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                 Get to know your Business Agent today!  Find out how the union makes a difference on the job. |
Newsline: May 2001 Veteran Sandy Schneider Retires After 39+ Years When Sandra Schneider, who started working for Local 237 in 1962 as a $60 a week clerk, retires June 29, she will take with her a host of memories of the turbulent times of unionism, times when union members were threatened with imprisonment for exercising the right to fight for a fair contract When she was only 18, Sandy was talked into coming to work for the union by Yvette Feinstein, wife of the Local's founder, Henry Feinstein, and mother of Barry Feinstein, who became the Local's third president. A native New Yorker who has lived her entire life on the Lower East Side, Schneider recalled going to work when the union headquarters were at 172 Nassau St. "We were on the same street as the civil service newspaper, but our building became part of the new Pace College," she said. "Those were exciting times, when rival unions fought bitter battles to organize the workers," Sandy asserted. "There wasn't much money around, and we sometimes didn't know ifwe were going to be paid, or if there was money to cover the checks. When we got our checks we rushed to cash them at the bank." Schneider, who has known President Carl Haynes since he worked for the Housing Authority, was appointed Director of Membership for the Local in 1993, when Haynes became President. Prior to this promotion, she had served as Office Manager and as personal secretary to Barry Feinstein. The Local moved from its Nassau St. address to Gold St. but relocated to the present West 14th St. site in about 1965 when the Welfare Fund bought the building. "We only had the second floor," Sandy remembered. "We did everything there. We worked hard, but we always had fun." Where the reception desk is now in the lobby, she said, there used to be a cookie shop whose delicious smells spread throughout the entire building. It became the Welfare Fund office when the cookie shop left. Schneider said Barry Feinstein insisted she take the job as his secretary, a post she held for about 10 years, even though she didnĚt want to. "I'm glad I did," she said. "I met a lot of interesting people in the labor movement, from Lou Partenza to Michael Maye." Partenza, former Local 237 vice president, was at one time leader of a Sanitation Officers' union, and Maye president of the Firefighters' union. During her time as Feinstein's secretary, Schneider spent many days sequestered in her office dodging summons' servers who sought to get her into court. They wanted her testimony about a 1967 strike against the Housing Authority, and again in 1971 about a strike in which all the city's bridges were left open and unattended. "We couldn't even go near a window because if we were seen, we would have been considered served," Sandy contended. When finally forced into court, an assistant district attorney threatened to put her in prison for seven years for contempt. "Those were different days," she insisted. "We did everything by hand. We didn't have the machines to do the work like we do now. We worked hard, but we never realized it. It was enjoyable to come to work every day when you didn't have any idea of what you might be called on to do during the course of the day." These memories will keep her company in her retirement quarters in the Fort Lauderdale area of Florida. "I will miss it," she said. |
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