Jonah Feitelson '11
Labor Attorney
Jonah Feitelson is a labor lawyer and former organizer who has spent his career building working people's power through unions.
He currently works for the New York State United Teachers, where he represents NYSUT’s local unions and their 700,000 members, including educators, healthcare workers, and school staff.
He currently works for the New York State United Teachers, where he represents NYSUT’s local unions and their 700,000 members, including educators, healthcare workers, and school staff.
Jonah became involved in the labor movement after college, working as a union organizer with UNITE HERE and organizing alongside hotel workers in Washington, D.C., to win fair wages, healthcare, and workplace rights and to elect pro-labor candidates to public office. Through this work, Jonah has experienced first-hand the power of solidarity and collective action and gained a lifelong commitment to worker organizing. He also saw the legal and economic structures that work to defeat this collective power and protect those with wealth and privilege instead of those most in need.
After four years of organizing, Jonah decided to go to law school, (foolishly) believing it might be a way to address the gross iniquities so prevalent in our legal system. He was mostly wrong. Still, his current work at NYSUT gives him the chance to support great organizers and courageous workers, negotiate strong union contracts, and hold employers “accountable” for violating workers’ labor and employment rights (and yet they still keep doing it!?). Jonah remains committed to the labor movement and to organizing for an equitable and just economy.
