Chicago, IL
The AFL-CIO Executive Council honors the life and contributions to America’s workers of Evy Dubrow, who for nearly a half-century was the pre-eminent labor lobbyist in Washington, D.C., and a legend in the union movement. Dubrow died on June 20, 2006.
Dubrow combined intelligence, wit, street smarts, compassion and charm to become not only one of the most effective lobbyists in the history of Congress but one of the best-loved individuals in our movement.
Former House Speaker Tip O'Neill directed the congressional doorkeepers to share their chairs outside the House chamber with Evy—an honor no other lobbyist could dream of—because she was, as O'Neill put it, the representative of seamstresses, hemmers and buttonhole girls. It was her mission and her passion.
For two full generations, she lobbied for higher minimum wages, safer workplaces, universal health care, civil rights, pay equity for women, immigrants’ rights, fair trade laws and more. Because of her, millions of working women and men have had better lives.
Dubrow was loved and respected by Democrats including John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Bill Clinton and Barney Frank—but also by Republicans including Barry Goldwater and Bob and Elizabeth Dole. She was Al Gore’s babysitter.
Despite her reputation as a generous and sentimental friend, Dubrow could be a ferocious and cunning adversary when the need arose. The combination made her more successful than many corporate lobbyists with far greater wealth and resources. She could beat the best of them, and often did.
If Capitol Hill was her workplace, the union movement was Evy Dubrow’s home. She learned about unions from the optimistic Jewish working-class socialism of her parents, who had immigrated from what is now Belarus to Paterson, New Jersey.
She got her first union card from The Newspaper Guild when she was a young reporter for the Paterson (N.J.) Morning Call. In the late 1930’s, she moved into the labor movement full-time as organizer and political education director for the Textile Union Workers of America in New Jersey and then assistant to the president of the state’s CIO Council.
Along with Walter Reuther, Eleanor Roosevelt and other liberal leaders, Dubrow helped organize Americans for Democratic Action in 1947. She worked for ADA until 1956, when David Dubinsky, president of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), hired her as his union’s lobbyist in Washington. She rose through the ILGWU to become an international union vice president in 1977. When the ILGWU merged with the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU), she became chief Washington lobbyist for the merged union, UNITE.
Her moral compass never failed. She was the ILGWU’s representative to the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing, the National Consumers League and the National Fair Representation Committee. She was a vice president of the Jewish Labor Committee, chair of the AFL‑CIO Committee on Consumer Legislation, a founder of the Coalition of Labor Union Women and, 23 years ago, one of a tiny handful of AFL-CIO convention delegates who spoke in favor of a resolution taking a stand against sexual orientation discrimination.
In 1999, President Bill Clinton presented Dubrow with the coveted Presidential Medal of Freedom.
A senator once said of her, "Evy Dubrow is the union label." That is an apt eulogy for this remarkable fighter for working families.
The Executive Council cherishes our memories of Evy Dubrow and celebrates the life of this thoroughly unique woman.