Arthur Stein (activist) facts for kids

Arthur Stein was an important American union leader. He helped start the United Federal Workers of America (UFWA). This union worked to protect the rights of government employees. He was also involved with the Communist Party USA during the 1930s and 1940s.

Early Life and Education

Arthur Stein's father, Charles, came from Poland. Arthur went to Evander Childs High School in The Bronx, New York.

Career as a Union Leader

Arthur Stein became involved in political groups in the late 1920s or early 1930s. He helped organize the 1932 Chicago Counter-Olympics. This event was also known as the International Workers Athletic Meet. It was the first time people protested the Olympic Games.

Later, Stein worked for government agencies. These included the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the War Production Board. The WPA helped create jobs during the Great Depression. The War Production Board managed factory production during World War II.

Stein was a key person in forming the United Federal Workers of America (UFWA). This union later joined with another to become the United Public Workers of America (UPWA). He was elected president of the UFWA local group for the WPA. After that, he worked full-time to organize new members for the UPWA.

In 1937, he helped organize a group within a part of the Senate Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce. He also worked with a similar group at the National Labor Relations Board.

Arthur Stein often spoke up for workers. In 1943, he spoke before a committee in the United States House of Representatives. He was an assistant to the secretary-treasurer of the United Federal Workers of America. He talked about giving more pay to government workers.

In 1944, he spoke to a Senate committee about government employee salaries. Later that year, his name was listed in a report. It showed his role as an assistant to the secretary-treasurer of the United Federal Workers of America. This was part of a group working with a political action committee.

Personal Life

On August 12, 1933, Arthur Stein married Annie Steckler.

Their daughter, Eleanor Raskin, became involved in student movements. She was a leader in a group called the Weather Underground. Eleanor later married Jeff Jones in 1981. Their son, Thai Jones, is a well-known journalist today.

Works

• "The Fate of the Sudeten Germans: The Destruction of a People" (March 1947)
• A Radical Line: From the Labor Movement to the Weather Underground, One Family's Century of Conscience (2004)

See also

• Annie Stein
• Eleanor Raskin
• Herbert Fuchs
• Milton Galamison