Portside

 Jay Schaffner is one of the founding moderators of Portside, from its beginnings in 1999. Jay lives in New York City, is a member of the Working Families Party, and serves on its State Committee. He is also member of Jewish Voice for Peace, and was a member of the JVP Labor Advisory Council.

He is a former executive board member of AFM Local 802 in New York (Musicians union); and for 21 years, and before retiring was the supervisor of their recording department, and helped negotiate many of the AFM's electronic recording agreements. Years earlier, he helped develop "people-to-people" travel to Cuba, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe with Voices of the Future and Anniversary Tours. In 1974, he ran for the University of Illinois Board of Trustees, getting more than 25,000 votes on an independent line.

Jay is a DSA member in New York, a member since the founding of DSA in 1982; and before of DSOC and NAM. Originally from Chicago, he was a member of the National Committee of the CPUSA for many years, before leaving in 1991 and helping to form the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism.

He is a life-long activist and socialist, and worked for various trade unions, peace and social justice organizations for more than 40 years. Jay is excited about the birth of a new socialist movement (with legs). He can be reached at jschaffner@igc.org