Lillian Roberts, former state labor commissioner, District Council 37 executive director, dies 

Lillian Roberts, the first Black commissioner of the New York State Department of Labor and District Council 37’s executive director from 2002 to 2014 died July 9, her union announced last week. 

A trailblazer, union activist and rehabilitator of the largest union of New York City’s municipal workers, Roberts' union activism began at the age of 19 in 1947 as one of the first Black nurse’s aides where she quickly became an organizer, advocate for her fellow workers and shop steward. Roberts stood alongside her coworkers University of Chicago Hospital as secretary of a local of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, a union to which she would devote much of her adult life.  

In 1957, Victor Gotbaum recruited Roberts to organize hospital workers in Chicago, and she later joined Gotbaum to build DC 37 in New York, then with just 30,000 members. In the 1960's, Roberts led a strike at three of New York's mental hospitals, in volition of state labor law, which led to a two-week stint in jail, ending on Dec. 24, 1968.

"Her leadership at DC 37 and across AFSCME left a lasting mark on this union and on generations of labor leaders who followed her,” Lee Saunders, the president of AFSCME, wrote in a message to members after Roberts’ passing.  

In 1981, she was appointed New York State Labor Commissioner, then called industrial commissioner, becoming the first Black woman to hold the post in New York. She was also a founding member of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists

In the late 1990s, a series of corruption scandals, including vote rigging and embezzlement, rocked DC 37, leading to the departure of executive director Stanley Hill, Gotbaum's successor, as well as the union's takeover by AFSCME.

After three years of administratorship led by Saunders, the union's old guard chose Roberts to run the union, which she did as executive director from 2002 to 2014. Though the union would not be what it was in the militant 1960's, Roberts returned a measure of stability to the municipal behemoth.

However, she never instituted one-member-one vote for the union's top officers, as reformers desired, instead maintaining the delegate election system that is still in place today.

While leading DC 37, Roberts spearheaded the creation of the union's Education Fund, the Municipal Employees Legal Services and the Personal Services Unit, according to the union.

She was succeeded in December 2014 by Henry Garrido, who still serves as DC 37 executive director.

In a statement, Garrido said the union was "extremely saddened" by Roberts' passing. "Lillian was more than a mentor to those of us who grew up in the labor movement under her tutelage– she was family," he said.

In 2023, DC 37 and AFSCME announced the Lillian Roberts Endowed Scholarship in collaboration with the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies to help DC 37 and AFSCME members.

 "Lillian Roberts dedicated her life to working people. From the hospital floor to the front lines of the labor movement with DC 37, she fought for the dignity of public workers with extraordinary courage and demanded that all City workers be treated with respect," Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in a statement on her passing. "Lillian helped build a stronger, more just New York, and generations of union members are better off because of her leadership. We mourn her passing and honor a life spent in service to others."

A giant of the city's labor movement, Roberts will be remembered by her three sons, several nieces, nephews, cousins and many friends and colleagues.

A gathering & visitation for Roberts will be held at Frank E. Campbell - The Funeral Chapel, at 1076 Madison Ave on July 22, from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm, at which point a live streamed service will be held.

The celebration of her life will continue at 3:00 pm with a repass at DC 37's headquarters at 125 Barclay Street.