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 ...
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