The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“TRIBUTE TO IDA KLAUS” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Labor was published in the Senate section on pages S6083-S6084 on May 26, 1999.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
TRIBUTE TO IDA KLAUS
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, just days ago Ida Klaus, properly described as a ``labor law pioneer,'' died at the age of 94. I had the great privilege of working with her in the Kennedy Administration in 1961 when she advised us on the development of Executive Order 10988,
``Employee-Management Cooperation in the Federal Service,'' a defining event in the history of federal employment. She was a brilliant person, warm and concerned for others in a way that made possible her great achievements.
Mr. President, I ask that her obituary from The New York Times of May 20, 1999 be printed in the Record.
The obituary follows:
Ida Klaus, 94, Labor Lawyer For U.S. and New York, Dies
(By Nick Ravo)
Ida Klaus, a labor law pioneer who became a high-ranking New York City official in the 1950's and who wrote the law that gave city employees the right to bargain collectively, died on Monday at her home in Manhattan. She was 94.
Ms. Klaus was a lifelong labor advocate whose sympathy for the working classes was instilled in her by her mother. As a young child growing up in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, she helped give free food from the family grocery to striking factory workers.
She organized her first union while still in her teens. She was one of three college women working as a waitress in the summer with several professional waiters at the Gross & Baum Hotel in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. One day, she heard that the hotel planned to lay off some of the waiters.
``I don't known where I got the nerve, but I said, `Let's get together and have a meeting,' '' she said in a 1974 interview in The New York Times.
Ms. Klaus became the spokeswoman for the waiters and waitresses, and told the hotel management that if anyone was discharged, they would all go.
``At which point, Mr. Baum said he knew he shouldn't have hired college girls,'' she recalled. ``But he didn't fire anyone.''
Ms. Klaus's desire to become a lawyer also derived from the experience of watching her mother battle the court system for 10 years over her husband's estate.
But after graduating from Hunter College and, in 1925, from the Teachers Institute of Jewish Theological Seminary of America, now the Albert A. List College, she was denied admission to Columbia University Law School because she was a woman.
She taught Hebrew until 1928, when she was admitted to the law school with the first class to accept women. She received her law degree in 1931.
After graduation, Ms. Klaus worked as a review lawyer for the National Labor Relations Board in Washington. In 1948, she took the post of solicitor for the National Labor Relations Board, a position that made her the highest-ranking female lawyer in the Federal Government.
In 1954, she was hired as counsel to the New York City Department of Labor under Mayor Robert F. Wagner. She became known as the author of the so-called Little Wagner Act, the city version of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, which recognized workers' rights to organize and bargain collectively through unions of their choosing. The Federal Wagner Act was named for the Mayor's father, Senator Robert F. Wagner.
She also wrote Mayor Wagner's executive order creating the first detailed code of labor relations for city employees.
``She is one of the pioneers and champions of bringing law and order into labor relations,'' said Robert S. Rifkin, a lawyer and longtime friend whose father, Simon H. Rifkin, was a law clerk for Ms. Klaus. ``She believed labor relations ought not to be under the rule of tooth and claw.''
Ms. Klaus briefly worked in the Kennedy Administration in 1961 as a consultant for the first labor relations task force for Federal employees.
She returned to New York in 1962 as director of staff relations for the Board of Education, where she negotiated what was reported to be the first citywide teachers' contract in the country.
She left in 1975 to become a private arbitrator. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed her one of the three negotiators in the Long Island Rail Road strike.
Ms. Klaus, was born on Jan. 8, 1905, received Columbia Law School's Medal for excellence in 1996, and an honorary doctorate in 1994 from the Jewish Theological Seminary.
No close relatives survive.
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