Workplace Fairness was very saddened to learn of the passing of former board member and early supporter Penny Nathan Kahan on February 1, 2017, after a long and hard-fought battle with ovarian cancer. (Penny Kahan Obituary) Penny’s legacy will be honored at a Celebration of Life on Sunday, Feb. 19, 2017, at 2:00 PM, at the Chicago Jewish Funerals – Skokie Chapel, 8851 Skokie Boulevard, Skokie, IL 60077.
Penny founded the law firm of Penny Nathan Kahan and Associates in 1983. Her career as an attorney was focused on helping people who suffered from workplace unfairness and discrimination. She participated in a variety of professional organizations, including serving as a founding board member of the National Employment Lawyers Association and its Illinois affiliate, NELA-Illinois. In 2000 she was elected a Fellow of the College of Labor and Employment Law and a fellow of the American Bar Foundation in 2002.
As part of her devotion to the legal profession and to the cause of workers rights, Penny served on the board of Workplace Fairness when it was known as the National Employee Rights Institute (NERI). She additionally served on the Advisory Board for a long-time project of Workplace Fairness, the Employee Rights and Employment Policy Journal, co-published by IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law.
Workplace Fairness was co-founded by Wayne Outten and Paul Tobias in 1994. For several years following its founding, the organization was entirely volunteer-run and depended on the work and support of advocates like Penny. In a fateful board meeting in Chicago in 2001, as part of an effort to increase the profile and impact of the organization after hiring its first staff, it was Penny who suggested that the organization change its name to Workplace Fairness – the name by which it has been known ever since.
Workplace Fairness Co-Founder and Board President says of Penny, “Penny was a wonderful and warm person who will be missed by all who knew her.” Professor Douglas Scherer, long-time WF board member who served with Penny on the NERI board, adds, “Penny was a very gracious and talented woman [who] played a very important role in the establishment and development of NERI, which was renamed to Workplace Fairness.”
We acknowledge and honor Penny’s pivotal role in the development of our organization, as over 4 million workers every year now rely on the organization named Workplace Fairness to reflect our mission of providing the comprehensive and reliable employee rights content available on the Internet. We are proud that her legacy lives on through the name she selected for our organization and the millions of workers that under that name we have assisted in enforcing their rights and in finding attorneys like Penny and her professional colleagues to provide representation. We will miss Penny’s warm smile and passionate, thoughtful advocacy, and share our condolences with her family, friends and professional colleagues who will miss her dearly.
