I was saddened today to hear that Marty Berger had passed away over the weekend. For most of us in the progressive labor community, Marty was an inspiration. He was a true fighter for justice, who spent his life working in the garment unions. In his retirement, he headed the PA chapter of the Alliance for Retired Americans and was on the board of NARAL-PA. I think most of us who knew him would agree that Marty worked harder in his retirement than most people do in their regular jobs.

The number of rallies, marches and demonstrations that I attended with him over the years numbered close to one hundred. He was a true practitioner of the ideal of solidarity. And he always loved his union, and the members that made it strong. Several years ago, he and I sat in together with a bus-load of strikers from a pillow factory in Frackville at the national headquarters of Ikea in Plymouth Meeting. The strikers were trying to get Ikea to agree to refrain from selling scab-made pillows. During the sit-in, Marty and I had a long conversation about his work organizing in the South, and I told him that my grandmother had been in the ILG. He quipped, "that's the problem, we're everybody's grandmother's union!"

His tenacity in the movement has long been an inspiration to me. There aren't a lot of people who can do this work for sixty or seventy years, and those of us who are 'young' progressives should be celebrating his life, even while we mourn his passing.