Record #: R2022-927   
Type: Resolution Status: Adopted
Intro date: 9/21/2022 Current Controlling Legislative Body:
Final action: 9/21/2022
Title: Tribute to late Henry J. Tamarin
Sponsors: Burke, Edward M.
Attachments: 1. R2022-927.pdf

RESOLUTION

 

WHEREAS, Henry J. Tamarin has been called to eternal life by the wisdom of God at the age of 77; and

 

WHEREAS, The Chicago City Council has been informed of his passing by Alderman Edward M. Burke; and

 

WHEREAS, A native of Brooklyn, New York Henry was born on April 14,1945; and

 

WHEREAS, Henry went to Dwight Morrow High School, and attended Earlham College, and then graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison; and

 

WHEREAS, He married his first wife Renee Poirier who is the mother of their two children, Nathanael and Nicholas, and is also survived by his three grandchildren and his sister Jean; and

 

WHEREAS, After his divorce to his first wife, Henry married Jane Kinzer of Truro; and

 

WHEREAS, Henry was a Union organizer, negotiator, strategist, teacher and officer for HERE and UNITE HERE since 1970, when he started as a volunteer in New Haven; and

 

WHEREAS, He lived in New York City and worked with Local 100 from 1992 through 2001; and

 

WHEREAS, Henry transitioned to Local 1 in Chicago, and moved there full time where he served as President from 2001 to 2013; and

 

WHEREAS, Henry was a leading figure in the union representing hotel and restaurant workers, and guided tens of thousands of bartenders, servers, bellhops, school cafeteria workers, housekeepers, cooks, cleaners, dishwashers, and other union members, many of them immigrants, toward the middle class; and

 

WHEREAS, In negotiations that often stretched over months, he extracted guarantees of better health care, improved working conditions, and higher wages from employers ranging from the Hilton and Hyatt chains to posh restaurants like 21 in New York and Gibson's in Chicago; and

 

WHEREAS, Nate Tamarin said his father showed a devotion to social justice as a young man, starting as a community organizer in Connecticut and helping union workers at Yale University before joining Unite Here, formerly the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union; and

 

 

WHEREAS, To his beloved family, Henry imparts a legacy of generosity, compassion, devotion to family and unwavering faith in God; now, therefore

 

BE IT RESOLVED, That we, the Mayor and the members ofthe Chicago City Council, assembled this twenty-first day of September, 2022, do hereby commemorate Henry for his grace-filled life-arid do hereby express our condolences to his family; arid

Alderman, 14th Ward

 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be presented to the family of Henry J. Tamarin.