Crain's New York has a profile of the executive director of the New York State Nurses Association, Jill Furillo. The union endorsed Mayor de Blasio and has been fighting against the state's effort to close Long island College Hospital in Brooklyn:
When Ms. Furillo was 25, she was an active member of the Young Workers Liberation League, a youth arm affiliate of the Communist Party USA, and an editor of its Young Worker publication. She wrote in 1975: "It is clear that for youth today, there is no real and meaningful future under capitalism. Capitalism means joblessness, racism and degeneracy."...
After Crain's asked Ms. Furillo about her YWLL membership, a NYSNA spokeswoman said Ms. Furillo would no longer participate in an article and accused Crain's of "red baiting" organized labor....
Ms. Furillo, in a statement responding to questions about her membership in the Young Workers Liberation League years ago, said she has "always cared deeply about improving the lives of working people and addressing the devastating impacts of injustice and poverty. That passion led me to various movements for social justice in my youth and ultimately to my path as nurse and as a labor leader, to which I have dedicated the past 30 years of my life."
It's really something that Ms. Furrillo, even today, would describe the Communist Party USA of 1975, which was an organ of the Soviet Union (where non-government-controlled labor unions were banned), as a movement for "social justice."
The Nation, predictably, has an article in response that denounces Crain's for red-baiting.