Israel Kugler

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Israel Kugler (June 13, 1917 – October 1, 2007) was a noted American professor of sociology. In the 1960s, he helped organize faculty at a number of New York City-area colleges and universities into labor unions. He co-founded the Professional Staff Congress, a union of faculty at the City University of New York (CUNY) which now represents more than 20,000 faculty and staff members at the university.

Early life

Kugler was born on June 13, 1917 in Brooklyn, New York City, to Philip and Anna (Senitzer) Kugler. He and his sister were raised in a liberal Jewish home in Brooklyn. He graduated with a bachelor's degree from the City College of New York in 1938.[1] He took an active interest in socialist and Jewish politics, often spending entire days in "the counterpart of a floating crap game—only our dice were political arguments on all issues affecting the world."[2]

He served in the

doctorate in sociology at New York University.[1][3]

Kugler married the former Helen Barkan in 1941. They had two children, Daniel and Philip.[1][4]

Union career

Kugler became a professor of social science at

New York City Community College, where he earned a reputation as a skilled classroom educator. He also became heavily involved in labor politics in the city, and supported organizing drives for many unions.[3] Kugler joined the United Federation of College Teachers (UFCT), Local 1460 of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). Kugler eventually was elected president of the union, which had been founded in 1935.[5]

Kugler was a leader among a group of delegates of the American Federation of Teachers who sought to force the national union to end its practice of chartering segregated locals. The union had amended its constitution in 1953 to bar segregated locals, but had done little to enforce the provision. In 1954, Kugler and others demanded that the union suspend the charters of locals that barred black teachers from membership. Although a resolution passed, president Carl J. Megel and other national union officers argued that the resolution and constitution provision did not "require" suspension. The following year, Kugler led the anti-segregation forces in yet another resolution battle, which led to passage of a policy which unequivocably required ejection of locals which discriminated on the basis of race. A number of locals in the Deep South withdrew from the union rather than be suspended, including Local 89 in Atlanta (the first AFT local where 100 percent of the teachers in the bargaining unit had joined the local). In all, the American Federation of Teachers lost close to 5 percent of its membership.[1][6][7][8]

St. John's University strike

Main article:
St. John's University strike of 1966-1967

Kugler led a strike at

Workmen's Circle and other organizations to support the striking faculty. Kugler took professors' case to the Vatican and sought an individual audience with Pope Paul VI, whose encyclicals on workers' rights were repeatedly cited by the union. But the pope refused him an audience.[11] In the early spring of 1967, as the strike threatened to widen to other Catholic universities in the country and state legislators opened hearings on the labor dispute, the university agreed to arbitration. The strike ended in June 1967. The union did not win recognition at St. John's, and in 1970 arbitrators ruled that the university had not acted improperly.[12][excessive citations
]

Kugler later wrote a well-regarded article about the strike, "The 1966 Strike at St. John's University: A Memoir," which was published in Labor's Heritage in 1997.

Formation of the PSC

Main article: Professional Staff Congress

Although the strike was a failure in that it did not win reinstatement for the faculty, the strike established the American Federation of Teachers as the pre-eminent union organizing American higher education faculty.[11] Kugler quickly turned the UFCT's attention to other colleges and universities in the New York City area. In the next few years, under his leadership the union organized locals at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), Nassau Community College and Westchester Community College.[1] In 1967, faculty at FIT bargained a signed collective bargaining agreement—the first time a public higher education union in the state signed a contract. FIT's contract was only the second public higher education contract in the whole country.[13]

In 1967, Kugler began pushing for the UFCT to organize the faculty at the City University of New York. Backed by the American Federation of Teachers and the newly formed (and politically powerful)

tenured faculty) nine days later, and a signed contract nine months later.[13][14] The City University of New York promptly attempted to break the contract by firing 100 untenured faculty members in December 1969. Kugler responded with aggressive picketing which forced the university to rescind its actions.[15]

In 1972, Kugler merged the UFCT with its long-time rival, the Legislative Conference of the City University. Kugler and Dr. Belle Zeller, president of the Legislative Conference, agreed to form a new organization affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers, the Professional Staff Congress (PSC).[1] CUNY challenged the right of the PSC to represent its faculty, forcing the PSC into yet another election. The PSC won this second election on June 7, 1972. After a year of negotiations and a threatened strike, City University of New York consented to a three-year collective bargaining agreement.[16][17][18] As of 2007, the PSC represented more than 20,000 faculty and staff members at CUNY.

Kugler was elected Deputy Vice President of the PSC after its formation, but retired in 1980.[19][20]

Israel Kugler died of pneumonia at his home in Chevy Chase, Maryland, on October 1, 2007.[1]

Memberships

Kugler was at one time the president of the

Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring,[22] a member of the Executive Committee of the Jewish Labor Committee,[23] and a founding member of the Health Care Industry Council of the Labor and Employment Relations Association[24]

He also at one time had been a board member of the League for Industrial Democracy.[citation needed]

Selected publications

  • "A Life in the Workmen's Circle: Reminiscence and Reflection." Labor's Heritage. 3:4 (October 1991).
  • "The AAUP at the Crossroads." Changing Education. Spring 1966.
  • From Ladies to Women: The Organized Struggle for Women's Rights in the Reconstruction Era. Westport, Ct.: Greenwood Press, 1987.
    ISBN 0-313-25239-4
  • "Status, Power, and Educational Freedom." Journal of Educational Sociology. 25:9 (May 1952).
  • "The 1966 Strike at St. John's University: A Memoir." Labor's Heritage. 9:2 (Fall 1997).
  • "The Trade Union Career of Susan B. Anthony." Labor History. 11 (Winter 1961).
  • "Two Views of Albert Shanker." New Politics. 7:1 (New Series) (Summer 1998).

References

  1. ^
    ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved 2021-03-13.
  2. ^ Quoted in Sorin, Irving Howe: A Life of Passionate Dissent, 2005, page 18.
  3. ^ a b Dunbar, A Brother Like Me: A Memoir, 1995.
  4. ^ "1963 march participant Phil Kugler". American Federation of Teachers. 2013-08-17. Retrieved 2021-03-13.
  5. ^ Wagner, "Local 1460," Higher Education Quarterly, December 1964.
  6. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved 2021-03-13.
  7. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved 2021-03-13.
  8. OCLC 1364061
    .
  9. ^
    ISSN 0040-781X
    . Retrieved 2021-03-13.
  10. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved 2021-03-13.
  11. ^ a b "Featherman File," The Forward, March 27, 1998.
  12. ^ Currivan, "St. John's Strike on Jan. 3 Called By Teacher Union," The New York Times, December 18, 1965; Currivan, "St. John's Gets Mediation Offer," The New York Times, December 24, 1965; Currivan, "St. John's Bars Mediation By City," The New York Times, December 28, 1965; Grutzner, "Mayor Offers Aid on St. Johns," The New York Times, January 4, 1966; Currivan, "St. John's Opens Despite Its Strike," The New York Times, January 5, 1966; Currivan, "St. John's Warns 25 Absentees to Return to Job or Face Action," The New York Times, January 6, 1966; Dallos, "St. John's Calls Boycott Failure," The New York Times, January 11, 1966; Gansberg, "St. John's Strike Closes Classes, But 2 Sides Disagree on Number," The New York Times, February 15, 1966; Dallos, "St. John's to Keep Its Accreditation But Gets Warning," The New York Times, May 1, 1966; Kaplan, "Faculty Strikers Suing St. John's," The New York Times, June 2, 1966; Dallos, "Teachers Protest at St. John's Commencement," The New York Times, June 13, 1966; Currivan, "St. John's Reopening Today With Faculty Strikers Resuming Picket Line," The New York Times, September 19, 1966; Currivan, "St. John's Warned Its Accreditation May Be Revoked," The New York Times, December 2, 1966; "The New Impasse Stalls Plans to Arbitrate St. John's Dispute," The New York Times, April 6, 1967; Morris, "Catholic U. Classes Stopped as Protest Spreads in Faculty," The New York Times, April 21, 1967; Gansberg, "St. John's Dispute to Be Arbitrated," The New York Times, June 20, 1967; Johnston, "Legislative Panel Will Investigate Sale by L.I.U. and Dismissals at St. John's," The New York Times, October 10, 1967; Currivan, "St. John's Retains Its Accreditation," The New York Times, May 4, 1968; Currivan, "$100,000 Sought in St. John's Case," The New York Times, October 12, 1969; Malcolm, "Arbitrators Absolve St. John's of Teachers' Antiunion Charge," The New York Times, January 28, 1970.
  13. ^ a b Polishook, "Collective Bargaining and the City University of New York," Journal of Higher Education, May 1970.
  14. ^ Farber, "City U. Election On Union Stalled," The New York Times, May 12, 1968; Clarity, "Union Wins Vote of C.U. Faculty," The New York Times, December 7, 1968; Hechinger, "City U. Faculty to Cast 2d Vote On Union to Represent 4,500," The New York Times, December 16, 1968; Handler, "City U. and Untenured Teachers Reach Agreement on a Contract," The New York Times, September 11, 1969.
  15. ^ Handler, "100 of Staff Ousted In Pact Violation, City U. Union Says," The New York Times, December 27, 1969; *Handler, "Union to Picket City U. Branches Over Dismissal of Lecturers," The New York Times, May 12, 1970.
  16. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved 2021-03-13.
  17. ^ Buder, Leonard (June 8, 1972). "Faculty Members at City University Pick Single Bargaining Agent". The New York Times. Retrieved 2021-03-13.
  18. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved 2021-03-13.
  19. ^ Irwin Yellowitz, "Israel Kugler, 1917-2007: Pioneer of unionism in higher education," Clarion, November-December 2007, 12.
  20. ^ Marissa Brostoff, "Labor Leader Israel Kugler, 90," Forward, October 10, 2007.
  21. ^ "Officers and National Committee Members," Social Democrats USA, no date. Archived 2007-08-11 at the Wayback Machine Accessed October 7, 2007.
  22. Workmen's Circle
    /Arbeter Ring, no date. Accessed October 7, 2007.
  23. ^ "Jewish Labor Committee". Accessed March 8, 2008.
  24. ^ "Health Care Industry Council, LERA Charter," Labor and Employment Relations Association, no date. Archived 2007-05-04 at archive.today Accessed October 7, 2007.

External links

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