Jerome Wurf was a U.S. labor leader and president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) from 1964 to 1981. Wurf was a friend of Martin Luther King Jr., and was arrested multiple times for his activism, notably during the Memphis sanitation strike. He was present for King's "I've Been to the Mountaintop" oratory at the strike, the day before King was assassinated, and attended King's funeral.
Elisabeth A. Gotbaum is an American civil servant, politician and a former New York City public advocate. She was elected Public Advocate for New York City in 2001 and reelected in 2005. She was the third woman elected to a citywide post in NYC history. The other two were Carol Bellamy, who served as city council president from 1978 to 1985, and Elizabeth Holtzman, who served as comptroller from 1990 to 1993. Gotbaum is a Democrat and currently serves as Executive Director of Citizens Union.
Victor H. Gotbaum was an American labor leader. From 1965 to 1987, he was president of AFSCME District Council 37 (DC37), the largest municipal union in New York City.
New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) is a 600,000-member New York state teachers union, affiliated since 2006 with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the AFL–CIO, and the National Education Association (NEA). NYSUT is an umbrella group which provides services to local affiliates in New York state; lobbies on the local, state and federal level; conducts research; and organizes new members.
Lillian Davis Roberts served from 2002 through 2014 as the executive director of District Council 37 (DC37), the largest municipal union in New York City.
Alan Viani was head of the Department of Research at DC37, the largest municipal union in New York City, from 1973 to 1985. He was later involved with resolving the 2005 NYC transit strike.
Gerald William McEntee was an American trade union official. He served as president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), an affiliate of the AFL-CIO, from 1981 to 2012.
The Memphis sanitation strike began on February 12, 1968, in response to the deaths of sanitation workers Echol Cole and Robert Walker. The deaths served as a breaking point for more than 1,300 African American men from the Memphis Department of Public Works as they demanded higher wages, time and a half overtime, dues check-off, safety measures, and pay for the rainy days when they were told to go home.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) is the largest trade union of public employees in the United States. It represents 1.3 million public sector employees and retirees, including health care workers, corrections officers, sanitation workers, police officers, firefighters, and childcare providers. Founded in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1932, AFSCME is part of the AFL–CIO, one of the two main labor federations in the United States. AFSCME has had four presidents since its founding.
George Hardy was a Canadian-American labour leader who was president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) from 1971 to 1980. At the time of his death, SEIU had grown to become the fifth-largest affiliate of the AFL-CIO. Hardy was a vice president of the AFL-CIO from 1972 to 1980, and a member of its executive council. He was a former member of the Democratic National Committee and the California Democratic State Central Committee.
The State, County, and Municipal Workers of America (SCMWA) was an American labor union representing state, county, and local government employees. It was created by the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in 1937 along with United Federal Workers of America. SCMWA's leaders Abram Flaxer and Henry Wenning had been leaders of the Association of Workers of Public Relief Agencies (AWPRA) in New York City prior to the formation of SCMWA.
Lee A. Saunders is a leader of the labor movement in the United States. He was elected to succeed Gerald W. McEntee as President of the 1.6 million-member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), one of the largest and most politically active unions in the AFL-CIO, on June 21, 2012, during the union's 40th International Convention in Los Angeles. Saunders served as Secretary-Treasurer of AFSCME from 2010 to 2012.
Bernard Bellush was an American historian and journalist. He taught at the City College of New York.
The 1974 Baltimore municipal strike was a strike action undertaken by different groups of municipal workers in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. It was initiated by waste collectors seeking higher wages and better conditions. They were joined by sewer workers, zookeepers, prison guards, highway workers, recreation & parks workers, animal control workers, abandoned vehicles workers, and eventually by police officers. Trash piled up during the strike, and, especially with diminished police enforcement, many trash piles were set on fire. City jails were also a major site for unrest.
Executive Order 10988 is a United States presidential executive order issued by President John F. Kennedy on January 17, 1962 that granted federal employees the right to collective bargaining. This executive order was a breakthrough for public sector workers, who were not protected under the 1935 Wagner Act.
AFSCME Council 31 is the Illinois state chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), a union of public service workers in the public, private and non-profit sectors. AFSCME Council 31 has "100,000 active and retired members", including "approximately 40,000 state employees working in more than 50 departments, authorities, boards, and commissions under the authority of the Governor."
Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31, No. 16-1466, 585 U.S. ___ (2018), abbreviated Janus v. AFSCME, is a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court on US labor law, concerning the power of labor unions to collect fees from non-union members. Under the Taft–Hartley Act of 1947, which applies to the private sector, union security agreements can be allowed by state law. The Supreme Court ruled that such union fees in the public sector violate the First Amendment right to free speech, overruling the 1977 decision in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education that had previously allowed such fees.
William Lucy was an American trade union leader. He served as Secretary-Treasurer of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) from 1972 to 2010.
Stanley Weldon Hill was an American labor organizer, born in The Bronx, New York City. He succeeded Victor Gotbaum as executive director of District Council 37 of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), serving from 1987 to 1998. In 1988 he served as New York co-chair of Jesse Jackson's presidential campaign.
Jane Ellen LaTour was an American labor activist, educator, and journalist in New York City who advocated union democracy and documented the role of women in traditionally male-dominated trades. She was the author of Sisters in the Brotherhoods: Working Women Organizing for Equality in New York City. A two-time recipient of the Mary Heaton Vorse Award for labor journalism, she was an associate editor for Public Employee Press, the publication of District 37 of AFSCME, and contributed to numerous other publications. For many years, she was the director of the Women's Project for the Association for Union Democracy, and served on the boards of the New York Labor History Association and the Women's Press Collective.
