Public Employee Press

Union Scrapbook
Union photographer Charles Brown

Members and leaders of Social Service Employees Union Local 371, District Council 37 and New York City labor media workers mourn Charles M. Brown, a Caseworker, dedicated trade unionist and prize-winning photographer for the local’s newspaper, The Unionist.

“C.B.,” as he was widely known, was 62. He was among a union delegation headed to the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists May convention when he passed.

Brown attended city public schools and earned his bachelor’s degree in 1968 at Tarkio College in Missouri, where he excelled academically and was the photographer for the school newspaper.

After college he worked as a Caseworker at the Williamsburg Center of the Human Resources Administration, where he became a union activist and co-workers elected him their delegate, Local 371’s equivalent of a shop steward. He also worked at HRA’s battered women’s shelter and in Special Services for Children and retired from the city in 2002.

Brown worked for his local for a total of 24 years, serving as a grievance rep, union photographer and executive assistant to President Charles Ensley.