In 2006, Jonathan Tasini ran for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in New York, primarily to give voice to the many New Yorkers who opposed the disastrous Iraq War and occupation. After the primary, Jonathan returned immediately to his long-time passion—working to build the labor movement—and was hired as the executive director of Labor Research Association, a non-profit that works with unions and other workers’ movements on strategy, communications and policy.
He announced early in 2009 that he will enter the Democratic Party primary in 2010 for the seat currently being held by Kirsten Gillibrand.
Jonathan Tasini has been a union leader and organizer, a social activist and a commentator on work, labor and the economy. From 1990 to April 2003, he served as president of the National Writers Union (United Auto Workers Local 1981); he remains the union’s president emeritus.
During Jonathan’s stewardship of the union, he envisioned a broad coalition of creators groups that could work in unison to further the rights of all creative workers and advance benefits such as health insurance; indeed, his close-up experience with the health insurance crisis for creative workers inspired him to make Medicare For All a central plank of his Senate campaign. To accomplish his dream of a nationwide creators’ movement, he left the NWU in 2003 to found the Creators Federation.
For the last twenty years, he has written about labor and economics for a variety of newspapers and magazines including The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Business Week, The Washington Post, The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal. He is the author of two books: "The Edifice Complex: Rebuilding the American Labor Movement to Face the Global Economy," a critique and prescriptive analysis of the labor movement (1995); and "They Get Cake, We Eat Crumbs: The Real Story Behind Today's Unfair Economy," an average reader's guide to the economy (1997). Jonathan also created, runs and writes every day on his regular blog called Working Life, which explores the economy and the labor movement.
Born in Houston, Texas in 1956, Jonathan spent his early childhood years in New York State, first living in Poughkeepsie and, then, moving to Westchester County in 1961. His parents were both immigrants: his mother was born in Poland, fleeing the Nazis with her family during World War II. His father was born in Palestine, which would become the state of Israel.
In 1971, Jonathan moved to Israel where he completed high school and two years of college. In Israel, he was involved in the labor federation’s political activities, as well as the early flowering of a serious debate about peace between Israel and its neighbors. He studied for two years at Tel-Aviv University.
In 1978, he returned to the U.S., relocating to Los Angeles where he finished a degree in political science at the University of California, Los Angeles (U.C.L.A.).