Jews & Labor: New Labor Leaders Take a Page From History & 3 other Jewish articles

[Omaha Steve]

http://forward.com/articles/105047/



By Nathaniel Popper
Published April 23, 2009, issue of May 01, 2009.

Washington — If you want to see the movers and shakers behind the tumult in today’s labor movement, the place to be is Stephen Lerner and Marilyn Sneiderman’s modest home in Washington after sunset concludes Judaism’s holiest day of the year.

For nearly 20 years now, the two longtime union officials have been holding an annual Yom Kippur Break Fast that has drawn a growing crowd from both their neighborhood and the top ranks of many of the most powerful unions in the United States.

Last October, those partaking in the potluck collection of bagels, blintzes and a giant challah included Andy Stern, president of one of the nation’s largest union, the Service Employees International Union; Paul Booth, a top official at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and, of course, Lerner himself, the architect of the innovative Justice for Janitors labor campaign that has organized hundreds of thousands of janitors nationwide.


Remembering the Fire: Attendees clutch white flowers at the March 27 commemoration of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. The annual ceremony is sponsored by Unite Here, a descendant of the large, predominately Jewish unions representing garment workers.

Some of the guests are not Jewish, of course. Anna Burger, chair of the Change To Win coalition of unions, is a regular, and John Sweeney, president of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations, used to be one.

“It seemed like every other person there was a senior leader in the labor movement,” said a somewhat awed Jacob Feinspan, the young Jews United for Justice leader, who attended the 2008 event.

Last year’s dinner had an air of momentous imminence, coming, as it did, on the eve of Barack Obama’s election as president, amid a world economic crisis that recalled the collapse of laissez-faire capitalism in the 1930s. The labor movement itself was approaching the end of a year in which it would record an uptick in union membership for the second time in a row after decades of decline. Lerner began the evening by telling his guests, “The months and years ahead are our chance, our moment to be part of making history.”

FULL story and Related Articles at link.

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[dcsmart]

1. Very Nice...K & R