But his education was curtailed by World War II. (He would eventually receive a bachelor of science degree in 1983, from the Harry Van Arsdale Jr. Center for Labor Studies of Empire State College.) Enlisting as a merchant seaman, he served as a radio operator. He was the last surviving member of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s executive council to have served in World War II, said Michael Sacco, president of the Seafarers International Union.
Mr. Bahr married his girlfriend, Florence Slobodow, during a shore leave in 1945. After returning to sea, he received a message in October 1946 that his wife had given birth to a son. In a memoir, “From the Telegraph to the Internet” (1998), he wrote that when he finally returned home, he told her that he wanted to make one more voyage. “Go ahead,” she replied, “but the baby and I won’t be here when you return.”
Instead, given his shipboard experience, she referred him to a newspaper advertisement for a job opening at Mackay Radio and Telegraph Company in New York, where he became a telegraph operator.
After a strike there in 1951 crippled the American Communications Association, a loose federation of unions, Mr. Bahr joined the newly constituted Communication Workers. He became an organizer at McKay, which became American Cable Radio, and in 1954 was elected to lead Local 1172 in New York.
He later organized about 24,000 workers of New York Telephone (now Verizon). As vice president of the union’s regional New York-New Jersey district, he led a 218-day strike against New York Telephone in 1971. That walkout empowered the union in negotiations with ATT three years later.
After he retired in 2005, Mr. Bahr was on the board of the National Housing Partnership Foundation.
In addition to his son, he is survived by his wife; his daughter, Janice Bahr; four grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/06/business/media/morton-bahr-dead.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
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