District Council 37 (Also known as DC37) is New York City's largest public sector employee union, representing over 150,000 members and 50,000 retirees.
DC37 was chartered in 1944 by
AFSCME to represent public employees in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. It was small and relatively unsuccessful under its first president,
Henry Feinstein, but under the leadership of
Jerry Wurf, who took over as president in 1952, the union grew to 25,000 members by 1957, and 36,000 members in 1962. It also successfully pressured Mayor
Robert F. Wagner Jr., to pass executive order 49, which recognized
collective bargaining
Collective bargaining is a process of negotiation between employers and a group of employees aimed at agreements to regulate working salaries, working conditions, benefits, and other aspects of workers' compensation and rights for workers. The ...
rights for public sector workers.
Wurf became president of AFSCME in 1964 and was replaced later that year by
Victor Gotbaum
Victor H. Gotbaum (September 5, 1921 – April 5, 2015) was an American trade union, labor leader. From 1965 to 1987, he was president of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFSCME District Council 37 (DC37), the large ...
, who was Executive Director of DC37 until 1987. Under Gotbaum, the union continued to grow in numbers and power.
People who worked closely with Gotbaum included:
Lillian Roberts, Associate Director in charge of Organization; Edwin Maher, Associate Director in charge of employees; Daniel Nelson, head of the Department of Research;
Julius Topol, DC37 counsel;
Bernard Stephens, editor of the ''Public Employee Press''; and
Alan Viani
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.
In 1965, Viani helped lead a strike by over eight thous ...
, who took over as head of the Department of Research in 1973 after Nelson's death.
Gotbaum's successor was
Stanley Hill, who subsequently resigned in 1998 due to a major scandal in the union. After a trusteeship by AFSCME, Hill was ultimately succeeded in 2002 by
Lillian Roberts, who first started working with Gotbaum in 1959. Roberts retired at the end of 2014 and was succeeded by her associate Henry Garrido, who now serves as executive director.
See also
*
Chris Postiglione Triangle, honoring a member of the union
References
External links
DC-37Historic DC 37 photos from the AFSCME Archives.
Walter P. Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs. Wayne State University.
American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), District Council 37 Records (WAG 265)
at the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Archives
The Tamiment Library is a research library at New York University that documents radical and left history, with strengths in the histories of communism, socialism, anarchism, the New Left, the Civil Rights Movement, and utopian experiments. The R ...
.
Organizations based in New York City
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
Trade unions established in 1944
Trade unions in New York (state)
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