SING IT SISTERS! - PEF member Claire Maida (back row, third from the left) and the New York City Labor Chorus inspire new generations of workers with the poignant, dramatic and joyous history of labor through its songs.
- Photo by Bruce Gilbert, courtesy of AFT

 

 

Heritage of union activism pours forth in member's songs with NYC Labor Chorus

For PEF Division 376 member Claire Maida singing in the New York City Labor Chorus is a great way to express her union spirit. Singing second soprano comes naturally to her, and so does union activism.

"It's in my blood," Maida says. "My mother was arrested when she took me in a baby carriage to organize vegetable workers in the Bensonhurst area of Brooklyn. She was an immigrant girl who used to make speeches, trying to organize the workers."

When her mother wasn't organizing, she was singing with Maida's father in a Jewish folk chorus. Maida sang in the Jewish Young Folk Singers' Chorus.

Singing Labor's song

Many decades later, Maida joined the Labor Chorus as a way to keep busy after her husband, Samuel Maida - a union member and iron sculptor - died nine years ago.

The chorus, which has more than 100 members representing 24 union locals, meets weekly for practice and performs an average of twice a month. The members have appeared at the United Nations and traveled to Sweden to sing. And they have an invitation to sing in Wales.

This spring, the chorus played Carnegie Hall to celebrate of the 100th anniversary of Paul Robeson's birth, where chorus members shared the stage with stars such as Harry Belafonte and Whoopi Goldberg.

Maida says Robeson's music and what it represents are near and dear to her heart, because, "I'm very pro-union, and I hate racism."
One song is especially meaningful for Maida.

"The 'Ballad for Americans' is an absolutely marvelous cantata," Maida says. "It's America, democracy. It's everything you believe in. It's an ode to what this country is supposed to be. The song talks about what America is - a mixture of people of different races, from different countries, from all walks of life and all kinds of jobs. It's very inspiring."

Learning and working
Just as music, work and labor activism were linked in her parents' lives, they are combined at the core of Maida's life today.

Maida is a vocational rehabilitation counselor for the state Education Department's Vocational and Educational Services to Individuals with Disabilities (VESID) in PEF Region 11.

It's a position she worked hard to achieve. Maida attended college at night, for 14 years, while working full time. She received her bachelor's degree from Hunter College and her master's in vocational counseling in community agencies from NY University.

52 years of unionism
Maida joined her first union in 1947, when she got her first job. She joined the Civil Service Employees Association in 1965, and has been a member of PEF since its inception in 1978.

Maida is a former shop steward who didn't want to take over the currently open position at Division 376 because she feels, "someone younger should take the position. I'm 68 years old."

She wants younger members more involved in the union, but Maida wishes they knew more about the history of the labor movement.

"The younger generation takes everything for granted and thinks that they'll always have those benefits," Maida says. "They don't realize that those benefits were achieved by union member's heads being broken on picket lines; by people being murdered."

Maida sees singing in the Labor Chorus as a great way to energize her fellow union members.
"The chorus is my way of contributing by bringing people back into union activism," Maida says. "When we sing at a union meetings, people are aroused and inspired. It's a wonderful motivator."

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