Thomas J. Germano

Thomas J. Germano died peacefully on 27 August 2026, aged 86, after what his family called a long and tenacious battle with multiple myeloma, a blood cancer. His death was announced in an obituary from the Claude R. Boyd Spencer Funeral Home in Babylon and reported by Newsday. A memorial gathering was held at the funeral home on Monday 7 September 2026, followed by a funeral Mass at St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church in Babylon on 8 September and burial at Pinelawn Memorial Park in Farmingdale.

Thomas J. Germano was born on 18 February 1940 and grew up in Chelsea, a working class neighborhood of Manhattan. His mother died when he was 10 years old. He worked many jobs from an early age, sometimes several at the same time, and his family said this taught him the value of hard work, sound judgment and a sense of humor.

Around 1960 Germano became a New York City letter carrier, delivering mail on the streets where he grew up. As a strike leader of Branch 36 of the National Association of Letter Carriers, he was one of the rank and file leaders of the Great Postal Strike of March 1970, an eight day wildcat strike that began in New York City, spread to more than 30 cities and involved about 200,000 workers. It won an 8 percent raise and cut the time needed to reach top pay from 21 years to eight. The union later named him an honorary permanent member.

Studying at night while working full time, he earned a Ph.D. in sociology from the CUNY Graduate Center with a dissertation titled Labor Relations in the United States Postal Service. He taught at Queens College and at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, and was director of the ILR School's Long Island extension from 1976 to 2003. He spoke and taught on preventing workplace violence before the subject was widely recognized.

As an arbitrator and mediator he served on panels of the American Arbitration Association, the National Mediation Board and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. He founded the Labor Management Center on Long Island, sat on the board of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and regularly resolved disputes involving the National Association of Letter Carriers, the American Postal Workers Union, New York State United Teachers, the Long Island Rail Road and Nassau and Suffolk counties. He heard cases until he retired in 2020.

Germano married Rosalie Chamberlain in 1961, when both were young; they were married until 1993 and had four children, Elizabeth, Thomas, Andrew and Judith. Elizabeth died in August 2021. His family said he remained close friends with Rosalie in his final years. In 2000 he married Mary Ann Russell, with whom he shared years of dancing and travel; she died in 2008. He was also stepfather to two children, grandfather to twelve and great grandfather to two. His brother Robert predeceased him, and he was survived by his sister, Patricia Germano Canova.

Germano's part in the 1970 postal strike, one of the largest strikes against the federal government in American history, gave him a lasting place in American labor history, and his dissertation became a standard reference on postal labor relations. Through Cornell's Long Island extension he taught generations of union leaders and labor relations professionals. Reflecting on the strike in 2020, he said: "Sometimes you have to do a moral thing and a dignity thing."