Jack Barbash was born on August 1, 1910, in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Louis Barbash and Rose Titel. In 1932, he received a BS and in 1937 MA, both in economics, from New York University.[1][2][3]
Barbash worked as an investigator for the New York State Department of Labor (1937–1939) and economist for the National Labor Relations Board (1939–1940).[3] In Washington, D.C., he worked for various unions and government agencies, including the US Office of Education (1940–1945), the War Production Board (1943–1945), and the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics (1945–1949).[3] He also worked as research and education director for the Amalgamated Meat Cutters union (AMC) of Chicago (1948–1949).[3] He then became staff director (1949–1953) of a subcommittee on labor-management relations on the US Senate's Labor Committee (currently called the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions).[1][2][3]
In 1953, Barbash joined the CIO's legal department as an economist and worked closely with Arthur J. Goldberg, the CIO's general counsel, in negotiating the CIO to rejoin the AFL in 1955. Thereafter, Barbash served as director of research and education at the AFL–CIO.[1][2][3]
In 1957, Barbash became a professor of economics and industrial relations at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he taught for 24 years before retiring as the John P. Bascom Professor Emeritus of Economics and Industrial Relations in 1981.[1][2][3]
On May 27, 1934, Barbash married Kate Hubelbauk; they had three children.[1][2] Son Fred Barbash became national editor of the Washington Post.[2]
Barbash headed the Industrial Relations Research Association, International Industrial Relations Research Association, Labor and Employment Relations Association, and the Association for Evolutionary Economics.[2] He also headed the University of Wisconsin's branch of the American Association of University Professors (AAU) (1970–1971).[3]
Jack Barbash died age 83 on May 21, 1994, of a heart attack in Madison, Wisconsin, where he had been living since 1957.[1][3]
