Hotel Trades Council President Jay Rubin prepares to sign the first contract covering New York’s hotel industry, January 18, 1939. This important photograph of the signing of “the first contract” may lack artistic distinction, but it more than makes up for it with the distinction of the persons it shows. Seated next to Rubin are Father John P. Boland, Chairman of the New York State Labor Relations Board and Martin Sweeny, Acting President of the Hotel Association. Among the union and industry negotiators and well-wishers behind them are Union Attorney Sidney E. Cohn, Manhattan Borough President Stanley M. Isaac; Anna Rosenberg, Regional Director of the Social Security Board; Newbold Morris, president of the New York City Council; Edward P. Fiore, General President of the Hotel and Restaurant International Union; Elinore M. Herrick, Regional Director of the National Labor Relations Board; Local 6 President Miguel Garriga and James A. McCarthy, Executive secretary of the Hotel Association. The signing of the contract was a news-maker of the day.

Image courtesy of HERE, the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees union.

See the LaborArts exhibit Labor Pains:  The Birth of a Contract for related images.