The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU), whose members were employed in the
women's clothing
Clothing (also known as clothes, apparel, and attire) are items worn on the body. Typically, clothing is made of fabrics or textiles, but over time it has included garments made from animal skin and other thin sheets of materials and natural ...
industry, was once one of the largest
labor unions
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits (su ...
in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
, one of the first U.S. unions to have a primarily female membership, and a key player in the labor history of the 1920s and 1930s. The union, generally referred to as the "ILGWU" or the "ILG", merged with the
Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union
The Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU) was a labor union representing workers in two related industries in the United States.
The union was founded in 1976, when the Textile Workers Union of America merged with the Amalgamated ...
in the 1990s to form the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (
UNITE
Unite may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Music Albums
* ''Unite'' (A Friend in London album), 2013 album by Danish band A Friend in London
* ''Unite'' (Kool & the Gang album), 1993
* ''Unite'' (The O.C. Supertones album), 2005
Songs ...
). UNITE merged with the
Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union
The Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union (HERE) was a United States labor union representing workers of the hospitality industry, formed in 1890. In 2004, HERE merged with the Union of Needletrades, Industrial, and Textile Employees (UN ...
(HERE) in 2004 to create a new union known as
UNITE HERE
UNITE HERE is a labor union in the United States and Canada with roughly 300,000 active members. The union's members work predominantly in the hotel, food service, laundry, warehouse, and casino gaming industries. The union was formed in 2004 by ...
. The two unions that formed UNITE in 1995 represented 250,000 workers between them, down from the ILGWU's peak membership of 450,000 in 1969.
Early history
The ILGWU was founded on
June 3, 1900, in New York City by seven local unions, with a few thousand members between them. The union grew rapidly in the next few years but began to stagnate as the conservative leadership favored the interests of skilled workers, such as cutters. This did not sit well with the majority of immigrant workers, particularly Jewish workers with a background in
Bundist activities in Tsarist Russia, or with Polish and Italian workers, many of whom had strong socialist and anarchist leanings.
The Uprising of 20,000 and the Great Revolt
The ILGWU had a sudden upsurge in membership that came as the result of two successful mass strikes in New York City.
The first, in 1909, was known as "
the Uprising of 20,000" and lasted for fourteen weeks. It was largely spontaneous, sparked by a short walkout of workers of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, involving only about 20% of the workforce. That, however, only prompted the rest of the workers to seek help from the union. The firm locked out its employees when it learned what was happening.
The news of the strike spread quickly to all the New York garment workers. At a series of mass meetings, after the leading figures of the American labor movement spoke in general terms about the need for solidarity and preparedness,
Clara Lemlich
Clara Lemlich Shavelson (March 28, 1886 – July 12, 1982) was a leader of the Uprising of 20,000, the massive strike of shirtwaist workers in New York's garment industry in 1909, where she spoke in Yiddish and called for action. Later bl ...
rose to speak about the conditions she and other women worked under and demanded an end to talk and the calling of a strike of the entire industry. The crowd responded enthusiastically and, after taking a
biblical oath in Yiddish, "If I turn traitor to the cause I now pledge, may this hand wither from the arm I now raise," voted for a general strike. Approximately 20,000 out of the 32,000 workers in the shirtwaist trade walked out in the next two days.
Those workers – who were primarily women and immigrant workers – defied the preconceptions of many conservative labor leaders, who thought that immigrants and women in general could not be organized. Their slogan "We'd rather starve quick than starve slow" summed up the depth of their bitterness against the sweatshops in which the many women and immigrant workers worked in.
The strike was a violent one. Police routinely arrested picketers for trivial or imaginary offenses while employers hired local thugs to beat them as police looked the other way.
A group of wealthy women, among them
Frances Perkins,
Anne Morgan, and
Alva Vanderbilt Belmont, supported the struggles of working class women with money and intervention with officials and often picketed with them. Newspapers dubbed them "the
mink brigade" because they used their wealth and privilege to try to protect the strikers. The strikers did not always welcome their help;
Emma Goldman told the press that "If the strike is won, it will be on its merits, not because it was assisted by wealthy ladies."
The strike was only partially successful. The ILGWU accepted an arbitrated settlement in February 1910 that improved the workers' wages, working conditions, and hours, but the settlement did not provide union recognition. A number of companies, including the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, refused to sign the agreement. But even so, the strike won a number of important gains. It encouraged workers in the industry to take action to improve their conditions, brought public attention to the sweatshop conditions. With some 20,000 shirtwaist workers as new members, Local 25 became the largest local affiliate of the ILGWU.
Several months later, in 1910, the ILGWU led an even larger strike, later named "The Great Revolt", of 60,000
cloakmaker
A Cloak maker worked in the garment industry, often in an enterprise whose workers were represented by a union.
In the 1920s, there were more than 50,000 people employed as ''cloakmakers''.
Much of this industry was centered in NYC. While most of ...
s. After months of picketing, prominent members of the Jewish community, led by
Louis Brandeis, mediated between the ILGWU and the Manufacturers Association. The employers won a promise that workers would settle their grievances through
arbitration rather than strikes during the term of the Agreement (a common clause in Union contracts today).
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and its aftermath
![Image of Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire on March 25 - 1911](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Image_of_Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire_on_March_25_-_1911.jpg)
The union also became more involved in electoral politics, in part as a result of the
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, on Saturday, March 25, 1911, was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city, and one of the deadliest in U.S. history. The ...
on March 25, 1911, in which 146 shirtwaist makers (most of them young immigrant women) either died in the fire that broke out on the eighth floor of the factory, or jumped to their deaths. Many of these workers were unable to escape because the doors on their floors had been locked to prevent them from stealing or taking unauthorized breaks. More than 100,000 people participated in the funeral march for the victims.
The fire had differing effects on the community. For some it radicalized them still further; as
Rose Schneiderman
Rose Schneiderman (April 6, 1882 – August 11, 1972) was a Polish-born American socialist and feminist, and one of the most prominent female labor union leaders. As a member of the New York Women's Trade Union League, she drew attention to u ...
said in her speech at the memorial meeting held in the Metropolitan Opera House on April 2, 1911, to an audience largely made up of the well-heeled members of the
Women's Trade Union League
The Women's Trade Union League (WTUL) (1903–1950) was a U.S. organization of both working class and more well-off women to support the efforts of women to organize labor unions and to eliminate sweatshop conditions. The WTUL played an important ...
(WTUL):
Others in the union drew a different lesson from events: working with local
Tammany Hall
Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York City political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society. It became the main loc ...
officials, such as
Al Smith and
Robert F. Wagner, and progressive reformers, such as
Frances Perkins, they pushed for comprehensive safety and workers’ compensation laws. The ILG leadership formed bonds with those reformers and politicians that would continue for another forty years, through the
New Deal and beyond.
Growth and turmoil
The ILGWU was able to turn the partial victory of the Great Revolt into a lasting victory; within two years it had organized roughly ninety percent of the cloakmakers in the industry in New York City. It improved benefits in later contracts and obtained an unemployment insurance fund for its members in 1919.
At the same time political splits within the union were beginning to grow larger. The Socialist Party split in 1919, with its left wing leaving to form various communist parties that ultimately united under the name of the
Communist Party USA. Those left wing socialists, joined by others with an
IWW
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that was founded in Chicago in 1905. The origin of the nickname "Wobblies" is uncertain. IWW ideology combines general ...
or anarchist background, challenged the undemocratic structure of the ILGWU, which gave every local an equal vote in electing its leaders, regardless of the number of workers that local represented, and the accommodations that the ILGWU leadership had made in bargaining with the employers. Left wing activists, drawing inspiration from the
shop stewards movement The Shop Stewards Movement was a movement which brought together shop stewards from across the United Kingdom during the First World War. It originated with the Clyde Workers Committee, the first shop stewards committee in Britain, which organised a ...
that had swept through
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
labor in the preceding decade, started building up their strength at the shop floor level.
The Communist Party did not intervene in ILGWU politics in any concerted fashion for the first few years of its existence, when it was focused first on its belief that revolution in the advanced
capitalist
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, priva ...
countries was imminent, followed by a period of underground activity. That changed, however, around 1921, as the party attempted to create a base for itself in the working class and, in particular, in the unions within the
AFL
AFL may refer to:
Sports
* American Football League (AFL), a name shared by several separate and unrelated professional American football leagues:
** American Football League (1926) (a.k.a. "AFL I"), first rival of the National Football Leagu ...
.
The party had its greatest success and failure in that effort in the 1920s in the garment trades, where workers had experience with mass strikes and socialist politics were part of the common discourse. Party members had won elections in some of the most important locals within the ILGWU, particularly in New York City, in the early years of the decade and hoped to expand their influence.
In the late 1920s, the ILGWU began focusing on recruiting African-American women, specifically.
Floria Pinkney, a dressmaker from
Connecticut
Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capita ...
who lived in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
, was instrumental in this focus. Pinkney spoke alongside
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
Founded in 1925, The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) was the first labor organization led by African Americans to receive a charter in the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The BSCP gathered a membership of 18,000 passenger railwa ...
president
A. Philip Randolph at a 1929 ILGWU meeting in
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Ha ...
focused on enrolling black women.
Internal battles
In 1923,
Benjamin Schlesinger, the International's President, resigned. The convention elected
Morris Sigman Morris Sigman (1880–1931) was president of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union from 1923 to 1928.
Biography
Early life
Born in Akkerman (then in Bessarabia Province of the Russian Empire), Morris Sigman spent his youth working as a ...
, who had previously been Secretary-Treasurer of the International before resigning in a dispute with Schlesinger, as its new President. Sigman, a former
IWW
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that was founded in Chicago in 1905. The origin of the nickname "Wobblies" is uncertain. IWW ideology combines general ...
member and anti-communist, began to remove Communist Party (CP) members from leadership of locals in New York,
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
,
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
and
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
.
Sigman could not regain control of the New York locals, including Dressmakers' Local 22, headed by
Charles S. Zimmerman
Charles S. "Sasha" Zimmerman (1896–1983) was an American socialist activist and trade union leader, who was an associate of Jay Lovestone. Zimmerman had a career spanning five decades as an official of the International Ladies Garment Workers U ...
, where the CP leadership and their left-wing allies, some anarchists and some socialists, enjoyed strong support of the membership. Local 22 rallied to prevent the International from physically retaking their union hall. Those unions led the campaign to reject a proposed agreement that Sigman had negotiated with the industry in 1925, bringing more than 30,000 members to a rally at
Yankee Stadium
Yankee Stadium is a baseball stadium located in the Bronx, New York City. It is the home field of the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball, and New York City FC of Major League Soccer.
Opened in April 2009, the stadium replaced the orig ...
to call for a one-day stoppage on August 10, 1925.
After Sigman called a truce in the internecine war with the left-led locals, followed up by a reform of the ILGWU's internal governance system that gave proportional weight to locals based on the size of their membership, the left wing of the union was even stronger than before. Sigman depended on the support of
David Dubinsky
David Dubinsky (; born David Isaac Dobnievski; February 22, 1892 – September 17, 1982) was a Belarusian-born American labor leader and politician. He served as president of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) between 1932 ...
's cutters union, many of the Italian locals, and the "out-of-town locals", many of which were mere
paper organizations, to retain his presidency at the 1925 convention.
The showdown came the next year. The International supported the recommendations of an advisory board appointed by Governor Al Smith that supported the union's demands that
wholesale jobbers be financially responsible for the wages owed by their contractors and that workers be guaranteed a set number of hours per year, while allowing employers to reduce their workforces by up to 10% in any given year. While Sigman and Dubinsky supported the proposal, the CP-led and CP-influenced locals denounced it. The New York Joint Board called a general strike on July 1, 1926.
The left-wing locals may have hoped that a general strike, which had the support of the right-wing locals loyal to Sigman, would be a quick success; it was not. Employers hired
"Legs" Diamond and other gangsters to beat up strikers. The union hired their own protection, led by
"Little Augie" Orgen, to retaliate. When the strike entered its third month, the left wing leadership went to A.E. Rothstein, a retired manufacturer, to ask him to intercede. He suggested they talk to his estranged son,
Arnold Rothstein
Arnold Rothstein (January 17, 1882 – November 4, 1928), nicknamed "The Brain", was an American racketeer, crime boss, businessman, and gambler in New York City. Rothstein was widely reputed to have organized corruption in professional athletic ...
, a gambler with widespread influence in the New York underworld.
Rothstein was able to get the hired gangsters on both sides to withdraw. The local leadership was then able to negotiate a modified version of the agreement they had rejected before the strike began. While they had reservations about the concessions they were accepting, the left wing recommended it.
Factional divisions within the CPUSA led the party leadership to reject the offer. As one member of the CPUSA and a leader in Local 22 recalled the scene, one of the members of the committee said, when presenting the agreement to a meeting of the shop floor leaders, "Maybe we could have gotten more, but ...", at which point a party leader interjected, "They didn't get more. If there is a possibility of getting more, go and get more." The rest of the leadership, unwilling to appear less militant, joined in urging rejection of the deal .
That ended negotiations with the employers and kept the strike going another four months, at the end of which the union was nearly bankrupt and the left leadership almost wholly discredited. Sigman took over negotiations, settled the strike and then proceeded to drive the Communist Party from any positions of influence within the ILG.
Dubinsky's rise to power
The failed 1926 strike nearly bankrupted the ILGWU. The International also lost, for a time, some of the locals that chose to follow their expelled leaders out of the ILGWU rather than remain within it. Sigman also proved nearly as abrasive, although not as fierce, toward the right wing within the ILGWU, leading Dubinsky to suggest in 1928 that the union should bring back Schlesinger, who had gone on to become General Manager of the ''
Forward'', the highly influential
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...
newspaper in New York, as Executive Vice-President of the union.
Sigman did not like the proposal, but acceded to it. Five months later he resigned in a dispute with the union's executive board and Schlesinger replaced him, with Dubinsky named as Secretary-Treasurer. Schlesinger died in 1932 and Dubinsky, still Secretary-Treasurer, became President of the ILGWU as well.
Dubinsky proved to be far more durable than his predecessors. He did not tolerate dissent within the union, and insisted that every employee of the International first submit an undated letter of resignation, to be used should Dubinsky choose to fire him later. He also acquired the power to appoint key officers throughout the union. As he explained his position at one of the union's conventions: "We have a democratic union – but they know who's boss."
Under his leadership the union, more than three fourths of whose members were women, continued to be led almost exclusively by men.
Rose Pesotta, a longtime ILGWU activist and organizer, complained to Dubinsky that she had the same uncomfortable feeling of being the token woman on the ILGWU's executive board that Dubinsky had complained about when he was the only Jew on the AFL's board. The union did not make any significant efforts to allow women into leadership positions during Dubinsky's tenure.
The Great Depression and the CIO
As weak as the ILGWU was in the aftermath of the 1926 strike, it was nearly destroyed by the
Great Depression. Its dues-paying membership slipped to 25,000 in 1932 as unionized garment shops shut or went nonunion or stopped abiding by their union contracts.
The union recovered after the election of
Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the passage of the
National Industrial Recovery Act
The National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 (NIRA) was a US labor law and consumer law passed by the 73rd US Congress to authorize the president to regulate industry for fair wages and prices that would stimulate economic recovery. It also ...
, which promised to protect workers' right to organize. As in the case in other industries with a history of organizing, that promise alone was enough to bring thousands of workers who had never been union members in the past to the union. When the union called a strike of dressmakers in New York on August 16, 1933, more than 70,000 workers joined in it – twice the number that the union had hoped for. It did not hurt that the local leader of the
National Recovery Administration was quoted as saying – without any basis in fact – that President Roosevelt had authorized the strike. The union rebounded to more than 200,000 members by 1934, increasing to roughly 300,000 by the end of the Depression.
At the same time in Los Angeles, Rose Pesotta was organizing women dressmakers, primarily from the Latina community, to create a union and demand better pay and working conditions. After a strike and resistance from the Merchand and Manufacturers Association, workers received some improved pay, but not all of their conditions were met.
As one of the few
industrial unions
Industrial unionism is a trade union organizing method through which all workers in the same industry are organized into the same union, regardless of skill or trade, thus giving workers in one industry, or in all industries, more leverage in ...
within the AFL, the ILGWU was eager to advance the cause of organizing employees in the steel, automobile and other mass production industries that employed millions of low-wage workers, many of them immigrants or children of immigrants. The ILGWU was one of the original members of the Committee for Industrial Organization, the group that
John L. Lewis
John Llewellyn Lewis (February 12, 1880 – June 11, 1969) was an American leader of organized labor who served as president of the United Mine Workers of America (UMW) from 1920 to 1960. A major player in the history of coal mining, he was the d ...
of the
United Mine Workers formed within the AFL in 1935 to organize industrial workers, and provided key financial support and assistance. The organizing momentum gained over the Depression would carry over into the new decade. By the end of the 1940s, the ILGWU had added roughly 70,000 new members and expanded out of its traditional enclaves of New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago. During this drive the ILGWU chased down and organized manufacturers' "runaway shops" and established a strong foothold in the hinterlands of the Midwest and East Coast. Rose Pesotta played a key role in early organizing drives in the rubber and steel industries.
Dubinsky was unwilling to split the AFL into two competing federations and did not follow Lewis and the
Amalgamated Clothing Workers
Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (ACWA) was a United States labor union known for its support for "social unionism" and progressive political causes. Led by Sidney Hillman for its first thirty years, it helped found the Congress of Ind ...
when they formed the
Congress of Industrial Organizations as a rival to, rather than a part of, the AFL. Dubinsky also had personality differences with Lewis, whom he resented as high-handed.
Dubinsky was alarmed by the presence of Communist Party members on the payroll of the CIO and the fledgling unions it had sponsored. Dubinsky was opposed to any form of collaboration with communists and had offered financial support to
Homer Martin, the controversial president of the
United Auto Workers
The International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, better known as the United Auto Workers (UAW), is an American labor union that represents workers in the United States (including Puerto Rico) ...
, who was being advised by
Jay Lovestone
Jay Lovestone (15 December 1897 – 7 March 1990) was an American activist. He was at various times a member of the Socialist Party of America, a leader of the Communist Party USA, leader of a small oppositionist party, an anti-Communist and Centr ...
, a former leader of the Communist Party turned anti-communist, in his campaign to drive his opponents out of the union. Lewis was unconcerned with the number of communists working for the CIO. He told Dubinsky, when asked about the communists on the staff of the
Steel Workers Organizing Committee The Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC) was one of two precursor labor organizations to the United Steelworkers. It was formed by the CIO ( Committee for Industrial Organization) on June 7, 1936. It disbanded in 1942 to become the United Stee ...
, "Who gets the bird? The hunter or the dog?"
The ILGWU began reducing its support for the CIO and, after a few years in which it attempted to be allies with both sides, reaffiliated with the AFL in 1940. Dubinsky regained his former positions as a vice president and member of the executive council of the AFL in 1945. He was the most visible supporter within the AFL of demands to clean house by ousting corrupt union leaders. The AFL–CIO ultimately adopted many of his demands when it established codes of conduct for its affiliates in 1957.
Electoral politics
![ILGWU workers meet Lyndon B](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/ILGWU_workers_meet_Lyndon_B._Johnson.jpg)
Dubinsky and
Sidney Hillman
Sidney Hillman (March 23, 1887 – July 10, 1946) was an American labor leader. He was the head of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and was a key figure in the founding of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and in marshaling labor' ...
, leader of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, helped found the
American Labor Party
The American Labor Party (ALP) was a political party in the United States established in 1936 that was active almost exclusively in the state of New York. The organization was founded by labor leaders and former members of the Socialist Party of A ...
in 1936. the time Dubinsky and Hillman were both nominal members of the Socialist Party, although Dubinsky had, by his own admission, allowed his membership to lapse during the factional fighting of the 1920s. The Labor Party served as a halfway house for socialists and other leftists who were willing to vote for liberal Democratic politicians such as Roosevelt or Governor
Herbert Lehman
Herbert Henry Lehman (March 28, 1878 – December 5, 1963) was an American Democratic Party politician from New York. He served from 1933 until 1942 as the 45th governor of New York and represented New York State in the U.S. Senate from 194 ...
of New York, but who were not prepared to join the
Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to:
*Democratic Party (United States)
Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to:
Active parties Africa
*Botswana Democratic Party
*Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea
*Gabonese Democratic Party
*Demo ...
itself.
The new party was subject to many of the same fissures that divided the left in the late 1930s. For a while after the signing of the
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was a non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union that enabled those powers to partition Poland between them. The pact was signed in Moscow on 23 August 1939 by German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ri ...
, CPUSA members within the ALP condemned FDR as a warmonger because of his support for Britain. At one particularly stormy meeting Dubinsky and the other leaders were only able to hold their vote endorsing Roosevelt after moving from room to room and calling the police to arrest those who had disrupted the meeting.
Dubinsky ultimately left the Labor Party in 1944 after a dispute with Hillman over whether labor leaders in New York, such as
Mike Quill, who either were members of the Communist Party or were seen as sympathetic to it, should be given any role in the ALP. When Hillman prevailed, Dubinsky and his allies left to form the Liberal Party. The ALP went on to endorse
Henry Wallace in the
1948 presidential election
The following elections occurred in the year 1948.
Africa
* 1948 Mauritian general election
* 1948 South African general election
* 1948 Southern Rhodesian general election
Asia
* 1948 North Korean parliamentary election
* 1948 Republic of China ...
, while the ILGWU campaigned energetically for
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A leader of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Franklin ...
, nearly bringing New York State into his column.
Dubinsky had hopes of launching a national liberal party, headed by
Wendell Willkie
Wendell Lewis Willkie (born Lewis Wendell Willkie; February 18, 1892 – October 8, 1944) was an American lawyer, corporate executive and the 1940 Republican nominee for President. Willkie appealed to many convention delegates as the Republican ...
, the
Republican
Republican can refer to:
Political ideology
* An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law.
** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
candidate for President in 1940 who had soured on the Republican Party after his defeat in the
primaries
Primary elections, or direct primary are a voting process by which voters can indicate their preference for their party's candidate, or a candidate in general, in an upcoming general election, local election, or by-election. Depending on the c ...
in 1944. In Dubinsky's eyes this new party would attract the internationalists in the Republican Party and the bulk of the Democratic Party, without the white Southern conservative bloc that commanded so much power in Congress. He proposed that Willkie begin by running for Mayor of New York City in 1945; Willkie, however, died before the plan could get off the ground.
Dubinsky and the ILGWU played an active role in the Liberal Party for most of the 1950s and up until his retirement in 1966. The ILGWU ended its support for the party after Dubinsky left office.
Management experiments
The ILGWU established its own
industrial engineering
Industrial engineering is an engineering profession that is concerned with the optimization of complex processes, systems, or organizations by developing, improving and implementing integrated systems of people, money, knowledge, information a ...
office, called the Management Engineering Department, in 1941.
This followed two unsuccessful attempts to begin such a program in 1916 and 1919. The 1916 attempt had been suggested by future
Supreme Court Justice
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest-ranking judicial body in the United States. Its membership, as set by the Judiciary Act of 1869, consists of the chief justice of the United States and eight Associate Justice of the Supreme ...
Louis Brandeis and Morris Hillquit, who invited
Taylor Society
The Taylor Society was an American society for the discussion and promotion of scientific management, named after Frederick Winslow Taylor.
Originally named The Society to Promote The Science of Management, the Taylor Society was initiated in 191 ...
co-founder R. G. Valentine to set up an experiment to demonstrate the techniques of
scientific management.
However, Valentine died before the experiment could be carried out. This was followed by a demonstration program carried out in Cleveland from 1919 to 1931 under
Morris L. Cooke and Francis P. Goodell.
The ILGWU listed its objectives in setting up the management engineering department as: "1. To assist in improving the manufacturing techniques and operating methods of all branches of the industry with which our workers' earnings are intimately bound ... 2. To serve as a central information agency: (a) To determine the level of 'fair piece rates.' (b) To record the production system and manufacturing techniques, under which these rates are paid. (c) To assist in training shop members and committees in distinguishing bad time study practices and good time study practices in the determination of rates."
This emphasis on cooperation between labor and management using the techniques of scientific management in order to improve the workers' conditions and pay came to be known as the "mutual gains strategy" but was largely abandoned in the wake of the
Wagner Act
The National Labor Relations Act of 1935, also known as the Wagner Act, is a foundational statute of United States labor law that guarantees the right of private sector employees to organize into trade unions, engage in collective bargaining, and ...
.
Other social and cultural efforts
The ILGWU turned its attention to social and cultural matters at an early stage in its history. A resort called "Unity House" was opened in the
Pocono Mountains
The Pocono Mountains, commonly referred to as the Poconos , are a geographical, geological, and cultural region in Northeastern Pennsylvania. They overlook the Delaware River and Delaware Water Gap to the east, Lake Wallenpaupack to the north, ...
in Forest Park, PA for union workers.
[ An educational department offered courses in union leadership skills, citizenship and the English language, law, and pattern-making.][ Health centers provided medial care for union members and their families.] The Union also sponsored sports teams and musical groups,[ while union members staged the topical musical '']Pins and Needles
''Pins and Needles'' (1937) is a musical revue with a book by Arthur Arent, Marc Blitzstein, Emmanuel Eisenberg, Charles Friedman, David Gregory, Joseph Schrank, Arnold B. Horwitt, John Latouche, and Harold Rome, and music and lyrics by Rome. ...
'' (1937–1940). The ILGWU, following the lead of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, also developed housing for its members. The ILGWU, for a time, also owned radio station
Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radi ...
s in New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
(WFDR-FM 104.3, now WAXQ
WAXQ (104.3 FM) is a classic rock- formatted radio station licensed to New York City. WAXQ is owned by iHeartMedia and broadcasts from studios in the former AT&T Building in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan; its transmitter is located ...
), Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
(KFMV 94.7, now KTWV
KTWV (94.7 FM) is a commercial radio station licensed to Los Angeles, California, and broadcasting to the Greater Los Angeles area. The station is owned by Audacy, Inc., and airs an urban adult contemporary radio format. KTWV has studios on ...
), and Chattanooga, Tennessee
Chattanooga ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States. Located along the Tennessee River bordering Georgia, it also extends into Marion County on its western end. With a population of 181,099 in 2020 ...
(WVUN 100.7, now WUSY
WUSY (100.7 FM "U.S. 101") is a commercial radio station licensed to Cleveland, Tennessee, and serving the Chattanooga metropolitan area. The station airs a country music radio format. Local DJs staff the station by day, with the syndicated C ...
).
Dubinsky was also active in the Jewish Labor Committee
The Jewish Labor Committee (JLC) is an American secular Jewish organization dedicated to promoting labor union interests in Jewish communities, and Jewish interests within unions. The organization is headquartered in New York City, with local/re ...
, which the ILGWU, along with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, the Workmen's Circle
The Workers Circle or Der Arbeter Ring ( yi, דער אַרבעטער־רינג), formerly The Workmen's Circle, is an American Jewish nonprofit organization that promotes social and economic justice, Jewish community and education, including Yiddi ...
and other groups, helped establish in 1934 to respond to Hitler's
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
rise to power and to defend the rights of European Jewry. After the war the ILGWU and other groups affiliated with the JLC helped arrange for adoptions of orphaned children who had survived the war. The JLC also played a part in the work of the AFL–CIO's Civil Rights Department.
Decline of the union
The union often saw itself, both before and during Dubinsky's years at the head of the union, as the savior of the industry, eliminating the cutthroat competition over wages that had made it unstable while making workers miserable. Dubinsky took pride in negotiating a contract in 1929 that contained no raises, but allowed the union to crack down on subcontractors who "chiseled". Dubinsky even claimed to have once turned down an employer's wage offer in negotiations as too costly to the employers, and therefore harmful to employees. Dubinsky summarized his attitude by saying that "workers need capitalism the way a fish needs water."
Policing the industry became much harder, however, as gangsters invaded the garment district. Both the employers and the union had hired gangsters during the strikes of the 1920s. Some of them, such as Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, remained in the industry as labor racketeers who took over unions for the opportunities for raking off dues and extorting payoffs from employers with the threat of a strike. Some also became garment manufacturers themselves, driving away unions, other than those they controlled, by violence. While Dubinsky himself remained untouched by graft, a number of officers within the union were corrupted.
The ILGWU was unable, on the other hand, to prevent the flight of formerly unionized shops to other parts of the US or abroad, where unions were nonexistent and wages far lower, though there were exceptions, for example, the successful unionization of runaway shops by organizer Min Matheson in northeastern Pennsylvania
Northeastern Pennsylvania (NEPA) is a geographic region of the U.S. state of Pennsylvania that includes the Pocono Mountains, the Endless Mountains, and the industrial cities of Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Pittston, Hazleton, Nanticoke, and Car ...
in the 1950s. The garment industry is an exceptionally mobile one, requiring little capital, using easily carried equipment, and able to relocate its operations with little or no advance warning. The union lost nearly 300,000 members over twenty years to overseas manufacturing and runaway shops in the south.
In the meantime, the membership of the union changed from being predominantly Jewish and Italian to drawing on the latest wave of immigrant workers: largely from Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...
, the Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares with ...
and China in New York and other east coast cities and from Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
, Central America
Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...
, and Asia in Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
and other western and southern centers of the industry. The leadership of the union had less and less in common with its membership and very often had no experience in the trade itself. The union won few gains in workers' wages and benefits in the years after World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
and gradually lost its ability to keep sweatshop conditions from returning, even in the former center of its strength in New York.
In the last decade of Dubinsky's tenure some of these new members began to rebel, protesting their exclusion from positions of power within the union. That rebellion failed: the established leadership had too strong a hold on the official structure of the union, in an industry in which members were scattered across a number of small shops and in which power was concentrated in the upper echelons of the union, rather than in the locals. Without the support of a mass movement that would have given the majority an effective voice, individual insurgents were either marginalized or co-opted.
The union also found it nearly impossible to organize garment workers in communities such as Los Angeles, even when going after established manufacturers such as Guess?
Guess (styled as GUESS or Guess?) is an American clothing brand and retailer, notable for its black-and-white advertisements. Guess licenses its brand on other fashion accessories, such as watches, jewelry, perfumes, bags and shoes.
History
Gues ...
. Organizing on a shop by shop basis proved largely futile, given the proliferation of "fly by night" contractors, the number of workers willing to take striking or fired workers' jobs, the uncertain immigration status of many workers and the kinship connections that bound many workers to their foremen and other low-level managers. The union found itself in 1995 in nearly the same position that it had been in more than ninety years earlier, but without any prospect of the sort of mass upsurge that had produced the general strikes of 1909 and 1910.
The ILGWU merged with the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union in 1995, to form UNITE. In 2004, that organization merged with the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees union to form UNITE HERE
UNITE HERE is a labor union in the United States and Canada with roughly 300,000 active members. The union's members work predominantly in the hotel, food service, laundry, warehouse, and casino gaming industries. The union was formed in 2004 by ...
.
Union label
The ILGWU adopted an optional union label
A union label (sometimes called a union bug) is a label, mark or emblem which advertises that the employees who make a product or provide a service are represented by the labor union or group of unions whose label appears, in order to attract cus ...
at its first convention. Labeling was briefly made compulsory in all industries under the National Recovery Act
The National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 (NIRA) was a US labor law and consumer law passed by the 73rd US Congress to authorize the president to regulate industry for fair wages and prices that would stimulate economic recovery. It also e ...
label from 1933–1935, after which the ILGWU established its Union Label Office. A campaign in the 1950s to make the union label mandatory culminated in a garment industry wide label, launched in 1959 with appearances by Mary Rockefeller
Mary Todhunter Clark Rockefeller (June 17, 1907 – April 21, 1999) was the first wife of Nelson A. Rockefeller, the 49th governor of New York. She served as the first lady of New York from 1959 until the Rockefellers' divorce in March 19 ...
, Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt () (October 11, 1884November 7, 1962) was an American political figure, diplomat, and activist. She was the first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945, during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four ...
and other notable women around the country.
In the 1970s, in response to competition from an increase in imported goods, the union label was redesigned to emphasize American patriotism
Americanism, also referred to as American patriotism, is a set of nationalist values which aim to create a collective ''American identity'' for the United States that can be defined as "an articulation of the nation's rightful place in the world, ...
, adding the words " Made in the U.S.A." (a phrase that was made mandatory in 1985 under the Textile Fiber Products Identification Act
Textile Fiber Products Identification Act is a consumer protection act in the United States. The act protects the interest of producers and consumers by imposing regulations of labelling (the mandatory content disclosure) and advertising of texti ...
). The 1975 "Look For the Label" campaign's eponymous advertising jingle
A jingle is a short song or tune used in advertising and for other commercial uses. Jingles are a form of sound branding. A jingle contains one or more hooks and meaning that explicitly promote the product or service being advertised, usually t ...
, written by Paula Green
Paula Green (September 18, 1927 – December 4, 2015) was an American advertising executive, best known for writing the lyrics to the "Look for the Union Label" song for ILGWU and the Avis motto "We Try Harder". Green was one of the pione ...
and Malcolm Dodds, was a popular, enduring anthem. Where earlier campaigns had invoked the Culture of Domesticity
The Culture of Domesticity (often shortened to Cult of Domesticity) or Cult of True Womanhood is a term used by historians to describe what they consider to have been a prevailing value system among the upper and middle classes during the 19th cen ...
to associate union products with family values and traditional gender roles, the 1975 campaign embraced women's liberation
The women's liberation movement (WLM) was a political alignment of women and feminist intellectualism that emerged in the late 1960s and continued into the 1980s primarily in the industrialized nations of the Western world, which effected great ...
, depicting the working, rank-and-file members of the ILGWU.
The commercial featuring the famous song was parodied on a late-1970s episode of ''Saturday Night Live
''Saturday Night Live'' (often abbreviated to ''SNL'') is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and Peacock (streaming service), Peacock. ...
'' in a fake commercial for The Dope Growers Union; the March 19, 1977, episode (#10.22) of ''The Carol Burnett Show
''The Carol Burnett Show'' is an American variety/sketch comedy television show that originally ran on CBS from September 11, 1967, to March 29, 1978, for 279 episodes, and again with nine episodes in fall 1991. It starred Carol Burnett, Har ...
''; and the '' South Park'' episode " Freak Strike" (2002).
Presidents
:1900: Herman Grossman
:1903: Benjamin Schlesinger
:1904: James McCauley
:1905: Herman Grossman
:1907: Julian Mortimer
:1908: Charles Jacobson (acting)
:1908: Abraham Rosenberg
:1914: Benjamin Schlesinger
:1923: Salvatore Ninfo (acting)
:1923: Morris Sigman Morris Sigman (1880–1931) was president of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union from 1923 to 1928.
Biography
Early life
Born in Akkerman (then in Bessarabia Province of the Russian Empire), Morris Sigman spent his youth working as a ...
:1928: Benjamin Schlesinger
:1932: David Dubinsky
David Dubinsky (; born David Isaac Dobnievski; February 22, 1892 – September 17, 1982) was a Belarusian-born American labor leader and politician. He served as president of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) between 1932 ...
:1966: Louis Stulberg Louis Stulberg (1901–1977) was president of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union from 1966 to 1975.
Biography
Early life
Louis Stulberg emigrated with his parents from Poland to Canada in 1904. In 1915, he became a cutter and joined ...
:1975: Sol Chick Chaikin
:1986: Jay Mazur
See also
* Luigi Antonini
Luigi Antonini (September 11, 1883 – December 30, 1968) was an Italian-American trade union leader and anti-fascist organizer. He was the first Vice President of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, and organizer of the Italian-Americ ...
* International Ladies Garment Workers Union leaders
International is an adjective (also used as a noun) meaning "between nations".
International may also refer to:
Music Albums
* ''International'' (Kevin Michael album), 2011
* ''International'' (New Order album), 2002
* ''International'' (The T ...
* Women in labor unions
References
Notes
Bibliography
* Dubinsky, David and Raskin, A. H. (1977) ''David Dubinsky: A Life With Labor''
* Duron, Clementina. "Mexican women and labor conflict in Los Angeles: the ILGWU dressmakers' strike of 1933." '' Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies'' (1984) 15#1 pp: 145–161.
* Godfried, Nathan. "Revising labor history for the cold war: The ILGWU and the film, with these hands." ''Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television'' (2008) 28##3 pp: 311–333.
* Green, George N. "ILGWU in Texas, 1930–1970." ''Journal of Mexican-American History'' (1971) 1#2 pp: 144–169.
* Katz, Daniel. "Race, Gender, and Labor Education: ILGWU Locals 22 and 91, 1933–1937." ''Labor’s Heritage'' (2000) 11#1 pp: 4–19.
::Primary sources
ILGWU Records, 1884–2006
Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Cornell University Library.
Rose Pesotta Papers
New York Public Library.
Further reading
* Laslett, John, and Mary Tyler. ''The ILGWU in Los Angeles, 1907–1988''
* Parment, Robert. ''The Master of Seventh Avenue: David Dubinsky and the American Labor Movement'' (New York University Press, 2005).
* Tyler, Gus. ''Look for the Union Label: A History of the International Ladies Garment Workers' Union'' (M. E. Sharpe, 1995)
* Waldinger, Roger D. ''Through the Eye of the Needle: Immigrants and Enterprise in New York's Garment Trades'' (New York University Press, 1986)
* Wolensky, Kenneth et al. ''Fighting for the union label: The women’s garment industry and the ILGWU in Pennsylvania'' (Penn State Press, 2002)
External links
Triangle Fire Open Archive: Mural, Victory of Light Over Darkness
ILGWU Records at the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives
Cornell University Image Collections: ILGWU Photographs
{{Authority control
Trade unions established in 1900
Trade unions disestablished in 1995
UNITE HERE
Clothing industry trade unions
Defunct trade unions in the United States
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire
Women's occupational organizations
1900 establishments in New York City