83 Facts About Ben Gold

Benjamin Gold was an American labor leader and Communist Party member who was president of the International Fur and Leather Workers Union from 1937 to 1955.

Ben Gold was born September 8,1898, to Israel and Sarah Gold, Jews living in Bessarabia, a province of the Russian Empire.

Ben Gold's father was a jeweler, active in the revolutionary movement and a member of the local Jewish self-defense corps, institutions which existed in many towns as a precaution against pogroms launched by anti-semitic Black Hundreds groups.

The Golds emigrated to the United States in 1910, where 12-year-old Ben took a variety of jobs to help support his family, working in box factories, making pocketbooks, and working in millinery shops.

Ben Gold eventually became an operator in a fur shop.

Ben Gold attended Manhattan Preparatory School at night to complete his education, intending to go to law school.

Politically active, Ben Gold joined the Socialist Party of America in 1916.

In 1919, at the age of 21, Ben Gold was elected to the New York Furriers' Joint Board, a council of furriers' unions whose jurisdiction covered all of New York City.

Ben Gold was an occasional political candidate of the Communist movement, running for US Congress in the 23rd Congressional District of New York in 1928.

In 1924, Ben Gold was suspended from the Furriers for engaging in dual unionism because of his activities on behalf of the Communist Party of America.

Ben Gold was reinstated in 1925, and appointed manager of the New York Furriers' Joint Board.

In 1926, Ben Gold led a massive furriers' strike in New York City.

Only when Ben Gold ordered the picket to break up were law enforcement authorities able to regain control; 125 workers arrested.

Ben Gold agreed to a five-day, 40-hour work week; equal division of work; no subcontracting; and a 10 percent wage increase.

In retaliation for Shachtman and Green's attempt to end-run the local leadership, and to increase pressure on the employers, Ben Gold asked the Joint Board to initiate a drive for the 40-hour work week which would involve every union in the city.

Ben Gold denounced labor leaders who did not attend, and declared that winning the 40-hour work week in New York City would lead to a nationwide movement which would gain the limitation throughout the nation.

Ben Gold spoke at every union hall in the city within four days of the revelation of the fiscal crisis.

On July 19,1926, President Green sent a letter to Ben Gold demanding that the Joint Board turn over all books, papers, ledgers and materials related to the conduct of the strike.

Ben Gold's trial opened on March 30,1927, as his trial for assault continued on Long Island and the AFL-dominated Joint Council was attempting to take over the fur unions in New York City.

Ben Gold personally led mass pickets and protests in the fur district of New York City in late March 1927.

The AFL attempted to undercut the Joint Board by releasing statements that the Ben Gold-led union was seeking a "peace treaty" with the Joint Council, while accusing the Joint Board of coercing workers into joining.

Ben Gold began threatening a new strike to force the employers to honor the terms of the 1926 contract and win recognition of the Joint Board again.

In confidential talks with the New York City police, the AFL conceded that Ben Gold's union had the support of the workers and that the only way to defeat the "Red-led" union was a massive show of police force which would intimidate the strikers.

The extreme police response led Ben Gold to call strike after strike, most of which were broken up by police attacks on peaceful picketers and which led to scores of arrests and jail sentences.

The Joint Council lost most of its support, and the Ben Gold-led Joint Board received recognition by companies employing a majority of workers in the fur district.

Ben Gold delivered an impassioned speech in which he denounced the attacks on the political views of the Joint Board's leadership, argued that the union should be spending its money building solidarity and fighting employers, and pushed for strong internal democratic procedures in the IFWU.

Ben Gold met with the leaders of eight non-New York City fur workers' locals as well as a left-wing group of fur workers who were attempting to disaffiliate from what remained of the Joint Council.

Louis Hyman was elected President, and Ben Gold was elected Secretary-Treasurer.

Ben Gold, leading the fur workers' division of the NTWIU, led a series of counter-protests and marches through the fur district in May and June 1933.

Ben Gold actively involved members in "trials" of union members who had used racist language or engaged in discriminatory behavior, and his efforts were largely successful in weeding racism out of the union.

Ben Gold was appointed to the panel crafting the Fur Industry Code, and on July 21,1933, the panel established a preliminary "blanket code" providing a 40-hour week and a minimum wage of $14 a week.

In late 1933, Ben Gold served a brief prison sentence after having been arrested for participating in a hunger march in Wilmington, Delaware.

Catholic social activist Dorothy Day herself encouraged Ben Gold to participate in a march from New York City to Washington, DC Ben Gold was one of 315 marchers who left New York City on November 29,1932, bound for Washington.

Ben Gold was convicted of incitement to riot, and served a brief prison term in Wilmington in late 1933 and early 1934.

Ben Gold participated in additional hunger marches in 1933 and 1934, and was arrested again in Albany, New York, in late October 1934.

In 1934 and 1935, Ben Gold led the garment and fur workers in two successful strikes which propelled his union into a merger with the IFWU.

Ben Gold asserted in August 1934 that the IFWU was in financial trouble and had too few members to ensure viability, but the IFWU denied his claims.

Ben Gold was elected to his old position of business manager of the Joint Council on August 10,1935, defeating a candidate put forth by the AFL by a greater than 2-to-1 majority.

Ben Gold was business manager of the New York City Joint Council for two years.

So, despite overwhelming member support, Ben Gold had to wait to run for president of the IFWU.

Ben Gold faced a difficult task: In just six months, he had to rebuild the locals which had remained with the IFWU while preparing the union for a strike in the depths of a depression.

Ben Gold led a number of organizing drives among fur and garment workers in New York City, so that by May 1937 the union had nearly 35,000 members.

Ben Gold was convicted of violating the Sherman Antitrust Act and sentenced to one year in prison.

Ben Gold was elected president of the International Fur Workers Union in May 1937.

Immediately after his election, Ben Gold disaffiliated the IFWU from the American Federation of Labor and joined the Congress of Industrial Organizations.

The change in affiliation was driven almost solely by Ben Gold, and shocked the members of the union.

Moderates within the IFWU denounced Ben Gold for using "Hitler methods" to retain power, and pleaded with Lewis to intervene.

Ben Gold continued to pursue an aggressive collective bargaining policy until the beginning of World War II.

The protests, rallies and spot strikes continued as Ben Gold pushed to organize the remaining fur shops in New York City.

Infuriated, Ben Gold ordered all the union's members out into the streets.

Ben Gold was elected the president of the newly amalgamated union, which adopted "International Fur and Leather Workers Union of the United States and Canada" as its new name.

Ben Gold applauded Lewis' refusal to endorse Franklin D Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential election, but unlike Lewis did not endorse Wendell Willkie or Montana Senator Burton K Wheeler.

Ben Gold readily agreed to the seven-day work week after the United States declared war on Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan, sent aid to the Republic of China, and implemented a campaign to donate 50,000 fur-lined vests to British sailors as part of the war effort.

The Board's order was vigorously opposed by employers, and Ben Gold used the dispute as leverage to win a new collective bargaining agreement.

The new agreement did not without a price as Ben Gold was forced to threaten to break his union's war-time pledge not to strike.

Ben Gold strongly advocated a third political party which would more strongly support unions and working-class Americans.

In 1948, Soviet leaders ordered American communists to support the third party candidacy of Wallace against incumbent President Harry S Truman, and Gold actively supported Wallace despite the CIO's refusal to do so.

Ben Gold was president of the American Jewish Labor Council in 1948.

In March 1948, Ben Gold led a parade of 10,000 people in a parade and rally to support the emerging Jewish state.

Ben Gold was an active member in the Communist Party, and rose to important positions within its ranks by the late 1940s.

Ben Gold changed his mind a few days later, and followed the party line.

Ben Gold declared the affidavit and increasingly anti-communist atmosphere a threat to the survival of the IFLWU, and sought contract language which would lock in employer recognition of the union if its leaders failed to sign the oath.

Ben Gold denounced and denied the testimony of the employers, proudly declaring that he had been a member of the Communist Party for nearly a quarter century.

Over Ben Gold's protests, the CIO expelled the Greater New York CIO Council, of which the IFLWU's Joint Council was a member, in November 1948.

Ben Gold began fighting a drive at the national level of the CIO to expel all communist-led or communist-dominated unions.

The attacks on Ben Gold's politics had collective bargaining consequences as well.

Ben Gold told delegates to the union's convention in May 1950 that the communist political views of the union's leadership could cause the organization much difficulty, yet he defied the CIO and urged a united union front rather than caving in to redbaiting political pressure.

Ben Gold resigned from the Communist Party on August 24,1950, and signed the Taft-Hartley oath.

The Justice Department argued that Ben Gold had not really resigned, and indicted him for perjury in August 1953 one day before the statute of limitations ran out.

At trial, Ben Gold was charged with three counts of perjury.

Ben Gold was accused of continuing to be a member of the Communist Party; accused of being affiliated with Communist party; and accused of being a supporter of an organization which advocated the overthrow of the United States government by force, illegal means, or unconstitutional methods.

Nonetheless, Ben Gold was convicted on the "membership" and "supporting" counts, and sentence to 1 to 3 years in prison.

Ben Gold appealed, and his conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court of the United States.

Ben Gold raised six grounds for reversal: 1) The trial court refused to apply the rules of evidence for perjury to the case; 2) The circumstantial evidence offered at trial was not sufficient to convict him under the rules of evidence; 3) The trial court's instructions to the jury regarding the definition of "support" were unsupported by law or common usage; 4) The trial court erred in permitting expert testimony regarding his resignation (e.

Gold appealed to the US Supreme Court, which overturned his conviction in Gold v United States, 352 US 985.

Ben Gold told the grand jurors that he was Gold's attorney and that he was trying to learn the effect of the federal government's loyalty program on federal employees.

Ben Gold was re-elected as IFLWU president in May 1954 despite his conviction for perjury.

Ben Gold died on July 24,1985, at his home in North Miami Beach, Florida.

At the height of his career as a labor leader, Ben Gold resided in The Bronx, where he ran unsuccessfully for judge in 1928; he received one of the lowest vote-totals in the history of New York state judicial elections.

Ben Gold ran for the New York State Assembly in 1931 and 1936, and for president of the New York City Board of Aldermen in 1933.

Ben Gold ran for justice of the New York Supreme Court in 1932.

Ben Gold himself appears as a character in the fiction novel Union Square.

Ben Gold appears as a character in the stage play I'm Not Rappaport.