Title

Interview with executive members of the Union of United College Employees (UCE) of FIT: Joe Garofalo, Judy Wood, Arthur Levinson, & Juliette Romano, 1994 November 14

Contributor Names

Poll, Carol (Interviewer)

Garofalo, Joseph

Wood, Judy

Levinson, Arthur

Bethel, Lawrence L.

Levinson, George

Date

1994-11-13

Date Digitized

2020

Description

This is an interview with four executive members of the Union of United College Employees (UCE) at FIT: Joseph Garofalo, Judy Wood, Juliet Romano, and Arthur Levinson. The four begin by explaining their backgrounds and initial involvement with FIT in the 1960s and 1970s. They discuss how difficult it was to get promotions under the administration of Lawrence Bethel, and how the union had to fight for many rights such as faculty status for "non-classroom faculty." They also discuss the crowded state of the FIT offices before 1976 and the steadying role the union played in such chaos. The four then describe their connections to the NYC labor movement and close relationships with the Central Labor Council and the Municipal Labor Coalition. State and federal connections also played an important role, and Judy Wood describes her active political involvement with councilman Ed Sullivan. The group then mentions their parent organization, the AFL-CIO, and further union connections with the United Federation of Teachers. They take a moment to remember a strike at Radio City Music Hall, and how they convinced a union to pause the strike to facilitate an FIT graduation, kick-starting a long friendship. The group pays homage to Marvin Feldman, an FIT president they found especially supportive. They mention an upcoming negotiation and go one to detail how union negotiations with the school and city work. Finally, the four describe the union's relationship to students and the creation of the George Levinson Scholarship Fund in fond memory of his legacy.

Type

Moving Image

Oral histories

Sound

Subject

Garofalo, Joseph

Wood, Judy

Levinson, Arthur

Bethel, Lawrence L.

Levinson, George

New York State United Teachers

High School of the Fashion Industries (New York, N.Y.)

Romano, Juliet

Feldman, Marvin

Fashion

Education

Career counselor

Student affairs administrators

Counseling

Labor unions

Scholarships

Fashion Institute of Technology (New York, N.Y.)

New York (State)

New York (State)--New York

Related Materials

Finding Aid

Rights

In Copyright

This video was produced by the Fashion Institute of Technology ("FIT") and is the property of FIT. FIT expressly prohibits the copying, displaying, or uploading to a website of any portion of this video, except for the purposes of fair use as defined in the copyright laws, without express written permission from FIT. This video has been made available online by the Fashion Institute of Technology Gladys Marcus Library strictly for research and educational purposes. If you are the copyright holder for content in this video and have any objections to this work being made available online, please notify us immediately at [email protected].

Identifier

FIT Repository ID: aod_000695

SPARC reference code: US.NNFIT.SC.FITA.3.20.4.9.4.4