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Gompers' Ghost
Judaism and the union movement engage a
University of Michigan student leader.
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Eric Oilier-Fink at a union meeting.
JON HALL
Special to The Jewish News
r
or Eric Odier-Fink, the 28-
year-old chief negotiator for
the union of teaching assis-
tants at the University of
Michigan, winning a new contract
this week brought tears, "because
somewhere deep inside me I felt I had
made a difference.
But the guitar-playing, Brooklyn-
born son of two lawyers said his labor
success may pale next to his growing
devotion to the principles of Judaism,
which he rediscovered over the past
several years even as he advanced his
labor career.
Both his organizing skills and his
Judaism have flourished since he
arrived in Ann Arbor in 1994 to pur-
sue a doctorate in sociology, and
joined the Graduate Employees
Organization. The GEO represents
1,400 of the 1,700 graduate student
instructors who teach hundreds of
undergraduate classes at the university.
"I try to lead as righteous a life ...
Jon Hall is a freelance writer
in Ann Arbor.
and try to do as much good as possi-
ble," said Odier-Fink.
His involvement in labor organiz-
ing included working with the New
Party while in school in Minnesota.
But Odier-Fink also found new
faith at Ann Arbor's Conservative
Beth Israel Congregation and rekin-
dled his Judaism, which he abandoned
after his bar mitzvah.
At the GEO, he rose from shop
steward to vice president. Along the
way, he protested in local labor dis-
putes, including the Detroit newspa-
per strike, and headed the GEO's
grievance committee.
Last fall, he became the GEO's
chief negotiator and helped work out
the three-year pact of salary increases
and other benefits that U-M officials
estimate could cost the university an
additional $3.65 million.
For Odier-Fink, activism runs in
the family.
His mother worked with the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC), a 1960s era civil rights group
that led sit-ins and freedom rides, and a
grandfather once led a strike.
"What you don't know," Odier-
Fink's father said, "is your (grandfa-
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Detroit Jewish News
3/19
1999
13