Bruce C. Jett Joins UFCW Local 464A as Director of Organizing

6/16/2009 Citing President John T. Niccollai’s goal of aiding all members by growing UFCW Local 464A, new Director of Organizing, Bruce C. Jett, has developed an ambitious campaign to communicate the benefits of union membership to workers who have yet to join the Local.

Jett brings a broad organizing background to his new position. He took his first union represented job as an advertising sales representative at the New York Daily News in 1987. In that role he became a member of the New York Newspaper Guild, a union which soon became embroiled in a labor action against the Tribune Company. That action resulted in a six-month strike that brought better benefits and increased job security to Guild members. “Seeing what that strike accomplished for the union members crystallized for me what I wanted to do for the rest of my career.”

Bruce C. Jett, Organizing Director

In 1991 Jett became Chairman of the Affirmative Action Committee of the Daily News Unit of the Newspaper Guild. That was followed in 1992 by his election as Chapter Chairman of the Unit supporting 900 editorial and commercial workers. As Chapter Chairman he also became a member of the Guild’s Executive Board where he remained through 1995 and participated in union negotiations during the financing of the Daily News purchase by publisher Mortimer Zuckerman. 

From 1995 to 1999 Jett served as Contract Administrator, Representative and Organizer for the Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR) of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). In this role he represented doctors employed by the Westchester Medical Center, Jacobi Hospital in the Bronx, Harlem Hospital, North General Hospital and Brooklyn’s Woodhull Hospital.

After relocating to Virginia in 1999, Jett joined the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFCME) as a Project Staff Organizer. Over a ten-year period he traveled throughout the United States organizing workers culminating in his ascension to the position of Area Field Service Director.

Seeking a chance to organize workers in the New York/ New Jersey region, he pursued the Organizing Director position at UFCW Local 464A. “I am eager to help Local 464A grow its membership. As President Niccollai says, ‘There is no standing still, we are either moving forward or falling back.’ Members and prospective members can contact Bruce at 973.256.6790. Also see www.ufcw464a.org/organizing