Jacob Seidenberg

Dr. Jacob Seidenberg (1914–1996) was a government official who specialized in labor arbitration and non-discrimination contracts, and wrote extensively on labor law and negotiations.

He graduated from Temple University in 1937 and received a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1941. During the 1940s he was an attorney with the U.S. War Department, the National War Labor Board and the National Wage Stabilization Board. In 1948 he went to graduate school at Cornell University, from which he earned his Ph.D. in industrial and labor relations in 1951.

In 1951 he joined the staff of the President’s Committee on Government Contract Compliance. The Committee was abolished by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in August 1953 by Executive Order 10479 and was succeeded by the President’s Committee on Government Contracts. Seidenberg was appointed Executive Director of the new committee and served until January 1960 when he resigned to become a full-time labor arbitrator. The Committee was responsible for enforcing non-discrimination clauses in government contracts, worked with private businesses to help them overcome job discrimination, and developed educational programs against ethnic and racial discrimination. The chairman was Vice President Richard Nixon, and the vice chairman was Secretary of Labor James P. Mitchell.

In later years Seidenberg served on a number of boards of inquiry involving labor disputes. From 1970 to 1975 he was chairman of the Federal Services Impasses Panel which settled deadlocks in federal labor negotiations.