ILR and Friends Remember and Recommit to Lois Gray’s Legacy

On April 17, friends and colleagues of the late Lois Gray gathered at ILR’s New York City office to remember the life work of the beloved and respected labor leader. Organized by ILR’s The Worker Institute (WI) and Climate Jobs Institute (CJI), the event recognized labor leaders who emulate Gray’s legacy in their significant contributions to the worker rights movement. The event also aimed to remember Gray’s life and raise funds for the Lois Gray Labor Innovation Initiative, an endowment fund she set up at WI before her passing. People gathered to remember Gray, but as true students of hers, they remained fiercely focused on labor’s future fight.
“Professor Emerita Lois Gray was my friend, my colleague, and–like many people in this room–a mentor to me,” said Esta Bigler, director of Cornell ILR’s Labor and Employment Law Program and co-chair of the Cannabis Workforce Initiative. From behind the podium, Bigler apologized for her shot voice. “I'm getting over a cold, but you know, I would be here tonight if they had to bring me in on a stretcher.” 

One long, still, hot, weary September afternoon seven years prior, Bigler sat in a hospital waiting room. Beyond the double doors, 94-year-old Gray asked to see her. “Esta, I need to change my will.” Bigler phoned Gray’s lawyer–no answer. She phoned a fellow ILR grad lawyer–“Hello?” The lawyer rushed to the hospital, wrote down Gray’s changes, raced to Greenwich Village, typed them up and returned them to Gray. Gray then whipped out a red pen, marked up the paper, and sent the lawyer back to type the revisions. Draft in hand and with the sun sinking deeper into more distant and westerly horizons, Bigler pulled a stranger and another ILR colleague from the waiting room to serve as witnesses. They watched Lois sign before signing it themselves: a donation of $1 million to establish The Worker Institute’s Lois Gray Labor Innovation Initiative. 

“I am really so proud to be here tonight, honoring the life and legacy of my dear friend and mentor, Lois Gray,” said Roberta Reardon. “I was introduced to you tonight as New York State Department of Labor Commissioner, and that is a role that I am incredibly proud to fulfill, but I can tell you right now that I would not be standing here as Commissioner of Labor tonight without Lois Gray…Her influence in the many conversations that we had about leadership and labor activism over the years completely changed the trajectory of my life. And that's not an understatement.”
 

“Lois was not romantic about the labor movement. Not at all,” said Reardon. “She was very clear-eyed and understood what was at stake and what you had to do to go out there and win.”

Senior Extension Associate at WI and CJI, Jeff Grabelsky, remembered how “Toward the end of Lois' life, she continued to hold court, literally from her hospital bed. There was a steady stream of admirers who came to visit. On one of those visits, Lois asked me where Lara Skinner was. Lara is the executive director of our Climate Jobs Institute, and I told Lois that Lara was guiding a trip of union leaders to some distant land to learn more about how labor could lead the fight against the climate crisis. And I said to Lois, ‘Lara is keeping an important part of your legacy alive. Lois, these trips are just like the educational delegations that you led in the 1960s,’ and Lois looked up at me and responded with her remarkable and undiminished clarity, ‘Oh, no, the first trips we organized to Puerto Rico were in 1958.’”

“She was a brilliant, high-level academic mind toiling every day for the betterment of working people everywhere,” said Reardon. “She was a mentor to so many people in the labor universe, and I'm sure I'm looking at so many people in this room that would say the very same thing, because she touched our lives every day.”

As disciples of Gray–a woman who regularly commuted into the office at the age of 94–many attendees battled a tension. “Although we're celebrating Lois’ life and legacy here, I have this kind of voice in my head of what Lois, if she were here, would be telling me,” said Alex Colvin, ILR’s Kenneth F. Kahn ’69 Dean. “She'd probably start lecturing me and give me a hard time about spending too much time talking about her life, her legacy, and would want to hear more about what we're going to do moving forward.”

Balancing reflection with evolution, the event saw several awardees receive recognition for their continued efforts in areas that honored Gray’s own ferocious commitments. “Her passion was for the theatre and labor relations in the art and entertainment industry,” said Gray’s close friend and colleague, KC Wagner, who opened the awards ceremony. Sporting Gray’s signature crimson leather jacket, Wagner presented Al Vincent with the Arts and Entertainment Organizing Award. “Lois, with me as her sidekick, was an avid supporter of many Equity stages ranging from off-off Broadway to Broadway,” said Wagner, director of WI’s Equity at Work Initiative. 

The night’s awardees included:

• Al Vincent, executive director of the Actors' Equity Association, received the Arts and Entertainment Organizing Award.
• Leah Rambo, president of Nontraditional Employment for Women, received the Women’s Leadership Award.
• Chris Erikson, business manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 3 and chairman of IBEW International Executive Council, received the Union Building Award.
• Allison Julien, organizing director of We Dream in Black at The National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA); Namrata Pradhan, senior organizer for domestic workers at Adhikaar for Human Rights and Social Justice; and Jenn Stowe, executive director of NDWA, all received the Worker Training Innovation Award.
• Jimmy Williams Jr., national president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, received the Climate and Social Justice Award.

“Tonight is about celebrating what we all learned from Lois Gray. Her life example is being practiced every day by these leaders, who, with their commitment to impact, are carrying on a legacy of building worker power,” said Patricia Campos-Medina, executive director of WI and a close friend of the late Gray.

“I'm going to sort of cut through most of my remarks,” began Senior Associate Dean for Outreach and Sponsored Research Ariel Avgar. The event had run way over time thanks to the dozens of almost mythical-sounding stories about Gray’s life. “I was going to tell you about all the ways in which we're doing our very best to live up to Lois Gray's legacy, but I won't say all of that. What would Lois do in this moment? What would she tell us to do? What would her guidance be? I think she would tell us to stay bold and ambitious, even in the face of considerable threats and uncertainties. I'm sure she would tell us to continue to build bridges and join together with others to amplify our resilience and impact.”

“The impact you have on others is the best currency you leave behind,” said Campos-Medina. “Lois reminded me always: focus on your impact. Don’t get distracted by the noise.”

“Lois Gray left us a lot to live up to,” closed Avgar.  “We heard that from all of our speakers tonight, and I come away from this evening optimistic that we can do exactly that. Have a wonderful evening. Thank you all.”

And so remembrance won out on the day, a rare defeat for the tireless labor activists whose everyday hunger for progress, equality and a better tomorrow usually leaves no time for sentimentality–except for tonight, except to remember Lois Gray’s legacy at the Worker Institute and ILR.