Eiger, Norman

Norman Eiger played an integral role in the history of the School of Management and Labor Relations (SMLR), formerly known as the Institute of Management and Labor Relations (IMLR), of Rutgers University. Born in New York City on 18 November 1928, he later went on to earn a BA from the City College of New York in 1954. Shortly thereafter, he received an MA from New York University and a PhD from the Rutgers Graduate School of Education in 1969 and 1976, respectively. (1)

From 1947-1961 Eiger held a range of union leadership positions in the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union, AFL-CIO, such as labor educator, organizer, negotiator, and business agent. From 1961-1965, he was the District Manager of this Union. During 1965-1967 he was a Training Director at the Community Action Training Institute. Eiger came to Rutgers in 1967 and worked as the Associate Director at the Rutgers Labor Community Action Intern Program until 1968 when he joined the IMLR as a professor of labor education and industrial relations. (2)

While at Rutgers, Eiger worked tirelessly in educating students, faculty, and countless union groups on such topics as work and alienation; theories of the labor movement; future of the labor movement; leadership; and collective bargaining. For his exceptional work with educational programming Eiger won the National University Extension Association Award in 1971 and 1973. For his excellence in scholarly publications, he won the Swedish Bi-Centennial Fund Research Award in 1979 and the German Marshall Fund Award in 1980. Additionally, he helped to write the proposals for and worked on several grant funded projects including the Occupational Health and Safety Project and the Humanities Project on Labor and the Quality of Education. He also served on the IMLR Publications Committee, the IMLR Chairmen's Committee, and the AAUP Grievance Committee. In addition to teaching at Rutgers, he worked as an adjunct instructor at Seton Hall University and several community colleges. (3)

During his tenure at Rutgers, Eiger published over twenty articles, but he also published his doctoral thesis, The Newark School Wars: A Socio-Historical Study of the 1970 and 1971 Newark School System Strikes (1976) and a book, The Education of Employee Representatives on Company Board [sic] in Sweden (1983). Additionally, he edited the IMLR newsletter, Labor Education Notes .

Eiger belonged to and served on the board of many professional associations such as the Labor Education Association; Jewish Labor Committee; Histadrut Cultural Exchange Institute; Consulting Committee for the New Jersey Educational Consortium; Rutgers Association of University Professors; and several scholarship committees. He also served as a consultant for the Middlesex Cultural and Heritage Commission; the New Jersey Jewish Labor Committee; the American Institute for Free Labor Development; and the New Jersey Industrial Union Council, AFL-CIO. (4)

Throughout his professional career, not limited to the time he was at Rutgers, Eiger was a pivotal force in comparative labor studies and union leadership. It was as a result of his teachings that students and workers were able to form a more cohesive union and uphold the IMLR's mission statement of uniting labor and management. From 1981 to his retirement from Rutgers in 1994 Eiger was the chair of the Department of Labor Education and the Director of the Labor Education Center. After retiring, Eiger combined his love of painting with his job by working as a docent in the Princeton Art Museum. (5) Eiger died on 29 December 2005.

(1) Norman Eiger, Resume, 1981 June 23, 1.

(2) Ibid., 2.

(3) Ibid., 3-4.

(4) Ibid., 3.

(5) Douglas Frank, "Good Times - Art Compulsion," Rutgers Focus . 2000 April 28. Accessible from http://ur.rutgers.edu/focus/article/Good+times/37 . Accessed on 2006 April 10.

From the guide to the Guide to the Norman Eiger Papers, 1967-2005, bulk 1980-1992, (Rutgers University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives)