The UFT lost a founding member and former officer with the passing of Morris Shapiro, who died in January at the age of 101.

Shapiro, who became the second UFT vice president for vocational high schools, was a machine shop teacher at Eli Whitney Vocational HS in Brooklyn and brought along with him as a solid bloc of 1,000 of his fellow vocational teachers to the UFT’s founding strike in 1960.

“All of the shop teachers respected him tremendously and followed him into the UFT,” recalled George Altomare, who was the UFT’s vice president for academic high schools.

Prior to the UFT’s founding, Shapiro had been the president of the city’s trade teachers group and vice president of the high school machine shop teachers association. He saw the importance of joining with other teachers and how critical the right of collective bargaining would be for all teachers.

Shapiro was elected the UFT vice president for vocational high schools in 1962, a position he held until he retired in 1982. He was known for being tenacious and an extremely hard worker and for his dedication to the safety and rights of vocational teachers.

He created a national and international survey of class size for vocational teachers and found that New York City had the largest class sizes. With that information, he agitated for and won the right to reduced class sizes.

Shapiro also helped make school safety improvements. He advocated successfully for safety goggles to be provided to vocational teachers and students and fought for fair pay for vocational teachers.

During the summer months, he enjoyed working as a camp director at Brown’s Hotel in the Catskills, where he was responsible for recreation and entertainment. In that capacity, he met many celebrities, including Ava Gardner.

Altomare also noted that Shapiro had a silly side and during down times at contract negotiations he was known to show off by doing handstands.