Martin Morgenstern

1934 - 2022

Martin W. Morgenstern
November 9, 1934 - February 5, 2022
Martin William Morgenstern, 87, passed away on February 5, 2022. He was born in 1934 in the Bronx, New York City, to Charles and Gertrude Morgenstern, who were both children of immigrants. Marty was the first person in his family to graduate from college, with a degree in English literature from Hunter College in the Bronx (now Lehman College) in 1957. His first marriage ended in divorce after he and his first wife Corinne had one daughter, Joy. His second marriage also ended in divorce, but he and his second wife Jane remained lifelong friends until her death in 2019. He married Sylvia Pizzini in 1979 and become stepfather to Ken and Cathy, Sylvia's children from her former marriage.

Marty Morgenstern spent his working life, spanning 50 years, as an advocate for workers – from organizing labor unions to developing California's labor and workplace policy. In the early 1960s he became a caseworker in New York City, and soon became a shop steward and strike leader in the Social Services Employee Union (SSEU), who elected him as their president in 1968. In 1970 he became the California Area Director of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and then went to work for the California State Employees Association (CSEA) in 1973. It was while he was negotiating for CSEA that he met the new governor, Jerry Brown, who asked him to become the director of the Office of Employee Relations. He later became the first director of the newly-formed Department of Personnel Administration (now the California Department of Human Resources, or CalHR). It was during his tenure in the first Brown administration that most of California's collective bargaining laws were passed.

Governor Brown appointed Marty to the Public Employee Relations Board, where he served from 1982 to 1986, then moved on to became chair of the Center for Labor Research and Education at the University of California. He retired from UC in 1994, but returned to work for the state in 1999 at the request of Governor Gray Davis, who asked Marty to again become director of the Department of Personnel Administration. He retired from that position in 2004 when Davis was recalled, but again came out of retirement in 2011 when Jerry Brown started his second tenure as Governor and appointed Marty Secretary of the Labor and Workforce Development Agency, where he served for three years before once again retiring, although he eased into it by volunteering as a board member for Covered California, the state's health insurance exchange, for two years.

When not working, Marty enjoyed hiking, tennis, and biking, vacations with family, travel, playing poker, cheering for the Indianapolis Colts, and reading the New York Times, the Economist, the New Yorker, and many other periodicals from cover to cover. Marty is survived by his brother Leonard Morgenstern, his wife Sylvia Pizzini, children and stepchildren Joy, Ken, and Cathy, and grandchildren Emily, Nathan, and Indigo. His family will hold a memorial service later this year.

Marty Morgenstern believed that when workers organize to improve their working conditions, their unions form the basis of a better society. His family asks that you honor his memory by remembering that the union makes us strong.