Merrilee Milstein
Merrilee Milstein, a life-long advocate for worker rights and civil rights, passed away on Monday (June 9, 2008) at age 61, after a long battle with cancer. Beginning as far back as high school she developed a deep commitment to empowering the powerless She worked within progressive movements, especially the labor movement, and on political campaigns both in Connecticut and nationally over the course of her career.
Ruth Pulda
Ruth L. Pulda, ... Leader, educator, mentor and advocate to a generation of Connecticut lawyers and on behalf of women's rights, civil rights and social justice. Ruth's law career spanned twenty-five years as a named partner in the "plucky little law firm" of Livingston, Adler, Pulda, Meiklejohn and Kelly. She loved a good fight and won more than she lost. She has been recognized by the Connecticut Bar as one of the top lawyers in Connecticut and received two awards very important to her life's work: The Elizabeth Blackwell Award from Connecticut N.O.W. in 2003 for her "tenacious commitment for health care for women" and the 2006 One Woman Making a Difference award from CWEALF (CT's Womens' Education and Legal Fund).
Sam Goldberger
Sam Goldberger, ... After teaching briefly at Brooklyn College and conducting graduate research in Hungary, he taught history at Capital Community College for 33 years, retiring in 1993. Hundreds of former students remember him fondly as a professor, and he particularly enjoyed advising student clubs. In his retirement he fulfilled a lifelong dream to travel widely in the Middle East and Asia and research his family roots in Hungary. Sam was a member of the West Hartford Democratic Town Committee, a Justice of the Peace, and active in We Refuse to Be Enemies, Greater Hartford PFLAG, and many other interfaith and peace organizations and movements.
Ruth Pulda, Merilee Milstein Die; Advocated Women's, Workers' Rights
By MARK PAZNIOKAS | Courant Staff Writer June 11, 2008
Ruth L. Pulda and Merrilee H. Milstein died Monday, each after long battles with cancer. They did not go gently. It was not their way.
One was a lawyer and the other a union organizer. They lived intersecting lives, each a player in the close confines of Connecticut progressive politics.
Pulda, 53, of West Hartford, was a feminist and a labor lawyer. She represented whistle-blowers, taught law and advised legislators on women's issues.
Milstein, 61, of Hartford, was a one-time banquet waitress who organized her fellow hotel and restaurant workers, then joined with Jerome P. Brown to build District 1199 of the New England Health Care Employees into a political and labor power.
They are survived by husbands, children and overlapping circles of friends.
Each knew governors and senators and commissioners, aiding some and afflicting others. Both were smart, funny and feisty.
Pulda fought cancer and insurers four years ago when she discovered that her health insurance refused to pay for a wig after chemotherapy.
"She was in a rage," recalled her friend, the lobbyist Betty Gallo. "I told her, 'You know people who can fix this.'"
And they did.
At her insistence, legislators drafted a bill mandating coverage for wigs. Pulda testified at a public hearing. She witnessed Gov. John G. Rowland in a ceremonial bill-signing June 2, 2004, one of his last public acts before resigning.
"I tell people, the law is not about hair," Pulda said at the time. "It is about providing cancer patients with a modicum of dignity."
A non-smoker, she was diagnosed a year earlier with advanced lung cancer. Gallo said she outlived her prognosis by four years, long enough to see her sons into high school.
Pulda is survived by her husband, Howard Rifkin, a deputy state treasurer and a former legal counsel to Gov. William A. O'Neill. They have two boys, David and Caleb Pulda-Rifkin.
She was a former chairwoman of the Permanent Commission on the Status of Women and advised the Connecticut Women's Education and Legal Fund. She co-founded and taught at the women's rights clinic at the University of Connecticut School of Law.
Pulda was a partner at Livingston, Adler, Pulda, Meiklejohn and Kelly. One of her partners represents the bargaining coalition of unionized state employees.
Pulda shaped legislation, notably a law protecting access to abortion clinics, and sued the Rowland administration in defense of a Department of Environmental Protection lawyer who claimed that her free speech rights were violated.
She died at the hospice unit of St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford.
A Labor Pioneer
Milstein was a pioneer in organized labor, which still was a heavily male world in the 1970s. Her union made great inroads organizing nursing homes, whose female workforce of nurse's aides and housekeepers had been neglected by labor.
"She taught me a great deal," said Brown, the former president of 1199 who hired Milstein as an organizer.
Brown said women opened up to Milstein. But for all her sensitivity in reaching out to low-paid female workers, Milstein was a loud and passionate presence on picket lines. One colleague, Bob Tessier, thought Milstein might hold the record for picket-line arrests.
"She was close to it," Brown recalled, chuckling softly. "She was feisty. Merrilee would stand up. There was a lot there."
Milstein, who also had overseen the union's political action operation, was hired away from 1199 in 1995 by the new secretary of the state, Miles Rapoport. She became his deputy.
She returned to the labor movement in January 1997, accepting a top regional post in the Northeast with the AFL-CIO. (She was succeeded as Rapoport's deputy by Pulda's husband, Rifkin.) On vacation several years ago in the West, Milstein ended up as an impromptu speaker at a rally for striking coal workers.
"You are so united and so strong," she said. "Your solidarity really is impressive to watch. I know you will win."
She was diagnosed with a form of pancreatic cancer several years ago, Brown said. Treatment seemed a success. She marked being cancer-free with a party at the West End home she shared with her husband, Brian Steinberg, an educator, musician and activist.
"There were 200 or 300 people," Brown said. "It was a celebration."
John Olsen, the Connecticut AFL-CIO president, said Milstein always had a cause.
"She never stopped," Olsen said.
The cancer returned.
Milstein attended a small wedding service recently for her daughter, Jane. Friends said she died in Chicago, where she had gone to attend a belated wedding reception for Jane.
A funeral for Pulda is today at 9:30 a.m. at Beth El Temple, 2626 Albany Ave., West Hartford.
Milstein will be remembered at a service Thursday at 3 p.m. at the United Auto Workers Hall, 111 South Road, Farmington.
Contact Mark Pazniokas at mpazniokas@courant.com.
