Born in Bessarabia in 1910, Abe Feinglass came to the United States in 1921. He attended night school and worked in a fur shop, joining the International Fur Workers Union in 1925. He allied with the Left Wing faction in that union and became Secretary-Treasurer of the Fur Division of the Needle Trades Workers Industrial Union when that union was formed as an independent to combat the American Federation of Labor's conservatism. After the two factions of furriers united in the mid-1930's, Feinglass became a vice president and organizer for the IFWU. After merger in 1939 with the Leather Workers, Feinglass became District Director of the Midwestern states and proceeded to organize thousands of leather workers. When International Fur and Leather Workers Union (IFLWU) President Ben Gold was indicted by the federal government in 1954, Feinglass became President of the IFLWU. Within weeks, he was holding merger discussions with the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America (AMC&BW). The merger was completed in 1955. Until his mandatory retirement in August 1980, Feinglass remained an AMC&BW vice president and director of the Fur and Leather Department. He also served as chair of the Civil Rights Committee and the International Affairs Committee of the AMC&BW. Throughout his service with the Amalgamated (and after the 1979 merger, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union), Feinglass provided the union with a progressive voice and a progressive conscience. Today [1981] he is the non-salaried head of the fur and leather workers New York Joint Council, commuting regularly from his home in Skokie, Illinois.
