It is with great sadness that the New Jersey Work Environment Council (WEC) shares that Adrienne Rosner Markowitz, our colleague, industrial hygiene consultant and Healthy Schools Coordinator, passed away on July 24, 2017. Adrienne had an indominable spirit and struggled with an aggressive form of breast cancer for several years. Adrienne was a warm, loving, compassionate colleague who developed many deep working and mentoring relationships over the years. Adrienne loved her work with WEC and the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) and it sustained her during her illness.
Adrienne spent her professional life challenging the idea that workers must die to make a living. Armed with a BA in Education from Queens College and a Masters in Occupational and Environmental Health from Hunter College, she wrapped her organizer father’s union ethos around her heart and went into the workplace to fight the only fight that really mattered to her – the fight for justice.
Public sector jobs in New Jersey honed her skills as an educator and truth seeker as she trained county and private sector workers and investigated workplaces for chromium contamination, carrying her CWA Local 1036 membership card proudly. Adrienne expanded her field of battle by becoming Director of Health and Safety for the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, now part of the United Food and Commercial Workers. Always teaching, ever questioning, never tiring, Markowitz engaged and educated union members across the country and across a broad spectrum of industry and occupational diversity; she then followed her destiny to help organize the unorganized, sharing information with damaged poultry workers walking to work in the rank miasma of pre-dawn Mississippi.
Adrienne distinguished herself and her profession on both a national and international stage, working in professional collaboration within and among groups and organizations including the Organization of Economic and Cooperative Development, the AFL-CIO, American Industrial Hygiene Association, and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. She served as the International Labour Organization Worker Representative at the first International Conference on Chemical Safety held in Stockholm. She always provided a clear voice when speaking for the workers from whom she felt privileged to learn.
Adrienne authored health and safety manuals, fact sheets, health and safety videos and testified in government hearings on workplace issues. She was quick to credit the influence and inspiration provided by other professionals in the occupational health field and historians such as brother David Rosner and his writing partner Jerry Markowitz, whose books have documented occupational illnesses.
Markowitz raised three children in her beloved Montclair, NJ – Tobias, William, and Elena. She had two grandchildren, Cecilia and Mason. Condolences can be sent to David Rosner, 290 Riverside Drive, #10B, New York, NY 10025. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations in Adrienne’s name be made to the New Jersey Work Environment Council, 7 Dunmore Ave. First Floor East, Ewing, NJ 08618, https://njwec.org/donate.
Adrienne was an accomplished potter. During her illness, she took up water coloring and became quite good. You can see some paintings from her 2016 With a Song in My Heart exhibit online here.
Adrienne Markowitz Memorial Service
Date: Saturday, September 30th
Time: 1:00 – 3:00pm
Location: Fletcher Hall, Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Montclair
67 Church Street Montclair, NJ 07042
