Abram Flaxer was born in Vilna, Lithuania, September 12, 1904. At the age of six, he immigrated to the United States with his family, settling in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He was exposed to socialist ideas early on, first at the Rand School of Social Science in Manhattan and later at City College, where he was involved in a Marxist study group while earning his B.S. degree. After graduation he joined the radical "Pen and Hammer" club, where he further developed the ideological orientation that he was to maintain throughout his career in labor organizing. He also did graduate work at Columbia University in mathematics.
As a teacher in a Bronx vocational school, Flaxer organized unemployed teachers throughout the New York City school system at a time of widespread union discrimination against unemployed workers. He went on to work for the New York City Emergency Relief Bureau, where he organized the agency's workers against the opposition of Tammany Hall. He had joined the Communist Party by this point but his level of involvement throughout his life is not always clear; his attempt to gain support from the CP for ERB organization failed. After successfully organizing ERB workers in the Bronx, Flaxer took a position with the new union as assistant to the Executive Secretary and widened his scope to include efforts at citywide organizing. Eventually he became Executive Secretary and worked with Charlotte Carr to expand the ERB union, which then changed its name to the Association of Workers in Public Relief Agencies. It was at this time that Flaxer developed political relationships with Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and Harlem Congressman Vito Marcantonio, often clashing with the former while working closely with the latter in the American Labor Party.
Flaxer's ultimate goal was the organization of all New York City public employees, and to that end he became involved in the establishment of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), an American Federation of Labor (AFL) union. Flaxer soon joined a dissident left-wing faction within that union to split off and form the State, County and Municipal Workers of America (SCMWA), chartered by the CIO in 1937 with jurisdiction over all workers in local government units. Flaxer became national president of the SCMWA, which maintained its national office in New York City, and sat on the Executive Board of the CIO. He was also active in the National Municipal League and the Civil Service Assembly. Both the SCMWA and Flaxer personally would be affected by the hardships of World War II, bitter infighting within the union between pro-Communist and anti-Communist groups, and persecution of the union as a perceived Communist-allied organization under HUAC. In 1946, a merger between the SCMWA and the United Federal Workers of America, resulted in the creation of the United Public Workers of America (UPWA); the new union was to take explicitly pro-Soviet stands on foreign policy, and experienced a severe loss of members to its rival AFSCME. On March 1, 1950 the UPWA was expelled from the CIO in a purge of Communist dominated unions; it continued to exist for only a brief period thereafter.
Flaxer strongly opposed Cold War anti-subversive witch-hunts and debated then-Congressman Richard Nixon on the radio on the topic of the federal loyalty program under Executive Order 9835. He was found guilty of contempt of Congress in 1952 for refusing to divulge names of leftist union members to the Senate Internal Security subcommittee, although the charges against him were eventually dismissed by the Supreme Court.
Abram Flaxer spent several years researching and writing a memoir, titled A View from the Left Field Bleachers, which remains unpublished. He died in 1989, survived by his wife Charlotte Rosswaag.
From the guide to the Abram Flaxer Papers, 1935-1992, (Tamiment Library / Wagner Archives)
