steven, LABOR WILL RULE: SIDNEY HILLMAN AND THE RISE OF AMERICAN LABOR (New York: The Free Press 1991)

Gold, Ben, MEMOIRS (New York: William Howard Publishers n.d.)

Gompers, Samuel, SEVENTY YEARS OF LIFE AND LABOR: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY (Ithaca: ILR Press 1984 - edited, with intro. and suggested readings, by Nick Salvatore: [original edition, 1925])

Goulden, Joseph C., JERRY WURF: LABOR’S LAST ANGRY MN (New York: Atheneum 1982)

Hardman, J. B. S., “David Dubinsky, Labor Leader and Man,” in Labor History IX, Special Supplement (1968)

———————-, SIDNEY HILLMAN: LABOR STATESMAN, Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America [now ACTWU] (New York 1948)

Haskel, Harry, A LEADER OF THE GARMENT WORKERS: THE BIOGRAPHY OF ISIDORE NAGLER [intro. by David Dubinsky] (New York: Amalgamated Ladies’ Garment Cutters Union, Local 10, ILGWU 1950)

Herling, John, “Baruch Charney Vladeck,” in American Jewish Year Book, vol. 41 (1939)

Hillquit, Morris, LOOSE LEAVES FROM A BUSY LIFE (New York: Macmillan 1934)

Hunting, Harold B., "A Revolutionist Devoid of Hate," in DISTINGUISHED AMERICAN JEWS, ed. by Philip Henry Lotz (New York: Associated Press 1945; reprinted Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press 1970)

Jacobs, Paul, IS CURLY JEWISH? (New York: Vintage 1965)

Jeshurin, Ephraim, B. C. VLADECK: FIFTY YEARS OF LIFE AND LABOR, (New York 1932)

Josephson, Matthew, SIDNEY HILLMAN: STATESMAN OF AMERICAN LABOR (Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1952)

Julianelli, Jane, “Bessie Hillman: Up from the Sweatshop,” Ms. Magazine, (May 1973)

Kann, Kenneth, JOE RAPOPORT, THE LIFE OF A JEWISH RADICAL (Philadelphia: Temple University Press 1981)

Katzman, Jacob, COMMITMENT: THE LABOR ZIONIST LIFE-STYLE IN AMERICA (New York: Labor Zionist Letters 1975)

Kaufman Stuart, Peter Albert, and Grace Palladino, eds., THE SAMUEL GOMPERS PAPERS, vols. 1-10 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986-2006)

Kessler-Harris, Alice, “Organizing the Unorganizable: Three Jewish Women and Their Union,” in Labor History 17, no. 1 (Winter 1976); reprinted in CLASS, SEX AND THE WOMAN WORKER, ed. Milton Cantor and Bruce Laurie, (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1977); in EAST EUROPEAN JEWS IN AMERICA, 1880-1920: IMMIGRATION AND ADAPTATION, ed. Jeffrey S. Gurock, vol. 3 (New York: Routledge, 1998); and in AMERICAN JEWISH WOMEN'S HISTORY: A READER, ed. Pamela S. Nadell (New York: New York University Press, 2003).

——---------———, “Rose Schneiderman and the Limits of Women’s Trade Unionism,” in LABOR LEADERS IN AMERICA, ed. by Melvyn Dubofsky and Warren van Tine (Urbana and Chicago: Univ. of Illinois Press 1987)

Korman, Gerd, “New Jewish Politics for an American Labor Leader: Sidney Hillman, 1942-1946,” in American Jewish History, vol. 82, no. 1-4 (1994)

------------------, "Sidney Hillman," in the Encyclopedia of American Jewish History (ABC-CLIO, 2008)

Leeder, Elaine, THE GENTLE GENERAL: ROSE PESOTTA, ANARCHIST AND LABOR ORGANIZER (Albany: SUNY Press 1993)

Lewis, Marx, MAX ZARITSKY AT FIFTY: THE STORY OF AN AGRESSIVE LABOR LEADER (New York: Max Zaritsky 50th Anniversary Committee [United Hatters, Cap & Millinery Workers 1931)

Madison, Charles A., “Sidney Hillman: Leader of the Amalgamated,” in American Scholar, vol. 18, no. 4, Autumn 1949

Malkiel, Theresa Serber, THE DIARY OF A SHIRTWAIST STRIKER (New York: Cooperative Press 1910 [reprinted - Ithaca: ILR Press/Cornell 1990])

Miller, Sally, “From Sweatshop Worker to Labor Leader; Theresa Malkiel: a case study,” in American Jewish History, vol. 68, n. 2, December 1978.

Mitelman, Bennie, “Rose Schneiderman and the Triangle Fire,” in American History Illustrated, July 1981.

Morton, Marion J., EMMA GOLDMAN AND THE AMERICAN LEFT: NOWHERE AT HOME (New York: Twayne Publishers 1992)

Newman, Pauline, “Pauline Newman,” in AMERICAN MOSAIC: THE IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCE IN THE WORDS OF THOSE WHO LIVED IT, ed. by Joan Morrison and Charlotte Fox Zabusky (New York: E.P. Dutton 1980).

Orleck, Annelise, COMMON SENSE AND ALITTLE FIRE: WOMEN AND WORKING-CLASS POLITICS IN THE UNITED STATES, 1900-1965 [Fannia Cohn, Pauline Newman, Rose Schneiderman and Clara Lemlich Shavelson] (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 1995)

Parmet, Robert D., THE MASTER OF SEVENTH AVENUE: DAVID DUBINSKY AND THE AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENT (New York: New York University Press 2005)

Pesotta, Rose, BREAD UPON THE WATERS (Ithaca: ILR Press/ Cornell 1987)

————, DAYS OF OUR LIVES (Boston: Excelsior Press 1958)

Potofsky, Joseph, “Self-Portrait,” in AMERICAN SPIRITUAL BIOGRAPHIES, ed. by Louis Finkelstein (NYC: Harper 1948)

Pratt, Norma Fain, MORRIS HILLQUIT, A POLITICAL HISTORY OF AN AMERICAN JEWISH SOCIALIST (Westport: Greenwood Press 1979)

Raskin, A. H., “Dubinsky: Herald of Change,” in Labor History IX, Special Supplement (1968)

———, “David Dubinsky: 1892 - 1982, The New Leader (Oct 4, 1982)

———, SIDNEY HILLMAN, 1887-1946 (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society 1948)

———, “From Gompers to Hillman; Labor Goes Middle Class,” in Antioch Review13, 1953

Rich, J. C., “David Dubinsky: The Young Years,” in Labor History IX, Special Supplement (1968)

Rischin, Moses, GRANDMA NEVER LIVED IN AMERICA: THE NEW JOURNALISM OF ABRAHAM CAHAN (Bloomington: Indiana University Press 1985)

Rogoff, Harry, AN EAST SIDE EPIC: THE LIFE AND WORK OF MEYER LONDON (New York: Vanguard Press 1930)

Scheier, Paula, “Clara Lemlich Shavelson,” Jewish Life, vol. 8, no. 95 (November 1954)

—————, “Clara Lemlich Shavelson: 50 Years in Labor’s Front Line,” in THE AMERICAN JEWISH WOMAN: A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY (New York: KTAV 1981)

Schneiderman, Rose, with Lucy Goldthwaite, ALL FOR ONE (New York: Paul S. Ericksson, Inc. 1967)

Schofield, Ann, TO DO AND TO BE: Portraits of Four Women Activists, 1893-1986 [Gertrude Barnum, Mary Dreier, Pauline Newman and Rose Pesotta], (Boston: Northeastern University Press 1998)

Shepherd, Naomi, “ `I Need a Violent Strike’: Rose Pesotta and American Jewish Immigrant Unionists,” in A PRICE BELOW RUBIES: JEWISH WOMEN AS REBELS AND RADICALS (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1993)

Shulman, Alix Kates, RED EMMA SPEAKS: AN EMMA GOLDMAN READER (Atlantic Highlands NJ: Humanities Press 1996)

————————, TO THE BARRICADES: THE ANARCHIST LIFE OF EMMA GOLDMAN (New York: 1971)

Soule, George, SIDNEY HILLMAN, LABOR STATESMAN (New York: Macmillan & Co. 1939)

Stolberg, Benjamin, TAILOR’S PROGRESS (New York 1944)

Suhl, Yuri, ERNESTINE ROSE AND THE BATTLE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS (New York 1959)

Syrkin, Marie, [biographical introduction to] HAYIM GREENBERG ANTHOLOGY (Detroit: Wayne State University Press 1968)

Taft, Philip, “David Dubinsky and the Labor Movement,” in Labor History IX, Special Supplement (1968)

Waldman, Louis, LABOR LAWYER [autobiography] (New York: E.P. Dutton and Company 1944)

Weinstone, William, THE CASE AGAINST DAVID DUBINSKY (New York 1946)

Wexler, Alice, EMMA GOLDMAN: AN INTIMATE LIFE (New York: Pantheon 1984)

—————, EMMA GOLDMAN IN EXILE: FROM THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION TO THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR (Boston: Beacon Press 1989)

Yellowitz, Irwin, “Morris Hillquit: American Socialism and Jewish Concerns,” in American Jewish Historical Quarterly, vol. 68 (December, 1978) pp. 163-188

Zausner, Philip. UNVARNISHED: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A LABOR LEADER (New York: Brotherhood Publishers, 1941)

UNPUBLISHED WORKS

Asher, Nina Lynn, DOROTHY JACOBS BELLANCA: FEMINIST TRADE UNIONIST, 1884-1946, Ph. D. dissertation (Binghamton: SUNY 1982)

Arian, Charles, ZIONISM, SOCIALISM AND THE KINSHIP OF PEOPLES: HASHOMER HATZAIR IN NORTH AMERICA, rabbinic thesis, (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College- Jewish Institute of Religion 1986)

Beck, Burt, A JOINING OF HANDS: THE STORY OF THE ACTWU (unpublished manuscript)

Berlin, George, THE ANTI-NAZI ACTIVITIES OF THE JEWISH LABOR COMMITTEE IN THE 1930’S, M.A. thesis (New York: Columbia Univ. 1966)

Berman, Hyman, ERA OF THE PROTOCOL: A CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF THE INTERNATIONAL LADIES GARMENT WORKERS UNION, 1910 - 1916, Ph. D. dissertation (NYC: Columbia University 1956)

Brogna, John J., MICHAEL GOLD: CRITIC AND PLAYWRIGHT, Ph.D. dissertation (Univ. of Georgia 1982)

Brown, Howard M., THE COMMUNISTS AND THE NEEDLE TRADES, 1920-1928, M.A. thesis (New York: Columbia University 1973)

————————, POLITICAL FACTIONS AND THE CLOAKMAKERS STRIKE OF 1926, M.A. thesis (New York: Columbia University 1977)

Cohen, Martin A., JEWISH IMMIGRANTS AND AMERICAN TRADE UNIONS, M.A. thesis (Chicago: University of Chicago 1941)

Cohen, Ricki Carole Myers, FANNIA COHN AND THE INTERNATIONAL LADIES’ GARMENT WORKERS UNION, Ph.D. thesis (University of Southern Caifornia 1976)

Gurowsky, David, FACTIONAL DISPUTES WITHIN THE ILGWU, 1919-1928, Ph. D. dissertation (Binghamton: SUNY 1978)

Jonas, Franklin L, THE EARLY LIFE AND CAREER OF B. CHARNEY VLADECK, 1882-1921: THE EMERGENCE OF AN IMMIGRANT SPOKESMAN, Ph. D. dissertation (New York: New York University, 1972)

Katz, Daniel Lawrence, A UNION OF MANY CULTURES: YIDDISH SOCIALISM AND INTERRACIAL ORGANIZING IN THE INTERNATIONAL LADIES’ GARMENT WORKERS’ UNION, 1913-1941 Ph. D. dissertation (New Brunswick: Rutgers University, 2003)

Kram, Harriet Davis, NO MORE A STRANGER AND ALONE: TRADE UNION, SOCIALIST AND FEMINIST ACTIVISM — A ROUTE TO BECOMING AMERICAN [on Pauline Newman and Rose Schneiderman] Ph. D. dissertation (New York: City University of New York Graduate Center, 1997)

Leiserson, William, THE JEWISH LABOR MOVEMENT IN NEW YORK, B. A. thesis (Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin 1908)

Massing, Dana Christine, "SHOULDER TO SHOULDER FOR A COMMON CAUSE?" : JEWISH, ITALIAN, AND BLACK WOMEN GARMENT WORKERS IN NEW YORK CITY, 1900-1930 M.A. dissertation (University of Alberta, 1995)

Orenstein, Eugene, THE JEWISH SOCIALIST FEDERATION OF THE U.S. (1912- 1921), Ph. D. dissertation (New York: Columbia University 1978.)

Pastorello, Karen, A POWER AMONG THEM: BESSIE ABRAMOWITZ HILLMAN AND THE AMALGAMATED CLOTHING WORKERS OF AMERICA, Ph. D. dissertation (SUNY Binghamton 2001)

Prickett, James Robert, COMMUNISTS AND THE COMMUNIST ISSUE IN THE AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENT, 1920 - 1950, Ph. D. dissertation (Los Angeles: UCLA 1975)

Prudson, David, COMMUNISM AN THE JEWISH LABOR MOVEMENT IN THE USA, 1919 - 1929, Ph. D. dissertation (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University 1982)

Shuldiner, David Philip, OF MOSES AND MARX: FOLK IDEOLOGY WITHIN THE JEWISH LABOR MOVEMENT OF THE UNITED STATES, Ph. D. dissertation, (Los Angeles: University of California at Los Angeles 1984)

Spingarn, Sandra Dawn, TRADE UNIONISM AMONG JEWISH WORKERS IN THE FUR MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY IN NEW YORK CITY, 1912-1929, Ph.D. dissertation (Binghamton: SUNY 1994)

Vural, Leyla F., UNIONISM AS A WAY OF LIFE: THE COMMUNITY ORIENTATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL LADIES’ GARMENT WORKERS’ UNION AND THE AMALGAMATED CLOTHING WORKERS OF AMERICA, Ph.D. dissertation (New Brunswick: Rutgers: State University of New Jersey, 1994)

Waltzer, Kenneth, “AMERICAN JEWISH LABOR AND AID TO POLISH JEWS DURING THE HOLOCAUST,” paper delivered to conference of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council (Washington, DC March 1987).

This listing is a `work-in-progress' - additional suggested entries welcome.

Jewish Labor Committee
25 East 21st Street
New York, NY 10010

Readings on Traditional Jewish texts on Labor and Worker Rights

Bakers-banner_large.jpg

Banner of London Jewish Bakers Union, c.1926, from "Treasures of the Jewish Museum, London"

anon., "Labor," ENCYCLOPEDIA JUDAICA Vol. 10, Keter Publishing House (Jerusalem, Israel 1972)

Ayali, Meir, "Labor and Work in the Talmud and Midrash," [Hebrew] Yad La-Talmud (Ramat Gan, 1984)

Baron, Salo, "Economics and Social Justice," in "THE ECONOMIC VIEWS OF MAIMONIDES" in ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL JEWISH HISTORY, ed. Arthur Hertzberg & Leon A. Feldman, Rutgers University Press (New Brunswick, 1972)

------- "Free Labor," op. cit. , pp. 248-260.

Bazak, J., comp. JEWISH LAW AND JEWISH LIFE: SELECTED RABBINICAL RESPONSA (pp. 75, 80), Union of American Hebrew Congregations (New York, NY 1979)

Bleich, J. David, "Organized Labor;" "Tenure," in CONTEMPORARY HALAKHIC PROBLEMS (Vol. 1), KTAV Publishing House, Inc. / Yeshiva University Press (New York, NY 1977)

----"Severance Pay;" "Teachers' Unions," in CONTEMPORARY HALAKHIC PROBLEMS (Vol. 2), KTAV Publishing House, Inc. / Yeshiva University Press (New York, NY 1983)

----"Organized Labor - Survey of Recent Halakhic Periodical Literature," in Tradition 13, no. 1 (New York, NY 1972)

---- "Physicians' Fees - Survey of Recent Halakhic Periodical Literature," in Tradition 19, no. 4 (New York, NY 1981)

---- "Physicians' Strikes - Survey of Recent Halakhic Periodical Literature," in Tradition 21, no. 3 (New York, NY 1984)

---- "Rabbinic Contracts - Survey of Recent Halakhic Periodical Literature," in Tradition 11, no. 3 (New York, NY 1970)

---- "Severance Pay: Hired Servant or Independent Contractor - Survey of Recent Halakhic Periodical Literature," in Tradition 17, no. 3 (New York, NY 1978)

---- "Severance Pay," in Jewish Law Annual 3 (1980)

---- "Survey of Recent Halakhic Periodical Literature [particularly p. 126, Tenure on p. 129, and Employment During the Post-Nuptual Week on p. 136]," in Tradition 14, no. 4 (New York, NY 1974)

---- "Teachers' Unions - Survey of Recent Halakhic Periodical Literature," in Tradition 19, no. 3 (New York, NY 1984)

---- "Teachers' Unions," in Jewish Law Annual (1987)

---- "Tenure: A Review of a Rabbinical Court Judgment," in Jewish Law Annual 1 (1978)

Blumenfield, Samuel M., LABOR IN THE BIBLE, Dissertation Hebrew Union College (Cincinnati 1930)

Cronbach, Abraham, "Labor," UNIVERSAL JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA (New York, NY 1939-1943)

-----------------------, "Social Thinking in the Sefer Hasidim," in Hebrew Union College Annual 22 (1949)

Elon, Menachem, "Ha'anakah (Severance Pay)," in ENCYCLOPEDIA JUDAICA Vol. 7, Keter Publishing (Jerusalem, Israel 1972)

Fasman, Oscar Z., "The Attitude of the Hafetz Hayyim toward Labor," in ISRAEL OF TOMORROW, ed. by Leo Jung, Herald Square Press, Inc. (New York, NY 1946), pp. 117-184

Federbush, Simon, THE JEWISH CONCEPT OF LABOR, Torah Culture Department, Jewish Agency and HaPoel haMizrachi of America (New York, NY 1956)

Fendel, Zechariah, "Employer-Employee Relations," and "The Abusive Employer," in THE HALACHA AND BEYOND: PROVIDING AN INSIGHT INTO THE FISCAL ETHICAL RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE TORAH JEW, AS WELL AS AN IN-DEPTH STUDY OF THE BITACHON CONCEPT, Hashkafah Publications (New York, NY 1983)

Heinemann, Joseph H., "The Status of the Laborer in Jewish Law and Society in the Tannaitic Period," in Hebrew Union College Annual 25 (1954)

Hirsch, Richard G., "Labor - Rights and Responsibilities," in THE WAY OF THE UPRIGHT: A JEWISH VIEW OF ECONOMIC JUSTICE, Union of American Hebrew Congregations (New York, NY 1973)

Horowitz, George, "Hired Workers/Further Rules Favorable to the Worker," in THE SPIRIT OF JEWISH LAW, Central Book Company (New York, NY 1963)

Jacobs, Louis, "Strikes," in WHAT DOES JUDAISM SAY ABOUT ...? [pp. 309 - 310], Keter Publishing (Jerusalem 1973)

Jakobovits, I., "The Right to Strike," in STUDIES IN TORAH JUDAISM: JEWISH LAW FACES MODERN PROBLEMS, Yeshiva University Dept. of Special Publications (New York, NY 1965)

---- "The Right to Strike - Review of Recent Halakhic Periodical Literature," in Tradition 5, no. 2 (New York, NY 1963)

---- "Strikes - Survey of Recent Halakhic Periodical Literature," in Tradition 7, no. 1, 4/8 (New York, NY 1965/1966)

---- "Workmen's Compensation and Severance Pay - Review of Recent Halakhic Periodical Literature," in Tradition 4, no. 2 (New York, NY 1962)

Jung, Leo, "The Workingman," in HUMAN RELATIONS IN JEWISH LAW, Jewish Education Press / Board of Jewish Education, Inc. (New York, NY 1967/1970) [Reprinted in BETWEEN MAN AND MAN, Jewish Education Press / Board of Jewish Education, Inc. (New York, NY 1976)]

-----. "Labor in Jewish Law," in BUSINESS ETHICS AND JEWISH LAW, Hebrew Publishing Company in conjunction with the Board of Jewish Education of Greater New York (New York, NY 1987)

Katz, Mordechai, PROTECTION OF THE WEAK IN THE TALMUD, Columbia University Press (New York, NY 1925)

Klagsbrun, Francine, "Work, Wealth and Philanthropy," in VOICES OF WISDOM: JEWISH IDEAS AND ETHICS FOR EVERYDAY LIVING, Pantheon Books (New York, NY 1980)

Kogan, Michael S., "Liberty and Labor in the Jewish Tradition," in Ideas, A Journal of Contemporary Jewish Thought (Spring 1975)

Kohler, Kaufmann, "Labor," in Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 7, p. 590 (New York, NY 1901-1906)

Levine, Aaron, FREE ENTERPRISE AND JEWISH LAW: ASPECTS OF JEWISH BUSINESS ETHICS, KTAV (New York, NY 1980)

----, "Jewish Business Ethics in Contemporary Society," in BUSINESS ETHICS AND JEWISH LAW, by Leo Jung, Hebrew Publishing Company in conjunction with the Board of Jewish Education of Greater New York (New York, NY 1987)

----, "Labor Mobility: A Halakhic View, in Gesher 5, no. 1 (1976)

----, "Minimum Wage Legislation - A Halakhic Perspective", in Tradition 24, no. 1 (New York, NY 1988)

Levinthal, Israel H., "The Attitude of Judaism Toward Labor," in JUDAISM: AN ANALYSIS AND AN INTERPRETATION, Funk and Wagnalls (New York & London, 1935)

----, "The Attitude of Judaism Toward the Laborer," in JUDAISM: AN ANALYSIS AND AN INTERPRETATION, Funk and Wagnalls (New York & London, 1935)

Neusner, Jacob, THE ECONOMICS OF THE MISHNAH, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL 1990)

Perry, Michael S., LABOR RIGHTS IN THE JEWISH TRADITION, Jewish Labor Committee (New York, NY, 1993)

Reines, Chaim W., "Labor in Rabbinical Responsa," in ISRAEL OF TOMORROW, ed. by Leo Jung, Herald Square Press, Inc. (New York, NY 1946)

----, "The Jewish Conception of Work," in Judaism, 8 (New York, NY 1959)

Riemer, Jack, "The Jewish view of work (Avodah), in Jewish Heritage (Summer 1962), p. 21-23

Sacks, Eliot, "Teachers and the right to strike," L'eylah (London: New Year 5746)

Sacks, J[onathan?], "Halacha: Industrial Relations in Jewish Law," in Ha-Zvi 13 (Mizrahi Journal) (London: Purim 5739)

Schnall, David J., BY THE SWEAT OF YOUR BROW: REFLECTIONS ON WORK AND THE WORKPLACE IN CLASSICAL JEWISH THOUGHT, KTAV (New York, NY 2001)

Shapira, Abraham, "Work," in CONTEMPORARY JEWISH RELIGIOUS THOUGHT, by Cohen, Arthur A. and Mendes-Flohr, Paul, The Free Press (New York, 1987)

Sicher, Gustav, "Concept of Work in the Jewish Faith," in JEWISH STUDIES: ESSAYS IN HONOR OF G. SICHER, ed. by R. Iltis, Council of Jewish Religious Communities (Prague 1955)

Silverman, William B., "The Dignity of Labor," in THE SAGES SPEAK, Jason Aronson, Inc. (Northvale, NJ and London, England 1989)

Sulzberger, Mayer, "The Status of Labor in Ancient Israel," in Jewish Quarterly Review 13 (1922-23); reprinted separately (Philadelphia PA 1923)

Tamari, Meir, IN THE MARKETPLACE: JEWISH BUSINESS ETHICS, Targum Press (Southfield, MI 1991)

-------, WITH ALL YOUR POSSESSIONS: JEWISH ETHICS AND ECONOMIC LIFE, The Free Press (New York, NY 1987)

Vorspan, ALbert, and Eugene J. Lipman, "Labor," in JUSTICE AND JUDAISM, Union of American Hebrew Congregations (New York, NY: 1956)

Warhaftig, Shillem, "Labor Law," in ENCYCLOPEDIA JUDAICA Vol. 10, Keter Publishing House (Jerusalem 1972)

Weisfeld, Israel H., "LABOR LEGISLATION IN THE BIBLE AND TALMUD, Yeshiva University (New York, NY 1974)

Wigoder, Geoffrey, "Labor and Labor Laws," in ENCYCLOPEDIA OF JUDAISM [2002]

Wolkinson, Benjamin W., "Labor and the Jewish Tradition - A Reappraisal," in Jewish Social Studies Vol. 40 no. 3/4 (S/F 1978)

Woll, Jonathan S., THE EMPLOYER-EMPLOYEE RELATIONSHIP IN SHULCHAN-ARUCH Dissertation Hebrew Union College (Cincinnatin, OH 1976)

Wolsey, Louis, "The Historic Attitude of Judaism to Labor," in CCAR Yearbook Vol. 38 (1928) [pp. 311-343]

Zipperstein, Edward, BUSINESS ETHICS AND JEWISH LAW, KTAV (New York, NY 1987)

This listing is a `work-in-progress' - additional suggested entries welcome.

Jewish Labor Committee
25 East 21st Street
New York, NY 10010

Links: Unions. Labor-related Organizations and News Sources

AFL-CIO
Individual Trade Unions
State Labor Federations
City/Community Central Labor Councils

Alliance for Retired Americans
A. Philip Randolph Institute
Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance
Coalition of Black Trade Unionists
Coalition of Labor Union Women
Labor Council for Latin American Advancement
Pride At Work


American Labor Studies Center
Interfaith Worker Justice [formerly the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice]
Labor and Working Class History Association
Labor Heritage Foundation
National Committee for Labor Israel
United Association for Labor Education

Basic News Sources:

LabourStart - "Where Trade Unionists Start Their Day"

Reciprocal Links:

Actor's Equity Association
Connecticut AFL-CIO
Florida AFL-CIO
Iron Workers International Union
Kansas Workbeat (Wichita-Hutchinson Labor Federation of Central Kansas, AFL-CIO)
Masters, Mates and Pilots
Minnesota AFL-CIO
Montana AFL-CIO
New York City Central Labor Council
New York State AFL-CIO
North Dakota AFL-CIO
Rhode Island AFL-CIO
United Food and Commercial Workers
Virginia AFL-CIO

Links: Jewish communal agencies and News Sources

National Jewish Organizations:

Jewish Council for Public Affairs
>> member organizations of the JCPA:
>>>> CRCs around the U.S.
>>>> national member agencies
United Jewish Communities
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture
Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany
NCSJ [formerly National Conference on Soviet Jewry]

National Organizations Affiliated with the JLC:

Labor Zionist Alliance
Meretz USA
Workmen's Circle - Arbeter Ring

Basic News Sources:

Jewish Telegraphic Agency
English-language FORWARD

Reciprocal Links:
Jewish Currents

Local contacts

Contact details of local JLC offices and lay-led chapters

JLC New England
Marya Axner
Regional Director
33 Harrison Avenue
Boston, MA 02111
Tel 617-482-9604
Fax 617-482-7300
email BostonJLC@aol.com

New York JLC / United Hebrew Trades
Carolyn De Paolo
Coordinator
25 East 21st Street
New York, NY 10010
Tel 212-477-0767
Fax 212-477-1918
email NewYorkJLC@aol.com

Philadelphia JLC
Rosalind Spigel
Regional Director
1816 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Tel 215-587-6822
Fax 215-587-6823
Email JLCRAS@aol.com

Washington DC JLC
tba - until further notice,
contact National Office

Chicago JLC
Eli Fishman
Regional Director
P. O. Box 4720
Chicago, IL 60680
Tel 312-607-0260
Fax 312- 346-4537
Email ChicagoJLC@yahoo.com

Cleveland JLC
tba - until further notice,
contact National Office


Detroit JLC
Selma Goode
8846 Robindale
Detroit, MI 48239
Tel 313-534-0553
Email DetroitJLC@aol.com

Arizona JLC
Herman Brown
10044 East Champagne Drive
Sun Lakes, AZ 85248
Tel 480-883-9291
Email Arizona JLC

California - Western Region JLC
Paul Koretz
8339 West Third Street – Suite 2
Los Angeles, CA 90048
Tel 323-658-5500
Fax 323-658-5079
website: http://www.jlcwr.org
Email JLCLA2@aol.com

San Francisco JLC
[UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE]
c/o California - Western Region JLC
8339 West Third Street – Suite 2
Los Angeles, CA 90048
Tel 323-658-5500
Fax 323-658-5079
Email JLCLA2@aol.com

Seattle JLC
tba - until further notice,
contact National Office