Born in New Haven in 1917, Jesse Simons had a long and distinguished career in labor arbitration. While director of the American Arbitration Association's Labor Management Institute, he helped to create the New York City Collective Bargaining Law. The law, enacted in 1967 under Mayor John V. Lindsay, soon led to the creation of the New York City Office of Collective Bargaining and set up procedures to mediate and arbitrate contract disputes between the city and the majority of its employees. The system remains in use to this day.

During Simons' early career in the 1930s and 40s, he held a variety of jobs including machinist, shipyard coppersmith and linotype operator. After attending the University of Minnesota and the University of Washington briefly, he became deeply involved in trade-union and Trotskyist politics in the Seattle area, and his interest in unions developed out of these political experiences. At various times he served as chief shop steward, educational director and executive board member of the International Association of Machinists, the International Union of Shipbuilding Workers of America and the United Electrical Workers. From 1944-1946 he served in the Army Air Force. Afterwards, he took a job as assistant to the political director of the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union, doing publicity, lobbying and organizing union support for political candidates from 1948 to 1951. In 1954, he became manager of personnel and industrial relations for the New York Post. After leaving the Post in 1962, he directed the AAA's Labor Management Institute from 1963 to 1966. In 1966, he joined the United States Lines, becoming the company's vice president for labor relations from 1967 to 1970.

In the course of his work as an arbitrator, Simons worked with a wide range of unions and employers to resolve literally thousands of contract-related disputes. He became thoroughly conversant with working conditions and labor-management issues in every major sector of the New York City work force; he dealt with cases involving health care workers, transit workers, communications workers, service employees, electricians, teamsters, maritime workers, theatrical and television workers, garment workers and teachers, among others. He served on the Personnel Review Board of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation and dealt with railroad cases nationwide as an arbitrator for the National Mediation Board. One of his most widely publicized decisions was the award of a $440,000 salary to New York Yankees catcher Rick Cerone in 1981, rejecting the team offer of $350,000 made by owner George M. Steinbrenner III.

Simons traveled widely and pursued interests in art and archaeology, literature and music. Many in his circle of devoted friends came from these fields; there is evidence in the collection of his own experiments in poetry writing. His three marriages ended in divorce. He died in July 2006 in New York City.