Jewish Labor Committee

Photo by Ashlee Rezin courtesy Progress Illinois

April 24, 2014: Chicago, IL -- Eli Fishman (holding sign, left), Chicago Jewish Labor Committee Director, represented the JLC at an Our Walmart demonstration in front of the Walmart Lakeview store on the north side of the "Windy City." The rally was called to commemorate the one year anniversary of the collapse of the Rana Plaza sewing factory in Bangladesh that resulted in the death of more than 1,100 workers. Also recognized were workers from a Walmart warehouse who were recently fired for speaking out on safety issues.

For more details, read this item in "Progress Illinois"

Posted by Arieh Lebowitz at 04:45 PM | Permalink

April 18, 2014: New York, NY -- The Jewish Labor Committee today condemned the attempt to use the Ukrainian Jews as an excuse for Russia to destabilize and take over portions of Ukraine, stated JLC President Stuart Appelbaum.

On March 27, 2014, a group of prominent Ukrainian Jews -- businessmen, scientists, scholars, political figures, rabbis, artists and others -- issued an open letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, refuting his statements that they were being humiliated, discriminated against and in danger of a pogrom being launched against them by fascists attempting to dominate the government in Kiev. The group pointed out that while they are well aware that those who helped overthrow former Ukrainian president Viktor Yankovych included some ultra-nationalist groups who are indeed anti-Semitic, they "are well controlled by civil society and the new Ukrainian government - which is more than can be said for the Russian neo-Nazis, who are encouraged by your security services." The open letter went on to state: "Your certainty of the growth of anti-Semitism in Ukraine does not correspond to the actual facts. It seems you have confused Ukraine with Russia, where Jewish organizations have noticed growth in anti-Semitic tendencies last year."

"Now we see an even more alarming development," says Jewish Labor Committee President Appelbaum, "and if this is true, it highlights the anti-Semitism not of the new Kiev Government but of the pro-Russian forces in Ukraine."

The Novosti Donbassa news agency reported that a notice ordering all Jews over the age of 16 to register at the government building occupied by the pro-Russian insurgents or face deportation was posted near the local synagogue in the city of Donetsk. Jews are also to pay a registration fee of $50 and list all real estate and vehicles owned. The notice apparently bore the stamps of the self-proclaimed People's Republic of Donetsk and was signed by its pro-Russian, self-styled people's governor Denis Pushilin.

If this report is accurate, people who do not register will be stripped of their citizenship and deported and their property will be confiscated.

The Jewish Labor Committee was founded 80 years ago in response to the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe. Today, the JLC condemns the attempt to use the Ukrainian Jews as an excuse for Russia to destabilize and take over portions of Ukraine.

Posted by Arieh Lebowitz at 11:00 AM | Permalink

Dear friends:

We are reaching out to you now to make your voices heard, as we have done.

Teachers at the Perelman Jewish Day School have been members of a union local and represented by their union since 1976. Their contract ends on August 31. On March 24, following a closed door meeting, the school's board of directors informed the school's faculty that the school would no longer recognize the union as of the end of the contract. The teachers work at campuses in Wynnewood and Elkins Park, PA.

The 59 union members were told to attend a night meeting with the board with less than 24-hours' notice to learn the details of a plan that took 10 months to develop and to pick up individual job offers and a new "Faculty Handbook." They had to sign the individual contracts within two weeks or risk losing their job. At a meeting on Wednesday morning, union members were denied union representation, despite the board saying that the union contract was still in effect until the end of August. Under the new terms that would take effect in the fall, faculty members could be fired at any time without cause, a hearing or any recourse. Teachers would also give up seniority, tenure and other rights that are guaranteed under their current collective bargaining agreement.

The Perelman Jewish Day School, which is associated with the Conservative Movement's Solomon Schechter school network, has three key words on its website: academics, ethics, and community. Yet, as the Philadelphia Jewish Labor Committee (PJLC) pointed out in its public statement, "by dismantling the union and denying employees the power of collective bargaining, the Perelman Jewish Day School is acting in opposition both to major halakhic authorities and to the official position of the Conservative Movement." {Please see the PJLC's statement, below and in its entirety online here }

The Perelman Jewish Day School has based its identity on a fidelity to halakhah and derekh eretz. We call upon the school's administration to bring this same dedication to its obligations as an employer of teachers who work hard every day to make the institution a center of Torah.

The treatment of workers and their right to organize are among the basic underpinnings of a just society. We therefore call upon you to contact the Perelman Jewish Day School, asking the board to reverse its decision and to bargain with their faculty's union over in order to reach a new collective bargaining agreement. They can be reached as follows:

Ms. Tracey Specter, President, Perelman Jewish Day School, 7601 Old York Road, Melrose Park, PA 19027

Mr. Jeffrey T. Sultanic, Fox Rothschild, 10 Sentry Parkway, Suite 200, Blue Bell, PA 19422-3001

Please forward us any communication you send so that we can let the teachers know they are supported.

Sincerely,

Stuart Appelbaum
President, JLC

Lynne Fox
Chair, Philadelphia JLC

communications@jewishlabor.org

Posted by Arieh Lebowitz at 04:50 PM | Permalink

(April 3, 2014) Philadelphia -- Parents and community leaders have reached out to the Philadelphia Jewish Labor Committee regarding the Perelman Jewish Day School board's unilateral withdrawal of union recognition and refusal to bargain with the teacher over the terms of a new collective bargaining agreement.

The Philadelphia JLC stands firmly with the teachers and their union as they fight for their collective bargaining rights, and also in alignment with tenets of Conservative Judaism.

By dismantling the union and denying employees the power of collective bargaining, the Perelman Jewish Day School is acting in opposition both to major halakhic authorities and to the official position of the Conservative Movement.

In 2008, the Conservative Movement's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards passed a teshuvah (legal position) which obliges institutions affiliated with the movement to comply with a series of Jewish labor laws. Among these, employers must pay a living wage and "may not interfere in any way with organizing drives."

This teshuvah draws upon a consistent line of rabbinic authority dating back to the Talmud. The third century Mishnah and Tosefta instructs employers to meet or exceed local custom in terms of wages and benefits, and the Babylonian Talmud gives town residents the right to intervene between a local employer and a worker to insure that wages are fair.

In 1945, Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg, a leading Israeli Ashkanzi scholar and posek (authoritative adjudicator of questions related to Jewish law), recognized the right of workers to organize and to have their regulations and rules seen as binding. He also recognized, in certain conditions, their right to strike.

Rabbi Moshe Feinstein (1895"“1986), a Lithuanian Orthodox rabbi, scholar and posek, concurred in a series of Responsa that extended Rabbi Waldenberg's holding to include the right of workers to prevent scabs from doing their jobs and to include the rights of religious school teachers to bargain collectively, even though community funds and the religious obligation to teach Torah were at stake.

The Perelman Jewish Day School has based its identity on a fidelity to halakhah and derekh eretz. We call upon the school's administration to bring this same dedication to its obligations as an employer of teachers who work hard every day to make the institution a center of Torah.

Jewish tradition has been clear and consistent--the treatment of workers and their right to organize are among the basic underpinnings of a just society. We therefore call upon the Perelman Jewish Day School to reverse their decision and begin to bargain with the teachers union over the terms of the next collective bargaining agreement.

Posted by Arieh Lebowitz at 01:13 PM | Permalink