The Deeper Meaning of Labor Day and How I Accidentally Rediscovered My Grandfather in Law School 

As a child, I puzzled about a sign on my maternal grandfather’s desk, located in his den that was itself roughly the size of a shoebox. His den, both a magnet and a mystery to me, was cluttered with old books, important-looking papers, and a narrow but fascinating sign perched above his old metallic desk. On it were the words: “ThiMk before you speak.” I never felt comfortable asking grandpa about his misspelled desk sign. 

Was it simply due to his Polish Russian accent, or a deliberate joke? Perhaps a deliberate pun—like a reminder to pause before you speak and get it right. Years later, while in law school, grandpa’s “ThiMk before you Speak” desk sign took on a new and profound meaning. 

For many Americans, Labor Day means a final summer trip, waning barbecue weather, and getting ready for school. For me, it brings to mind grandpa’s important role in securing rights for union members who were victimized by corrupt or abusive union leaders. And for myself and my children, this holiday shapes our values and drives our volunteerism and pursuit to increase access to justice. But I might have never known that aspect of his life, had it not been for an unexpected event during my last year of law school when I was reintroduced to my own grandfather—in a very different context. 

That year on the first day of my labor law class, I encountered the landmark case of Salzhandler v. Caputo, 16 F.2d 445 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 32 U.S.L. WEEK 3213 (U.S. Dec. 9, 1963). Prior to that moment I did not know anything about grandpa’s David-vs.-Goliath story. Before I go into that, it will help to know a little more about the man he was. 

Grandpa Sol (whom we knew by his Yiddish nickname) was a house painter as well as the financial secretary for the painters’ union. In the early 1960s, he risked his livelihood and physical safety in an effort to stop what he believed was ongoing financial wrongdoing and theft by corrupt senior union officers in Brooklyn, New York. I knew him only as grandpa—I didn’t know the plaintiff, appellant, and respondent whose case was petitioned to the U.S. Supreme Court. I didn’t know the litigant who successfully set precedent allowing labor union members to challenge union officials without the same retaliatory career-ending and financial damnation that my grandfather ultimately suffered. 

He served as the union’s financial secretary, a position to which had been regularly reelected, and took great pride in his service. After a change of top union officers, grandpa’s mandatory yearly audits revealed what he believed to be disturbing financial revelations about the local union’s president and perhaps others. He confronted the union president and other union officials through the proper channels, but it cost him his job, income, and physical health. 

Grandpa tried without success through proper channels to get the funds repaid by the union officials whom he believed had blatantly misused them. He provided ample documentation to back his audited claims. When those efforts were ignored and rebuffed, he bravely and publicly called the union officials out at their meetings and distributed pamphlets and flyers accusing them of theft. The union president in 1961 accused my grandfather of libel and handpicked a panel for a union hearing which blackballed Grandpa Sol, at age 61, from his union position, union activities, and union presence, for five years. Making things worse, grandpa was deliberately and effectively deprived of his livelihood as a house painter and wallpaper hanger for the rest of his life. The union internal hearing to dismiss my grandfather relied, of course, on its own iron clad union rules and its constitution, which were skewed to prohibit challenges. Grandpa next filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court challenging the union board’s dismissal. He once again relied on the union’s own rules and constitution, but his case was dismissed.  

Even after suffering a disabling stroke, grandpa would not give up. He appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, claiming the union and its officials were hiding behind their own self-serving rules. 

The Second Circuit approached the case quite differently, and in 1963 found in favor of my grandfather. It reversed the earlier decision and returned the case back to the U.S. District Court to award damages. The local and international union heads sought to prolong the matter and protect their “practices” and decision to remove grandpa by seeking intervention and relief by the U.S. Supreme Court. In December 1963, almost a year to the day before my grandpa died, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case, leaving the precedential ruling of the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to stand, which is still cited to this day. 

Seeing grandpa’s case in my labor law case study text was and still is a turning point. After reading the federal Court of Appeals opinion in his case, I began to see how my grandpa Solomon was a man who by “thiMking” before he spoke, truly stood up for his principles. And now his progeny continue to speak out on behalf of those without a voice.