Victor Gotbaum, who once headed the largest union in the city, died Sunday night.
The influential labor organizer, who helped steer the city through the fiscal crisis of the 1970s, suffered a heart attack at his home in Manhattan, according to The New York Times, citing confirmation by his wife, former Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum. He was 93 years old.
As the powerful leader of District Council 37, Victor Gotbaum was part of a team that kept the city out of bankruptcy.
After crippling strikes and threats by then-Mayor Abe Beame to cut 38,000 city jobs, Gotbaum negotiated with City Hall to soften the blow to municipal workers.
DC37 membership skyrocketed under Gotbaum, who became a thorn in the side of the city’s mayors after taking the reins in 1965.
A native of Brooklyn, Victor Gotbaum attended Brooklyn College and served in World War II. His first job as a labor leader was as assistant director of Chicago’s Amalgamated Meat Cutters union in 1955.
In a tragic 2007 incident, his daughter-in-law, Carol Gotbaum, died while in police custody in an Arizona airport. She had been attempting to board a plane on her way to alcohol rehabilitation when she became irate and was detained by security.
Officers left her alone on a bench in the holding cell, where she was found dead.