The Milwaukee Area Service and Hospitality Workers Union issued the following statement regarding Peter Feigin, from MASH President Peter Rickman:

Union leaders generally do not make a habit of or often have occasion to recognize, commend and thank corporate executives. Peter Feigin, however, cuts a different, singular figure as a business leader – one with whom we are proud and enriched to have worked over the past ten years.

On behalf of the 1,000 members of the Milwaukee Area Service and Hospitality Workers Union employed at Fiserv Forum and in the Deer District, I thank Peter for his leadership. His substantial impact on our city, our industry and our livelihoods will endure and be remembered fondly for generations.

From our very first meeting, Peter struck me as a business leader with a vision for the future of Milwaukee where workers would be included in a new shared prosperity he sought greatly to build. As importantly, that moment left me with a distinct impression that his words went beyond rhetoric, and instead conveyed a real commitment to working people whose labor would operate Fiserv Forum and the Deer District. Ten years later, he has proven himself through action true to that vision and commitment time and again.

Too often people in his position might waive away any concern for workers and flatly deny any role for a union in advancing their interests. Instead, Peter recognized that workers deserve and want unions and made the choice not to oppose Deer District and Fiserv workers securing a voice and seat at the table in their employment through collective bargaining.

As a result, we negotiated a landmark community benefits agreement that has become a model for others around the country. Deer District and Fiserv Forum workers have built a vibrant, dynamic union that has bargained industry-leading contracts that transformed low-wage, insecure work in the service sector and hospitality industry into family-supporting, living wage jobs with dignity, rights and respect in the workplace. We all appreciate what Peter has done to build a championship team, develop downtown, and grow Milwaukee’s economy – but as a trade unionist I cannot state enough superlatives about Peter’s role in improving the lives of working class people in our city.

Negotiations and the substance did not always come easy or get settled without friction – that is the nature of labor-management relationships. But Peter and the business he led always remained squarely committed to workers’ rights and interests as valid, the role of union representation, and a vision of inclusive, shared prosperity.

Whenever given the opportunity, I make a point to tell people about the respect and appreciation for Peter Feigin our union and I carry – and if they will listen, to stories that back that up. From our intensive discussions during the heady days of Deer District authorizing legislation where Peter navigated difficulty with class and never left behind his commitments to workers to the time he drove to my house to sign a letter of intent on my porch setting the path to our community benefits agreement so there would be no question about it certainty; from the bargaining sessions where he actively sought to get to yes where a different executive might have chosen another route to the phone calls he would never fail to take when issues arose in order to resolve them fairly; these moments leave me always be grateful for the opportunity to have worked with the most significant business leader in recent Milwaukee history and for his partnership in building an enterprise and ethos that valued workers and unions.

The members of our union, especially those who have worked at Fiserv Forum or in the Deer District the longest, know Peter not as some distant executive but instead as a relatable, accessible leader who cast a vision and made it real for a team, for a business and for workers in his employ. That vision and his leadership has transformed our city and the livelihoods of working people in the service sector. We are grateful and better for Peter Feigin’s time here, we will miss him, and we wish him nothing but the best – and we hope his example endures, not just his tremendous legacy.

As the tributes and recognition to Peter’s powerful time in Milwaukee and impact on our city and its people come rolling in, as well as his excellent character as a person, he deserves every word of it. Milwaukee and its service sector working class are forever improved because of Peter Feigin. Thank you, Peter, from all of us.

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.