The Worker Institute’s Ed Vargas Labor Community Legacy Fund seeks to honor the life and legacy of Ed Vargas, a veteran labor leader in New York City with more than 40 years of commitment to economic, political, and social justice for working families in New York, nationally, and internationally.
Ed started his career as an organizer for the ILGWU, Local 23-25, and held many positions in its successor unions. At the end of his long career, he served as Director of Labor Relations at the New York State Department of Labor. Throughout, he was a charismatic political leader who was active in labor and Latino efforts, and he was known for spearheading the annual ceremony honoring the victims of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire over many decades. He always uplifted working families and Latino communities and leaders in New York City and New York State, and he was proud to work with his lifelong friend, Luis Garden Acosta, as a founding Board officer of El Puente, a social and environmental justice organization Garden Acosta located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Ed was a proud native of the Ft. Greene Projects (Ingersoll Houses) in downtown Brooklyn and was a Vietnam Era veteran of the U.S. Air Force.
The purpose of the Worker Institute’s Ed Vargas Labor Community Legacy Fund is to continue Ed’s work bringing community and labor together to advance economic and social justice for workers. The scholarship will support leaders from El Puente selected by the fund’s representatives to attend the NYS AFL-CIO Cornell Union Leadership Institute annually. Funds will also be used to offer additional training opportunities for community leaders at El Puente and other Latino-serving, community-based organizations in New York City, enhancing their critical skills for building networks and strengthening communities and workers’ rights.
In this way, the Ed Vargas Labor Community Legacy Fund will reflect Ed’s core values, linking his love of community and mentoring young leaders to his commitment to the labor movement in New York and beyond.
Co-Sponsored:
