George Barasch (December 10, 1910 – August 11, 2013) was a US union labor leader who led both the Allied Trades Council and Teamsters Local 815 (New York City), representing a combined total of 11,000 members.
He was the first labor leader to create a union anti-crime department, and he was instrumental in eliminating racketeering and organized crime from much of local union life in New Jersey and New York City in the early 1950s. His disputes with the United States government in the mid-1960s over control of union benefit funds ultimately led to proposed legislation that prompted and evolved into the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974.
In 1964, after spending over two decades fighting for the rights of workers to organize and thrive, Barasch created the Allied Educational Foundation (AEF) as an independent organization that would continue to advance the education and rights of working Americans outside the labor arena. The semi-annual AEF conferences served as a forum for high-ranking political figures, academics, legal scholars, and civil rights activists including United States Senator William Proxmire, Martin Luther King Jr., Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States William O. Douglas, U.S. President Gerald Ford, U.S. Vice President Walter Mondale, labor columnist Victor Riesel, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Harrison Salisbury, and economist Leo Cherne.
Barasch remained Chairman of the Allied Educational Foundation for 49 years until his death, at 102.
Early life.
Barasch was born in 1910 in Russia. He immigrated with his family to the US as a young boy and obtained his first job at 14 with Ye Colonial Sweet Shop (Brooklyn) in 1925. In 1928, while employed as a clerk at Davis drug store (Brooklyn), he enrolled at St. John's University. In 1931, Barasch worked as a clerk at B. &amp; W. Pharmacy and soon after became an apprentice at Walgreens drug store. He graduated from St. John's University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Social Science in 1934, and enrolled in St. John's University School of Law in September 1935.
During his employment with Walgreens "putting in unbearable long hours, sometimes as much as 15 hours a day," Barasch conceived of the idea of forming a labor union.
By 1937, he had left law school, resigned from Walgreens, and secured a charter from the Retail Clerks International Protective Association to devote his efforts to the Drug Store Employee's Union of Greater New York by organizing drug store employees.
Union Activities.
Beginning with his first union in 1937, Local 1185 of the Retail Clerks International Association, Barasch began organizing smaller union groups, including Local 105 of the International Leather Goods Workers Union, Local 22806 (Powder Puff &amp; Cosmetics Workers Union), Local 20646 (Cosmetics, Soap &amp; Perfumery Workers Union), Local 20734 (Vinegar &amp; Mustard Workers Union), and Local 18943 (Hardware &amp; Grocery Workers Union). In 1942, he created and served as managing editor of the "Unity News", an official labor newspaper publication of the Manufacturers, Wholesale, and Retail Unions to inform and connect union workers during and after World War II. The newspaper received a citation award from the United States Treasury Department from Henry Morgenthau Jr. on May 27, 1943, for "distinguished services rendered in behalf of the War Savings Program." On January 1, 1947, Barasch created the Allied Trades Council to incorporate the unions he had organized in the past decade, and soon after, he sought and was granted affiliation with the International Leather Goods, Plastic &amp; Novelty Workers Union, which allowed Allied Trades Council to be designated as an AFL (American Federation of Labor) organization. The AFL designation was maintained until the two groups parted ways in 1965. Under his leadership, the union expanded to the distributing and manufacturing, leather, drug and novelty fields which included over 10,000 members by 1948. Barasch was later issued a charter for a second union in 1952 (Local 815 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters) to aid in his expansion efforts in New York when he began having jurisdictional disputes with Teamsters locals. By 1965, Allied Trades Council represented 88 businesses, including pharmacies, restaurants, and candy stores and Local 815 grew to represent 165 pharmacies, perfumeries, bakeries, and other businesses.
Barasch oversaw and successfully negotiated through several strikes, including a notable strike at Coty's, Inc. perfumers in 1950 of 500 employees seeking a $5 per week raise. He also led a unified effort through his Allied Trades Council to expose and eliminate racketeering from union life. As organized crime infiltrated the unions, he submitted a memorandum to New York's Governor Thomas Dewey laying out a four-point legislative plan to eliminate infiltration of the unions by organized crime, suggesting laws which would:
Barasch was the first labor leader to create an anti-crime department within a union, employing a criminologist who consulted with them on their rounds of unionized plants to identify and weed out racketeering. The committee reviewed national reports on racketeering activity, maintained a list of criminal union offenders, and educated members on crime detection. "If the thugs don't back down, Barasch gets into the streets himself with as many union members as are needed, and they fight it out," labor columnist Victor Riesel wrote. "It takes courage, but from this you get a clean union." In the union's newsletter, distributed throughout New York, Barasch noted he was ready to "take 1,000 members off the job and meet them in the streets and wipe them out." Barasch's efforts were credited with the cessation of the criminal "invasion," keeping out violent offenders accused of kidnapping, robbery, and other criminal acts.
Organized crime was just one of many subversive elements impacting unions. Communism and unethical employee behavior also played significant roles. When a pro-Soviet United Electrical Workers group, led by Jim Lustig, attempted to gain access to secret intelligence and suppress production on a missile being produced by an S.W. Farber plant set for Korea (to match the Soviet Chinese rocket "mangling" U.S. troops), Barasch worked with the employees to eliminate this communist element from the union. Pro-soviet union leaders, clearly threatened, were reported as telling workers at the plant "If we catch any of you sons of bitches playing around with that AFL union, you'll be sorry for it." Barasch also helped organize and participated in the Crusade for Freedom as one of a few select individuals who released 17 balloons at a 1951 ceremony on Bedloes Island to win trade union support for the freedom project in Europe, promoting freedom for countries under Communist power. The following evening, Brigadier General David Sarnoff, chairman of the Greater New York Crusade for Freedom, spoke at a convention of the Allied Trades Council and encouraged New York unions to make the Crusade for Freedom "the greatest labor movement our nation has ever known." Barasch responded in kind, noting "the decision to place the Crusade on the convention's agenda is a reflection of the deep-felt concern of our membership over the current global struggle for men's minds."
In 1952, a prescription drug ring was discovered in New York where thousands of patients were manipulated to purchase unapproved, high-priced pharmaceuticals. These medications were placed in pharmacies by unethical pharmacists and doctors who partnered to exploit unassuming customers for financial gain. Patients would pay up to 80% more for these unapproved, and presumably poor quality medications. These drug firms were bankrolled by thousands of doctors and pharmacists who purchased shares in the companies. A stern and effective warning was sent out by Barasch, on behalf of Allied Trades Council, to its over 11,000 members, many of whom were employed in hundreds of drug stores in New York's five boroughs, that "any member of our union found aiding and abetting and joining this criminal hoax on unsuspecting customers will be brought up on charges immediately . . . Wherever and whenever you find evidence that would indicate that this racket is being carried on in your store or plant, call the union immediately . . . Give us all the details and we will turn them over to the proper authorities."
Barasch's innovative public relations effort to increase union membership included a media campaign on radio and television "in an effort to arouse the housewives by telling them bluntly how labor racketeering corrodes their breadwinners and flattens their pocketbooks." One effective campaign included soliciting new union members through Tyrone Power's "Freedom U.S.A." radio program, a weekly show about the activities of a Senator in Washington. The show, which ran approximately 30 minutes, began and ended with commercials inviting written requests to "learn how you can win job insurance, health insurance, life insurance and a host of other insurances of a better life--that's Local 815, A. F. L. Teamster's union" or "Would you like a life insurance policy--ranging from two to ten thousand dollars--free of charge? Of course, you would. But for the most part, it you are a working man or woman, you either can't afford a policy at all or you have a small one which is a burden on your shrinking pocket book. Members of Local 815 of the A. F. L. Teamsters' Union have insurance policies that don't cost them one penny."
On December 6, 1957, the national Teamsters Union was ousted from the A.F.L.-C.I.O., primarily due to the corrupt influence of James ("Jimmy") R. Hoffa who currently served as Vice President of the Teamsters. Hoffa was under criminal investigation by the United States Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management for many charges, including affiliation with organized crime, corruption, and wiretapping charges. Despite these charges, Hoffa was elected president of the national Teamsters union on January 23, 1958. Barasch made headlines when he dropped out of the race for vice president of Teamsters Joint Council 16 in January, remarking that there was no place in the election for "uncommitted middle-of-the-road independents," forcing the election to go to anti-Hoffa candidate John Hoh. This would effectively limit Hoffa's control over the New York council, which included 57 locals (125,000 members) including Barasch's union Local 815. Hoh was officially elected vice president of the New York Teamsters Joint Council on February 11, 1958. Barasch stayed on with the Teamsters Union, serving as secretary-treasurer of the Drug, Chemical, Cosmetic, Plastics and Affiliated Industries, Warehouse Employees, Local 815 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and president of the Allied Trades Council. He remained in these roles until 1964, when he formed and served as chairman of the Allied Educational Foundation.
Senate hearings.
In the early 1960s, US Attorney Robert Morgenthau began a series of investigations into possible abuses of pension funds by New York unions. Non-governmental pension funds had exceeded $60 billion by 1962 ($ billion in 2023), covering approximately 17 million workers. Pension plans could be administered jointly by unions and employing corporations, corporations alone, or unions alone.
"The tremendous amounts of money involved make closer policing necessary," noted Morgenthau. Adding fuel to the investigations were recent amendments to the Welfare and Pension Plans Disclosure Act, making "theft, embezzlement, kickbacks or bribery in connection with benefit plans a Federal Crime."
In addition, the New York State Department of Labor was now required to submit any reports of possible criminal activity discovered in fund annual reports to the United States Department of Labor. The investigations led to the sentencing of Max Davis, secretary-treasurer of the Independent Brotherhood of Production, Maintenance &amp; Operating Employes ["sic"], Local 10 in New York, on September 13, 1963, for embezzling $16,500 from a union welfare fund on which he was trustee. It was the first conviction since the amendments were passed classifying misappropriation of the funds as a federal crime.
Other federal grand jury indictments for misappropriation of funds in this time period included Ralph Gordon, former business agent in New York City for the American Guild of Variety Artists, and James Hoffa, Teamsters Union president.
In July 1963, Barasch found himself pulled into the investigations, when he obtained an order temporarily stopping execution of a federal subpoena requesting records on two Teamster Union welfare funds associated with overseas research foundations. The two welfare funds under investigation included the Allied Welfare Fund and the Union Mutual Fund, for which Barasch served as Trustee.
The foundations named included the Chemical Research Foundation and Cromwell Research Foundation, both not-for-profit corporations set up in Liberia and Puerto Rico, respectively, for which he currently served as president. Barasch argued that the subpoena "constitutes an unreasonable search and seizure," violates