Jewish Labor Committee

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The Jewish Labor Committee wishes everyone a happy Labor Day Weekend. This holiday has many meanings in the United States - a long weekend, a barbeque with friends and family, or the last day to wear those white pants you got on sale.

For us, and many others across the country, Labor Day means so much more - not only a day off for workers, but a day to celebrate the accomplishments of the labor movement, to remember those who fought and sacrificed to secure many of the things that we take for granted, including an eight-hour workday, the right to unionize, even the two-day weekend - and also a day off to go catch that Labor Day Weekend sale.

This Labor Day, take some time to appreciate the achievements of working men and women in the United States. Here's a link to an article about Labor Day, and how to teach kids about it; also check out our reading list on Jews in the American labor movement.

And if you'll be in the NYC area on Sept. 10th, come help continue the Jewish presence in the labor movement by marching with the JLC at the NYC Labor Day Parade -- see here.

Posted by Arieh Lebowitz at 01:30 PM | Permalink

Palestinians working at a grove of date palms in the Jordan Valley. Photo Credit: Michal Fattal

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Aug. 23, 2016 - Haaretz: Israel's justice minister has recently instituted a new regulation that will undermine the right of Palestinians living in the West Bank who are employed by Israelis -- in Israel or the West Bank -- to seek legal redress for abusive and unlawful labor practices.

The Jewish Labor Committee opposes this new regulation, explicitly designed by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked and MK Shuli Moalem-Refaeli, both of the right-wing, pro-settler Habayit Hayehudi party, to prevent Palestinian employees of Israeli businesses from benefiting from Israel's progressive labor laws. We call on the Knesset and Israel's Supreme Court to act forthrightly to defend these workers' just rights to fair labor practices, and nullify the new regulation.

Under the new requirement, non-citizens will be obligated to make a monetary deposit before submitting a lawsuit against an employer in Israeli labor court, unless they can immediately present evidence proving their claim. If they cannot do so, the deposit will be forfeited. Such a measure would primarily affect Palestinians living in the West Bank -- most notably those who work on Israeli-owned farms in the Jordan Valley, who will greatly suffer the consequences -- by placing a heavy financial burden on those who seek to sue their Israeli employers for labor-law violations. Israeli farmers in the valley, who in the past have been sued for labor law violations, have applauded this new measure.

As an organization that cares about Israel's future as a democratic and progressive society, this matters to us, and should matter to others as well.

In 2007, Israel's Supreme Court ruled in the interest of 30,000 West Bank Palestinians who work for Israeli businesses in the West Bank. Most Palestinians employed by Israelis in settlements became entitled to the protection of Israeli labor law. But this protection is threatened by the new regulation being promulgated by Minister Shaked. Israel's Knesset and/or Supreme Court must act immediately to overturn this regulation, and allow these workers continued access to the same legal protections as their Israeli counterparts.

Two years ago, an investigative report in TheMarker on Palestinian workers in the Jordan Valley revealed that they are denied such basic rights as a pay slip, minimum wage, vacation time and sick days. Also, since there are no written labor contracts, farmers can fire employees at will. Workers who realized that these conditions violate Israeli labor laws have hired lawyers and sued for their rights in Israeli labor courts.

According to MK Moalem-Refaeli, the new regulation will help Jordan Valley farmers combat this "unjust" development.

Justice Minister Shaked, meanwhile, claims that this measure does not require a Knesset review, but it is possible that the Supreme Court will subject this matter to further legal scrutiny.

We strongly oppose this special new regulation. Forcing Palestinian employees of Israeli businesses to jump through hoops to benefit from Israel's generally progressive labor laws is contrary to these workers' basic rights. It will only embitter their lives, providing yet another obstacle to rapprochement between Palestinians and Israelis, and the possibility of serious negotiations toward a viable two-state solution to the conflict.

To do otherwise would be contrary to the fundamental humanitarian needs of these Palestinian workers, and contrary as well to the best traditions of Israel's proud history of advancing the rights of working people -- both Jewish and Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel -- through its legacy of trade unionism and labor-oriented political parties.

To do otherwise would reinforce a social and political regime in the West Bank that enforces one set of laws for Israelis and another, inferior, set of regulations for Palestinians living in the West Bank.

To do otherwise would further undermine Israel's standing as a democracy and a progressive society, and erode support for Israel in general in the international court of public opinion.

Posted by Arieh Lebowitz at 12:23 PM | Permalink

(Jewish Labor Committee collection, Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives / Tamiment Library, New York University)

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August 16, 2016 - New York, NY: We mark the anniversary of the World Labor Athletic Carnival, held on August 15th and 16th at New York's Randall's Island, to protest the holding of the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany. The two day event, organized by the Jewish Labor Committee with the active support and cooperation of a number of unions and labor bodies, brought over 400 athletes from across the country to compete in what became known as the "Counter-Olympics." Honorary co-chairs of the event included New York Governor Herbert Lehman, NYC Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, American Federation of Labor President William Green and Judge Jeremiah Mahoney, former President of the Amateur Athletics Union of the United States and a leader of the "Move the Olympics" movement, who resigned from the American Olympic Committee to protest holding of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Chairing the Labor Committee of the Carnival was Isidore Nagler, Vice President of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union.

The story of this episode in labor history begins in late 1934, when the newly-formed Jewish Labor Committee (JLC) learned about plans to hold the 1936 in Berlin. Early in 1935, JLC Chairman Baruch Charney (B.C.) Vladeck was invited to join the "Move the Olympics Committee" headed by Samuel K. Maccabee. Soon thereafter, JLC Executive Secretary Isaiah Minkoff and Vladeck began work on organizing a massive anti-Nazi demonstration to take place while the Olympics were taking place in Berlin. The JLC decided to organize a"counter Olympics" in New York City. The public event, held over the August 15th -- 16th weekend at the newly-opened Municipal Stadium on Randall's Island, brought together hundreds of athletes from various sectors in the United States and abroad, and gained the imprimatur of the Amateur Athletic Union, the highest body for such games.

This anti-Nazi protest was widely covered in the general, labor and Jewish press of the time. The event was so successful that another one was held the following year. Although the latter of course had less direct connection with the anti-Berlin Olympics protests of 1936, it nevertheless gave an opportunity during the summer of 1937 to publicly protest the Nazis and their activities.

The World Labor Athletic Carnival was a unique publicity vehicle to support those in New York and around the world who actively opposed holding the Olympics in Berlin and thereby giving prestige and legitimacy to Hitler and his regime. At the same time, it gave visibility to the Jewish Labor Committee and other groups and individuals active in the anti-Nazi struggle.

#Olympics

You can read more about it in this news article.

Posted by Arieh Lebowitz at 01:22 PM | Permalink

At a New England JLC Labor Seder Photo from the New England Jewish Labor Committee

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August 4, 2016: Boston, MA (via Press Associates Union News Service) - With bipartisan support, the Massachusetts legislature passed and GOP Gov. Charlie Baker signed the most-comprehensive state equal pay for equal work law in the U.S., on August 1.

The state AFL-CIO, the New England Jewish Labor Committee, 9to5 and Jobs with Justice were among the large coalition that pushed the law. It would, for the first time, bar employers from demanding past salary figures from job applicants and screening applicants based on past pay. Both demands and screening hurt female job applicants.

Instead, the employer must present salary figures, which the job-seeker could accept or reject. The new law takes effect at the start of 2018.

That's not all. The new law also "seeks to help eliminate the gender wage gap in Massachusetts by providing a more comprehensive definition of comparable work" than just exactly equal jobs, its sponsoring coalition says.

And it orders firms to let workers "discuss salaries without the threat of retaliation and eliminates the practice of requiring salary history on job applications," said its leading backers, the Equal Pay Coalition and the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women.

Massachusetts becomes the latest state to enact a pay equity law, while the GOP-run U.S. Congress has pigeonholed similar equal pay legislation for at least a decade. Court restrictions over the last 54 years have weakened a 1962 federal pay equity law.

The new Massachusetts law defines "comparable work" -- the standard for equal pay -- "as solely meaning work that is substantially similar in content and requiring substantially similar skill, effort and responsibility and performed under similar working conditions."

It also bans "discrimination on the basis of gender in the payment of wages for comparable work unless the variation is based upon seniority, a bona fide merit system, a bona fide system which measures earnings by quantity or quality of production or sales, geographic location, or education, training, or experience to the extent such factors are reasonably related to the particular job in question and consistent with business necessity."

Employers guilty of breaking the new law will have to fork over unpaid wages, an equal amount in damages and pay the harmed worker's attorney's fees. And "each discriminatory paycheck shall be deemed a violation of the law."

The median pay for a working woman in Massachusetts is 81 cents for every dollar in median pay for a working man, slightly above the national ratio of 79 cents per dollar. The median is the point where half the workforce is above and half below.

The national ratios for union workers are 92 cents in median pay for every unionized working woman for every dollar for an unionized working man -- and each of them earn more than $200 a week more than their non-union colleagues.

Photo from the New England Jewish Labor Committee

Posted by Arieh Lebowitz at 04:41 PM | Permalink