David Dubinsky was one of the most important American labor leaders of the twentieth century, the longtime president of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union who helped transform the labor movement and left a deep mark on liberal politics. Born in Russian-ruled Poland, he became involved in the labor movement as a youth, was arrested and exiled by the tsarist authorities, and emigrated to the United States, where he found work as a garment cutter in New York.
Rising through the ranks of his union, Dubinsky became president of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union in 1932 and led it for more than three decades. Under his leadership the union grew into a powerful and innovative organization, winning better wages and conditions for hundreds of thousands of mostly immigrant workers and pioneering benefits such as health centers, housing, and retraining programs.
A committed anti-communist as well as a militant trade unionist, Dubinsky worked to keep the labor movement free of communist influence. He was a key figure in the broader union world, helping to found the Congress of Industrial Organizations and later working to reunite it with the older American Federation of Labor.
Dubinsky was also deeply involved in reform politics, helping to create new political parties in New York to give labor and liberals an independent voice. A colorful, energetic, and incorruptible figure, he remained a force in American labor and politics until his retirement, and died in 1982, remembered as a builder of the modern union movement.