Henry Joseph Foner (March 23, 1919 – January 11, 2017) was a 20th-century Jewish-American social activist and president for more than two decades of the Joint Board, Fur, Leather and Machine Workers Union (FLM).
Foner was said to be a member of the Young Communist League as a youth,[1] and later wrote a song called "Love in the YCL".
[6] He attended Eastern District High School and earned a degree in business administration from the City College of New York in 1939,[1] near the end of the Great Depression.
[1] From 1942 to 1946 during and after World War II, Foner served in the U.S. Army in Italy and Austria (where he was part of the occupation forces).
][1][7][8] After his return from the war, Foner resumed teaching, as a substitute in stenography and typewriting at Prospect Heights High School, from 1946 to 1948.
[1][3][7] After passing his teaching exam, in 1948 he was blocked by the Rapp-Coudert Committee from formal appointment due to earlier involvement in the American Student Union and Young Communist League.
The union represented members in the Mid-Atlantic states of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.
For the latter goal, Foner helped to arrange a merger of the FLM with the Amalgamated Meat Cutters union in the late 1950s.
(Co-founders of the Liberal Party included: David Dubinsky of the ILGWU, Alex Rose of the Hat, Cap and Millinery Workers, theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, and teacher-turned-politician Ben Davidson.)
"[24] In 2009, he gave an interview about his life experiences: Foner discusses his background as a political activist, musician, and teacher.
In the late 50s, Foner was partially responsible for arranging a merger with the meat cutters' union, a move which helped to insulate the formerly Communist-led furriers from further political attacks.
He discusses the political liabilities of the Communist presence in union leadership, and steps which Gold took to diffuse or preempt criticism.
He explains his own reasons for his engagement with the Liberal Party, and describes relations with politicians and labor leaders such as Lindsay, Ed Koch, David Dubinsky, Al Shanker, Victor Gotbaum, and Jack Sheinkman.
[8]Foner was the youngest of four brothers who became prominent in New York City: In 1948, he married Lorraine Lieberman (March 2, 1923 – April 22, 2002).
His obituary relates the following anecdote: In 2008, the morning after he underwent hip replacement surgery, Mr. Foner was visited in his hospital room by his surgeon.
"I expected the routine inquiry about my condition," Mr. Foner recalled, "and almost fell out of my bed when he asked me, as though he were talking to my body, 'Which side are you on?'"