Kenneth Fiester was born November 30, 1911, in Orange, New Jersey, and spent the first thirty-five years of his life in the northern New Jersey area. While he took a Bachelor's degree in chemical engineering, Fiester's real love was journalism. He worked for the Newark Call for ten years and was very active in the Newspaper Guild. In 1946 he became editor of Textile Labor and was promoted to Director of the Publicity Department of the TWUA in 1952. He left the TWUA in 1957 to edit the United Auto Workers' new weekly newspaper, UAW Solidarity. That paper folded when the 1958 recession hit the auto industry. Fiester went on to Washington, D.C. then, where he worked for about ten years in various publicity capacities for the AFL-CIO. Currently he is a free-lance editor who edits The United Shoe Worker and The Insurance Worker and writes speeches for labor figures. For many years after its founding in the late 1950s, he was an active officer of the International Labor Press Association. Under his editorship, Textile Labor underwent several changes, reflecting the economic condition of the Union. It was recognized as one of the best periodicals issued by an American labor union.
