Bellush, Jewel, 1924-

Jewel Lubin Bellush, a native of Brooklyn, was born on May 20, 1924. She attended new York City public schools, including Samuel J. Tilden High School. After a brief stay at City College, she went to the University of Wisconsin at Madison, majoring in American history and graduating in 1946. In February 1946 she entered the graduate program in American history at Columbia University, where she met her future husband, Bernard Bellush. She earned a masters degree, with a thesis on “Women and Abolition,” and a Ph.D., with a dissertation on Herbert H. Lehman.

After graduate school she taught at City College (evening session) and was later appointed to a tenured position at Hunter College, in the Political Science Department. She was also a Fulbright Professor at the University of Haifa in Israel. She wrote, or collaborated with others on, a number of studies of political parties and urban planning. A lifelong community activist, she continued her lecturing and political involvement after retirement.

Bernard Bellush was born in New York City on November 15, 1917 and reared in the Bronx. He also attended the public schools of New York City and graduated from City College in 1941. He served in the army from 1942 to 1945, taking part in the landing on Omaha Beach. After the War he earned a master’s degree in history at Columbia University, with a thesis on Eugene V. Debs, and a Ph.D., with a dissertation on Franklin D. Roosevelt as governor of New York.

Bernard Bellush taught American history at Hunter College and then received a tenured appointment at City College, where he served as first Chairman of the Faculty Senate. He also served as a Fulbright Professor at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands. He published several books in American history. His civic activism is reflected in his having served as a National Board member of the American Veterans Committee; a city, state and national Board member of Americans for Democratic Action; a member of the NGO Committee on Disarmament, Peace and Security; and a Board member and President of the New York Labor History Association. He died on December 30, 2011.

The Bellushes were married in June of 1947. It was a “mixed marriage,” as Bernie was a stalwart of the Socialist Party and Jewel came from a Communist Party background. Political acquaintances were inclined to believe that the union would be short-lived, but a harmonious and productive partnership spanning more than sixty years ensued. The most significant concrete evidence of this collaboration is their jointly written book, Union Power and New York, a history of AFSCME District Council 37. Research materials, interviews and drafts associated with that project make up the first six series of this collection. After serving for a year as a staff member in the Education Department of District 37 in the late 1970s, Bernie Bellush returned to teaching. At this point he was asked by DC 37 Executive Director Victor Gotbaum to write a history of the District Council. The project quickly grew to such proportions that Bernie enlisted the help of Jewel; the couple soon retired from teaching and devoted themselves intensively to completing the manuscript, which was finally published in 1984.

District Council 37 was chartered by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) in November 1944. At that time its membership was limited to small numbers in the NYC departments of Hospitals, Parks, Finance and Health. Its first goals were to increase membership and to engage management in serious collective bargaining talks. Between 1950 55, city employees gained Social Security coverage, Workmen's Compensation benefits and improved pension and health benefits. In July 1954, Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. signed an interim order recognizing city workers' rights to organize and at the same time setting up joint labor relations committees. A demonstration at City Hall in 1955 prompted Parks Commissioner Robert Moses to accede to a representation election in his department, which AFSCME won overwhelmingly.

The AFL CIO merger in 1955 brought many changes to the District Council. The AFL's AFSCME eventually merged with the CIO's Government and Civil Employees union. By 1957, the Government and Civic Employees New York Joint Board had been dissolved and its locals affiliated with DC 37. Among the locals thus acquired were Welfare Workers, Local 371; School Lunch Local 372; Quasi Public School Local 374 and the Civil Service Technical Guild, Local 375.

In 1958, Mayor Wagner signed Executive Order 49 giving collective bargaining rights to employee organizations representing a majority of the employees in a bargaining unit. At about that time, a series of strikes in cultural institutions resulted in union recognition for employees at Youth House, the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, the Bronx Zoo and the Coney Island Aquarium. A strike of Local 983, the Motor Vehicle Operators, resulted in the first welfare fund for non uniformed city employees, and the Council expanded its operations to service the fund. Local 372, School Lunch Employees, won bargaining rights for over 6,000 employees in 1963 and added another 6,000 in 1965. The Civil Service Technical Guild negotiated its first contract in 1963on behalf of its 5,000 engineers and architects. By 1967, the City of New York set up an Office of Collective Bargaining; in that year DC 37 reached a membership of 50,000. The first citywide contract was negotiated in 1968. Membership had grown to about 125,000 by the end of the twentieth century.

In 1964, Jerry Wurf, Executive Director of DC 37 since 1947, was elected President of AFSCME. Calogeri Taibi became the Council's new Executive Director, but served only briefly. He was succeeded by Victor Gotbaum, who retired in 1986 after a period of dynamic growth followed by historic challenges for municipal labor during the City’s fiscal crisis of the mid-1970s. Stanley Hill, a former president of the Social Service Employees Union (AFSCME, Local 371) and Director of the Council’s Clerical and Administrative Division, followed Gotbaum as Executive Director. In 2002, after a period of turmoil in the Council, Lillian Roberts, who had served as Assistant to Gotbaum, helped to organize 20,000 hospital workers, and left the Council to become New York State Commissioner of Labor, returned to take on the position of Executive Director.

Sources:

From the guide to the Bernard and Jewel Bellush Papers, Bulk, 1960-1990, 1947-2002, (Tamiment Library / Wagner Archives)