6515.C5B8
}
Ve cl
0)
—
THE LIBRARY
OF THE
NEW YORK STATE SCHOOL
OF
INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR
RELATIONS |
AT
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
THE NEW UNIONISM
IN THE CLOTHING INDUSTRY
BY
J. M. BUDISH
AND
GEORGE SOULE
a
=
EC ho ONE NT pee ary
Rees ep , De tein
ae the Ris intoy fea) Al ; meld
NEW YORK
HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE
1920
Zaye
vied k
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY ,
HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE, INC
THE QUINN & BODEN COMPANY
RAHWAY WN J.
NOTE
Some readers of this book may miss emphasis on
the names of important union officials such as Sidney
Hillmann and Joseph Schlossberg of the Amal-
gamated Clothing Workers of America, and Ben-
jamin Schlesinger and Abraham Baroff of the Inter-
national Ladies’ Garment Workers Union. If we
once began to assign credit to individuals, however,
the list could not stop with the Presidents and
General Secretaries, but would go on through
Managers, Business Agents, Delegates, Shop Chair-
men, until it had included well-nigh every member
of the unions. To write a book about the needle-
trades organizations without giving due praise to all
the able and devoted officials is not to write a Hamlet
with the Hamlet left out, for the greatest possible
tribute to them is an exhibition of the movement with
which they have been associated.
Our thanks is due to the Survey for permission to
reprint the quotations from Katherine Coman in
Chapter IV. For information and criticism we are
especially indebted to Joseph Schlossberg and Peter
Monat of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, Miss
Fannia Cohn and Morris Zigman of the Interna-
tional Ladies’ Garment Workers Union, A. J. Muste
of the Amalgamated Textile Workers, Morris Kauf-
iii.
iv NOTE
man of the International Fur Workers Union, M.
Kolchin, of the Impartial Chairman’s Office of the
New York Men’s Clothing Industry, M. Zuckerman
of the United Cloth Hat and Cap Makers, and D.
Berger of the United Neckwear Makers.
CONTENTS
CuapTer I
THE NEW UNIONISM
Success of the Clothing Unions
British New Unionism :
Industrial Workers of the World
Hoxie’s Classification of Unions
Tendencies Toward New Unionism in U. 8.
Characteristics of the Clothing Unions .
CHapter II
THE CLOTHING INDUSTRY
Magnitude of the Industry
Divisions of the Industry .
History of Men’s Clothing Trades .
wHistory of Women’s sii ee Trades
Seasonal Character
Fluidity of Labor
Fashions . :
Power Installation
Size and Number of Establishments
Contractors and Sub-Manufacturers
Difficulty of Controlling Industry .
Variations in Efficiency. 7
Difficulty of Mobilizing Labor .
' Number of Women Employed .
The Function of the Unions
CHAPTER III
THE HUMAN ELEMENT
Assumed Radicalism of the Immigrant .
Personnel of the Clothing Industry
Situation of East-European Jews
Culture of the Jews 3 ;
Persecution of Jews in Russia .
Anti-Jewish Movement in Rumania and Austria-Hungary
What the Jews Sought in America :
Proportion of Socialists Among Jewish Immigrants ‘
v
46
49
52
53
55
57,
vi CONTENTS
PAGH
Development of Socialism Among Jews in the U. 8. . 59
Italian Immigration . . : 63
Influence of Race and Leadership: 66
CHapTeR IV
THE UNIONS—THEIR BEGINNINGS AND GROWTH
che Unions . : x - ew ee 6B
Their History to 1900 . : “ . 4 ‘ ; . 70
‘The United Garment Workers. . . 74
The United Cloth Hat and Cap Makers ‘of North America . 76
wee The International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union ‘ 80
Backwardness of the U. G. W. P . 85
The Nashville Conventions . : . 87
“The Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America... 89
A Needle Trades Federation . ‘ - 3 93
~ The International Fur Workers’ Union ae Se » 95
The Journeyman Tailors’ Union ee fee . 96
The United Neckwear Makers F i 97
The Suspender Makers Union . : t 4 . 98
Present Strength of the Unions : 98
CHAPTER V
DECISIVE VICTORIES
The Workers’ State of Mind .. 101
A Typical Tenement ‘ ‘ 3 ‘ . e 102
A Contractor’s Shop : f : é 104
Specific Grievances. ues he» ee. & 106
“we New York Cloak Strike of 1910. . 2.) ], 111
“%> Signing of the Protocol eS 116
Chicago Men’s Clothing Strike of 1910. |, ; 118
More Recent Achievements a 4 ‘ 124
CHapTer VI
COLLECTIVE AGREEMENTS
,Community of Interest Between Employer and E
‘Conflict of Interest. . mee ioe
Collective Agreement . i ee ‘ 128
Operation of Protocol Machinery ee Bo oe % 129
Friction Under the Protocol ek . ae of 132
Causes of Complaint .. ED CEP ge ky Ly . 134
The Fundamental Conflict . dm ci os, Gt Cee on . 136
Abrogation of Protocol . ee ee ee a 139
Cloakma¢kers’ Agreement of 1916 oe & oy = MD
Agreements of 1919 in Women’s Industry : : : : 142
Joint Board of Sanitary Control . se ek 145
CONTENTS
Hart, Schaffner and Marx Agreements .
Impartial Machinery in New York Men’s Industry
Industrial Council in Men’s Industry :
Other Agreements . So ue as
Cuapter VII
PHILOSOPHY, STRUCTURE, AND STRATEGY
Power of the Needle-Trades Unions .
Function of Ideas. wt
Origins of Old Unionism
Origins of Clothing Unions.
First Expressions of their Philosophy
Leadership. .
Structure of the Clothing Unions
Strategy of the Clothing Unions
Cxapter VIII
EDUCATION
Interest in the Unions’ Educational Work
Educational Function of Unions Themselves .
Early Labor Education Be tte Na
New Conception of Education. .
Fea Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Activities
nited Labor Education Committee . ‘
New Unionist’s Attitude Towards Education
CHAPTER IX
LABOR PRESS AND COOPERATIVES
Growing Power of the Press
Bias of the Capitalist Press
Union Journals in English .
Early Jewish Workers’ Press
The Forward .
Other Journals
Clothing Union Publications
Cooperative Enterprises
A Cooperative Bank
CHAPTER X
TEXTILES
Inter-Relation of Textiles and ii
The Textile Industry .
vil
PAGH
148
152
153
154
156
158
159
163
167
171
173
191
205
206
208
212
215
219
225
229
231
235
239
241
243
245
248
250
252
252
vill CONTENTS
The Labor Force in Textiles
The Older Unions :
The Lawrence Strike of 1919
The Amalgamated Textile Workers .
Competition Between New and Old Unions
Amalgamation with Clothing Workers
CHaPTEerR XI
THE FUTURE
Speculation About the Future .
What Remains to be Achieved .
Wages and Productivity
Seasonal Unemployment.
Workers’ Control of the Industry «
Cooperative Production
Revolutionary General Strike
Socialization by Political and Economic Action
Future Policy of the Workers ;
Interests of the Public
Comparative Dangers from Conservative and Radical Unions .
Necessity of Experiment and Change
BIBLIOGRAPHY
APPENDIX
INDEX
PAGH
254
256
257
262
266
269
270
272
274
279
283
285
288
291
295
297
299
301
303
307
341
THE NEW UNIONISM IN THE
CLOTHING INDUSTRY
CHAPTER I
THE NEW UNIONISM
Tue rapid rise of the unions in the clothing industry
is dramatic in itself. The workers who compose
them, largely of foreign birth, were for many years
notoriously exploited. Their sufferings from over-
crowding in the tenements, from occupational dis-
eases, from underpayment, overwork, and seasonal
unemployment, formed a favorite theme for the in-
vestigator, the proponent of welfare legislation, the
social worker. Charity and the law were invoked
again and again, without noticeable effect. The
periodic revolts of the toilers themselves, spontan-
eous and well-nigh unorganized, arose with the re-
turning seasons, and spent themselves without per-
manent gain like furious waves which fall and
withdraw again into the sea. For these unfortunate
city children there seemed to be no hope. Then came
a sudden and unexpected victory. The unions began
to flourish. Almost within ten years the clothing
workers have come out of the sweatshops and ad-
vanced to a leading position in American organized
labor.
It is not for their material victories, however, that
these unions are worthy of extended study. Other
3
4 THE NEW UNIONISM
unions also have won good wages and reasonable
hours. The needle-trades organizations are typical,
not so much of the general labor movement in the
United States at the moment, as of aspirations and
tendencies which are rapidly gaining ground. It is
their philosophy, their methods, their aims beyond
wages and hours, their remarkable educational pro-
gram, which give them a somewhat peculiar signifi-
cance. They embody what seems to be a new sort of
unionism.
As Sidney and Beatrice Webb have pointed out in
their ‘‘History of Trade Unionism”’ there have been
many revivals in the labor movement to which the
term ‘‘new unionism’’ has been applied. As long
ago as 1830 the London Times was much’ agitated
by a project to form ‘‘one big union’? of all crafts
throughout the nation, and held up the Trades Union
as a bogy with which to frighten its readers. At
that time the innovators favored associations using
purely economic action on an ever-widening scale, as
opposed to the old-fashioned friendly and benefit
societies. In 1842, after chartism had spent its force
and the unions had been weakened by frequent in-
dustrial depressions, a new unionism arose whose
aim was to build cautiously and moderately an en-
during structure, with a sounder financial stability.
The classic example of new unionism in England,
however, was the movement resulting from the dock
strike of 1889. For many years organization had
been almost the exclusive prerogative of the skilled
-eraftsmen, the ‘‘aristocracy of ldbor.’’ Now came a
THE NEW UNIONISM 5
great and successful strike of the unskilled. Socialist |
influence showed strongly in the agitation. It was
class-conscious, and vaguely revolutionary in aim.
The unions were characterized by the absence of
benefit funds or any of the vested interests which
tend to make labor conservative. They were not
exclusive, and were thought of chiefly as instruments
of economic warfare. At the same time they wel-
comed state interference in the form of laws regulat-
ing everything except the hours of labor, and looked
forward to the time when the workers, as voters,
should be the predominant power in the state. Since
1889 the new unionism has been a term in constant
use in England; although its precise meaning has
varied with almost every change in the aspiration of
the more aggressive and radical wing of the labor
movement.
The new unionism was revivified in 1911, when
another great strike broke out in the port of London.
It began with the National Union of Sailors and
Firemen, and soon spread to the dockers, the steve-
dores, the gasworkers, the carmen, the coal porters,
the tug enginemen, the grain porters and others. It
is estimated that over 100,000 men took part in a
' parade which aroused the whole city. In spite of
the port authorities, this strike was in large measure
successful; but the chief of its results was the for-
mation of the National Transport Workers’ Federa-
tion, an organization of the numerous unions con-
cerned, for the purpose of future industrial action.
It is this powerful and radical union which has since
6 THE NEW UNIONISM
joined with the National Union of Railwaymen and
the Miners’ Federation in the celebrated ‘‘Triple
Alliance,’’ an inter-industrial body which is probably
at once the strongest and most intelligently aggres-
sive organization of labor in the world. With one
hand it supports the far-reaching program of the
British Labor Party, while with the other it threatens
direct economic action for the consummation of
national ownership and democratic management of
the mines and railways. In maturity, therefore,
British new unionism has assumed a well defined
philosophy and method. It believes in the fullest
kind of industrial and inter-industrial organization
for economic pressure. It believes in independent
political organization for the use of the franchise.
Its goal is a socialized society, operating very
much in the manner advocated by G. D. H. Cole
and the other proponents of national guilds, if we
can judge by the programs of the miners.
In America, too, we have heard the term before.
Not many years ago it was applied to the Industrial
Workers of the World. The characteristics of this
organization have been obscured in the public
mind by the propaganda of its enemies, who have
succeeded in identifying it with bloody revolt and
wanton destruction of property. It arose, how-
ever, in much the same spirit as the new unions
in England. It was a revolt against the narrow
and conservative craft spirit of many of the older
unions, it appealed mainly to the unskilled and
hitherto unorganized, and it called for a recon-
THE NEW UNIONISM 7%
structed society in which the workers, organized by
industries, would control production.
The I. W. W. developed along a different line, how-
ever, from that taken by the British movement
stimulated by Tom Mann and other syndicalists. In
Britain, the syndicalists soon gave up the plan of
trying to form new industrial unions to compete with
the organizations of labor already existing, but
rather carried on an agitation for the federation and
amalgamation of the old craft and trade bodies. In
America the attempt to set up a separate labor move-
ment continued. In England pure syndicalism was
abandoned for the use of political action, and for the
working out of an adaptation to collectivist theory
which is now represented by the guild movement.
In America, no compromise with the socialists was
attempted by the I. W. W., except in the smaller and
less influential Detroit wing. In England, the con-
scious development of ca’ canny, or slacking on the
job, did not long continue. In America, the I. W. W.
tried to perfect the weapon of the short strike and
the strike on the job or the ‘‘conscientious with-
drawal of efficiency.’? With the exception of the
‘Detroit group, the American I. W. W. stood for
decentralization, and preferred spontaneous guer-
rilla warfare to the building of a strong organization
which, because it had something to lose, might be-
come conservative. Perhaps on account of these
policies, the I. W. W. has never secured the adherence
of many workers for long, save the casual agricul-
tural and forest labor of the West. Its power has
8 THE NEW UNIONISM
always been overestimated by those who have been
afraid of it, and it does not now, if it ever did, offer
any such promise as the new unionism in Eng-
land.
Robert F. Hoxie, in his ‘‘Trade Unionism in the
United States,’’ contends that unions are not of one
or two kinds simply, but assume many forms, ac-
cording to the function for which they exist. Among
these forms he has identified four basic types, to
which in some degree all unions in the United States
have approximated. Business unionism, in this
classification, is the kind formed to serve the material
interests of its members within the existing indus-
trial structure; its main object is to practice collec-
tive bargaining. Uplift unionism is characterized by
broad humanitarian purposes; its main methods are
friendly benefits and mutual insurance; it was
prominent during the early stages of union history
and was roughly typified during the latter half of
the nineteenth century by the Knights of Labor.
Revolutionary unionism aims to prepare for a new
social and industrial order; it is divided into two
subsidiary types—socialistic, which lays more em-
phasis on political action, and quasi-anarchistic,
which eschews political action and looks forward to
abolishing entirely the state as we know it. The
I. W. W. may be taken as an example of the latter.
Predatory unionism has no large aspirations, but
preys on the employer through secret and illegal
methods such as blackmail and bribery, sometimes
for the benefit of the members, sometimes for the
THE NEW UNIONISM 9
benefit of the dishonest union official. This type
flourished twenty years ago in the United States, but
has now almost disappeared.
To the present writers it seems that this classifica-
tion is not wholly illuminating, because it is not based
on a sufficiently dynamic conception of the labor
movement. The types are not, after all, quite co-
ordinate. In the light of the intensification of the
industrial conflict which takes place with the growth
of the capitalist order, neither uplift unionism nor
predatory unionism seem fundamental enough types
to set beside business unionism and revolutionary
unionism. At bottom the labor movement is one,
because it represents a protest, unconscious or con-
scious, against the status of the wage-worker. What-
ever the avowed purpose and policies of the union
under consideration, its activities are bound to affect
the structure of society to a greater or less degree.
Its particular creed and method are dependent on a
variety of circumstances. Unions holding to creeds
and methods which become unsuited to the advance-
ment of labor tend to disappear as the environment
alters. As we have seen, the most revolutionary
unions employ collective bargaining; the character-
istics of uplift unionism are displayed sometimes by
business unions and sometimes by socialist unions;
predatory unionism is practiced, if at all, by business
unions corrupted by boss polities, or by little cliques
in revolutionary unions driven underground through
suppression.
The most significant distinction, in our opinion, is
LO THE NEW UNIONISM
that between unions which are unconscious that their
efforts tend toward a new social order and so adapt
their strategy solely to the immediate situation, and
unions which are conscious of their desire for a new
order, and so base their strategy on more funda-
mental considerations. These two types in turn have
many variants, but the nature of every variation
bears the impress of the primary type. It is the
former type, roughly corresponding with Professor
Hoxie’s ‘‘business unionism’’ which we have chosen
to call the ‘‘old unionism,’’ and the latter which we
iave called ‘‘the new unionism.’’ G. D. H. Cole has
ziven this distinction a phrasing which brings out
its meaning in an objective way. In ‘‘The World of
Labor’’ he writes, ‘‘Regarded merely as instruments
xf collective wage-bargaining, the unions are the
nost powerful weapon in the hands of labor; if they
are in addition the germs of the future organization
of industry as a whole, their importance becomes at
ynce immeasurably greater.’’
In spite of the decline of the I. W. W., the new
inionism in other forms is by no means waning in
‘he United States. Various kinds of old unions in
the course of their natural development are being
‘orced to approach it by one route or another. The
conservative Railway Brotherhoods have little by
ittle been obliged to codperate with unions of the
skilled; the railway ‘‘system federation”? is a unit
hrough which craft action has been superseded by
ndustrial action; and the enunciation of the Plumb
lan is a long step towards the acknowledgment of
THE NEW UNIONISM 11
the need for a new economic order which can be at-
tained not through collective bargaining but only
through combined political and economic action. The
United Mine Workers have long been a union indus.
trial in form and practicing industrial rather thar
craft strikes; socialist influence has been strong with.
in the union, though not dominant in its government
The time is rapidly approaching, as even its con
servative officials admit, when no further gains 0:
importance can be made for the members withou
pressing actively for the nationalization of the mines
a measure already endorsed several times by thi
convention. Similar tendencies can be observer
everywhere in the conservative American Federatio1
of Labor. Thus does the old unionism merge int
the new, by force of sheer economic and socia
pressure.
No strong and important group of unions in th
United States, however, has whole-heartedly ac
cepted the new unionism and consciously modele
structure and strategy accordingly, except the union
in the clothing industry. For this reason they ma
be considered the nearest approach to the pure typ
now existing in America. They sprang into powe
about the time of the port strike of 1911 in Londo1
and the course of their development has been muc
closer to that of the new unions in England than t
that of the I. W. W. They arose from mass mov«
ments of the unskilled and semi-skilled, carrying th
skilled along with them. They have built up a stron
and highly centralized industrial structure, but or
12 THE NEW UNIONISM
sensitive at the same time to the will of the rank
file. They skilfully use collective bargaining,
primarily as a means of gaining material concessi
but as a means of solidifying the workers and
taining victories that will make possible fur‘
progress along the main highway. While prepz
for the most extended economic action, they at
same time take an active part in independent polit
action. They do not preach sabotage or ca’ ca
but on the contrary assist in every sound project |
may improve the industrial machine and incre
productivity. Upon the cultural aspects of the la
movement—the press, education, and art—they
great stress. In short, their whole tendency is in
direction of training the workers for assur
control of production, and of accepting the so
and economic responsibility which such control
volves.
However different in theory and method, all fo:
of ‘‘new unionism’’ have had one trait in comn
They have always come into being during a pei
in which the labor movement as a whole seeme¢
have exhausted its resources and was felt to be
danger of decline if not of destruction. They h
all represented a divergence from the establis
practice, and, more significant than that, all h
brought to the movement a new breadth of sympa
and vision, a new ideal, and anew hope. An exp
tion of the new unionism as exemplified by
clothing workers of America may give further li
to those who have been stirred by the expres
THE NEW UNIONISM 13
aspirations of British labor and by the present flux
and unrest in the American labor movement, and in
particular to those who have seen great promise in
the ideal of national guilds.
CHAPTER II
THE CLOTHING INDUSTRY
Propte sometimes think of trade-union problems as
if unions sprang from economic theories and flour-
ished in the pure air of a revolutionary or labor
movement. Should there be industrial or craft
unions? Should they accept collective agreements?
Should their strategy be determined by business
policy or by faithfulness to the class struggle? These
are fundamental questions, but they are not settled,
for any particular union, by a mere appeal to meta-
physics. Neither is the best answer to them, and to
others of similar nature, dependent mainly on the
traditions, character, and education of the workers
involved. The character of labor organization takes
its form from the nature of industry itself. In the
case of any group of unions with a special tendency
or philosophy it is safe to assume that their char-
acteristics have developed largely from the special
industrial environment in which they have arisen.
Is it, for instance, pure accident that in both England
and America the coal miners, utterly different as
they are in races and culture, have industrial unions
and demand nationalization of the mines, while in
14
THE CLOTHING INDUSTRY 15
both countries metal-trade or engineering unions
have been built on craft lines, and are now engaged
in a difficult struggle for amalgamation? There
seems to be at work among the unions a principle of
adaptation which in a real sense determines the
nature of the survivors. It would be fruitless to
attempt an analysis of the labor movement in the
needle trades without first studying in some detail
the industries in which it lives. It is necessary to
understand the problems the unions have to solve to
see how they have, not by inspiration or perversity,
but by a process of trial and error, hit upon effective
methods of solution.
Judged by any standard except capital employed,
the group of industries under consideration—that
producing clothing—is among the largest in the
country. In 1917, according to government estimates
made for the military draft, 754,062 persons were
engaged in the manufacture of clothing, a larger
number than in any other single industry except
textiles, and more than in any other general occupa-
tion except agriculture, transportation, and the
building trades. According to the latest available
census figures * there were in round numbers 518,000
wage-earners in the ready-made clothing group
(including furs), a number surpassed among in-
dustrial workers only by those in iron and steel
and their products, lumber and its remanufacturers,
and textiles. Clothing ranked 7th in wages paid
($256,400,000), 8th in amount paid for materials
1 Abstract of the Census of Manufactures, 1914.
16 THE NEW UNIONISM
($696,000,000) and 8th in value of the finishe
product ($1,340,000,000). The capital invested wa:
approximately $600,000,000. The number of estab
lishments was about 16,000. If clothing were com
bined with textiles, the two together would outranl
in most respects any other large group of in
dustries.
For our purposes the clothing trades must be
divided into two main groups: one, of which we shal
speak in this chapter, is that in which the union:
originated and developed their strength; the other
of different industrial and social structure, is that
into which they are now rapidly making their way
The first group includes * men’s and boys’ clothing
(175,000 workers), women’s and children’s clothing
(169,000 workers), cloth hats and caps (7,00C
workers), and fur goods (10,000 workers). The
second embraces men’s shirts (52,000 workers), col-
lars and cuffs (10,000 workers), men’s furnishings
including neckwear (22,000 workers), corsets (20,00C
workers), suspenders and garters (10,000 workers),
“and millinery. The main distinction is that most of
the second group are not so favorable to sub-con-
tracting and small establishments, require a larger
proportion of capital and have more highly devel-
oped machine processes. Overalls are included
under men’s clothing, but they form a special case
which must be discussed separately.
Ready-made clothing was almost unknown before
2The figures in this paragraph are from the Abstract of the
Census of Manufactures, 1914. These figures are inaccurate now
but they serve to show the relative importance,
THE CLOTHING INDUSTRY 17
1825. The first factory of which there is any record
was that of George Opdyke in Hudson Street, New
York City, established in 1831. Neither this nor its
successors before the Civil War were, however, fac-
tories as we understand the term. The manufac-
turers merely sold, designed, and cut the garments,
and they were sewed in the home, the cheaper grades
by farmers’ wives, the better ones by skilled city.
tailors. In no case did the product compete with
custom-tailored suits. Its manufacture arose to fill
the demand of second-hand clothing dealers for odd
sizes to round out their stock, and it was sold prin-
cipally to sailors who had neither the time nor the
money to employ a tailor, and to southern negroes
and poor whites. The sewing machine, placed on
the market in 1850, gave the industry some stimulus.
By 1859 it was estimated that there were 4,000 estab-
lishments giving employment to 114,800 workers.
The centers were chiefly Boston, New Bedford, and
New York, because of their proximity to the mills
and to the most numerous supply of cheap casual
labor.
Most of the first manufacturers were custom
tailors. The busy seasons for the custom tailor
lasted but 20 or 25 weeks in the year, and the making
of ready-made clothes filled the gap. As the ready-
made clothing business grew, some of the larger
firms found it profitable enough so that they gave up
the custom trade entirely. Before the Civil War, an
advertisement appeared in a St. Louis paper an-
nouncing sales of ready-made clothing at wholesale
18 THE NEW UNIONISM
and retail, and stating that the goods were made
a New York factory permanently employing 2,0
hands.
Since the spirit of craftsmanship persisted in t
tailor, however, and few mechanical processes h
been introduced to split the process and make easi
the use of unskilled labor, the factory system did n
progress here as in other industries. Goods we
given out by the warehouse man or manufacturer
the competent but dependent tailors to be done
the home. With the invention of the sewing machir
the participation of the family became easy. T!
tailor himself did the more difficult sewing a1
pressing, while his wife and daughters attended ©
the easier work. This was the beginning of 1]
family system.
At the same time the factories, extending the
business, and requiring large quantities of chee
clothing, had to draw into the process semi-skille
workers who could not do good work without supe
vision. The factory, known as a ‘‘warehouse,’’ we
already employing a number of skilled tailors <
foremen to give out jobs to the home workers, 1
examine the product and pay forit. The tailors wit
whom they were dealing were responsible an
known artisans, who could be trusted with the good
There appeared, however, large numbers of persor
applying for employment whom the foremen did nc
know, or did not believe sufficiently skilled or trus:
worthy. In order to utilize the labor of these person
the contractor was brought into being. The ware
THE CLOTHING INDUSTRY 19
houses gave out the goods to the contractor on his
own responsibility, and/the latter employed the
poorer laborers, finding some kind of shop for them.
Thus the sweating system developed.
The Civil War laid the basis for large-scale pro-
duction in the industry. While it cut off the southern
market, it substituted government orders for uni-
forms in enormous quantities, one manufacturer, for
instance, receiving a single order amounting to
$1,250,000. The natural results were larger estab-
lishments, factory buildings erected for the trade, a
standardization of sizes, styles, and processes, a
greater subdivision of labor making possible the
employment of less skilled operators, and more
efficient methods of production. The uniform trade
furnished the manufacturers with knowledge of the
sizes required in quantities and so prepared them to
manufacture in advance of demand. When, after the
war, soldiers returning to civil life began looking for
cheap ready-made clothing, the manufacturers could
supply it. Still, however, the making up and finishing
of the garment was done in the home or by con-
tractors. Wages were paid usually not to the in-
dividual, but to a man and wife. They had risen, on
account of the great demand, and without pressure
from the workers, a little more than had the cost of
living. Whereas before the war a man and wife were
paid from eight to ten dollars a week, they now re-
ceived from twenty to twenty-five. Out of this they
had to buy thread, irons, and sundries. Hours, of
course, were unlimited, and rapidly growing conges-
20 THE NEW UNIONISM
tion in the cities was worsening the sanitation ai
other conditions of work.
By 1869 the men’s clothing industry—the women
was of later development—had increased to 78
establishments. It spent nearly twice as much f
material as in 1859, and the value of the product w
$148,660,000 as against $80,830,000 a decade befoi
The number of workers had diminished to 108,12
probably on account of large-scale production, b
they were paid almost twice as much in tl
aggregate.
The decade from 1870-1880 was a flourishing o1
for the industry. It was a great pioneer period, a1
immigration both increased the demand and fu
nished labor. The sale was still for cheap ar
medium grades, in staple sizes and styles. T]
fashion factor was unimportant. Jobbers di
tributed the product to small shops. Long ered
was customary. Large capital was therefore nece
sary and large cutting and merchandizing establis
ments the rule. Profits were ample. New machine
was invented, notably for cutting. While the numb:
of firms decreased to 6166 in 1879, the average nur
ber of workers increased to 160,813, and the produ
was valued at $209,548,000. Wages, however, r
mained stationary, the aggregate advancing only :
proportion to the number employed. The hon
and contracting systems of work were almost un
versal.
By 1889, probably owing to further improvemen
in process, the number of workers decreased again -
THE CLOTHING INDUSTRY 21
144,926, and the continued tendency to large-scale
production reduced the number of establishments to
4867. The value of the product, however, showed the
usual increase, mounting to $251,019,000. Improve-
ments in the manufacture of textiles, with other
causes, decreased the amount paid for materials by
about two and a half million dollars. Wages were
advanced slightly. The conditions of work remaine”
as before, but the heightened competition amone 1e
contractors and among the workers under théa i in-
tensified every evil of the sweatshop. Meanwhile, the
industry had shown a large development in Chicago
and other mid-western centers.
Through the latter years of the last century the
value of the product in the men’s clothing industry
showed the same steady increase, accompanied, ac-
cording to the census, by fluctuations in number of
establishments and number of workers. These fluc- ,
tuations are partly due to interaction of the grow-»
ing demand for ready-made clothing with the im-
provement of process and the advantage of large-
scale production. In part, however, they are ficti-
tious, since different censuses employed different |
methods of enumeration. The Tenement House Act |
of 1892 in New York, prohibiting contractors from |
carrying on manufacture in the home, while it could y
not be enforced rigidly, was another factor in the |
- establishment of larger shops. It was not until 1895,
however, that the first large ‘‘inside shop’’ was es-
tablished—that is, a shop in which practically all the |
operations \ were canried- on. The centering of the |
22 THE NEW UNIONISM
operations in one building made possible improve
ments in sanitation, power, and other working con
ditions, but it did not abolish the contractor. Mos
of the inside shops continued the sub-contractin;
system within their walls, dealing only with the sub
contractor and paying him for the finished article o:
piece. He in turn acted as the employer of thi
~elatives and hangers-on who worked under hi
di 2*tion.
During the first decade of the new century the in
dustry began to undergo changes which further com
plicated the existence of the workers. It reached ou
for the trade formerly taken by custom tailors, anc
to do so it had to diversify styles and materials
Public taste in turn was affected, and many of the
staple demands began to cease altogether. It hac
been the custom, for instance, for men to wear ready:
made striped trousers, with a coat of different ma.
terial. Now the separate trousers business wanec
rapidly ; advertising was not influencing the men whc
had had their suits tailored as wholes, but was chang:
ing the taste of those who had not. With the tendency
toward diversification of styles, and the intensifiec
competition in merchandizing, went the gradual elim.
ination of the large jobber and long credit. Good:
could not be held over from season to season by re
tailer, jobber, or manufacturer. They had to be
ordered as late as possible, so that the shelves shoulc
not be piled with unpopular styles. Tailor-to-the
trade houses arose, which made a point, not of carry:
ing stock lines, but of making up suits as ordere¢
THE CLOTHING INDUSTRY 23
through the retailer. All this emphasized the sea-
sonal tendency of the industry and made it still more
difficult to avoid seasonal unemployment. It reduced
the amount of capital necessary to engage in manu-
facturing, and robbed the large and medium-sized
houses of much of their advantage. The system of
small contractors, with all their irresponsibility, was
encouraged. And the business became more de:
pendent on general conditions. The panic of 1907
gravely injured the clothing industry, although pre-
vious depressions had helped it. Perhaps this in-
dicated that recent panics have affected more people
in moderate circumstances, but it is certain that the
people in better circumstances. While the total of its |
business had been enlarging as usual, the problems .
of its workers, and of many of its employers as well,
had been much aggravated. It was in this period \
that the unrest of the workers became acute, and the
present labor movement in the industry sprang to |
power.
In 1909 the men’s clothing industry produced
nearly one-half the value of the total product of the
clothing trades. Its principal center was New York,
which turned out 40 per cent of the goods, and con-
tained a still larger proportion of the establishments.
Chicago accounted for 17 per cent. Other important
centers were Philadelphia, Cleveland, Detroit, Balti-
more, Milwaukee, Rochester, St. Louis, Cincinnati,
Louisville, San Francisco, and Syracuse.
The following table summarizes its growth:
/
i
-
ready-made clothing industry was now serving more.»
24 THE NEW UNIONISM
No. Av. No.
of Estab- of Wage- Cost of Value of
Year lishments Earners Wages Materials Product 3
In Thousands of Dollars
1859 ..... 4,014 114,800 19,856 44,147 80,830
1869 ..... 7,858 108,128 30,746 86,794 148,60
1879 ..... 6,166 160,813 45,940 131,363 209,548
1889 ..... 4,867 144,926 51,075 128,846 251,019
1899 ..... 5,729 120,927 45,496 145,211 276,717
1904 ..... 4,504 137,190 57,225 185,793 355,796
1909 ..... 5,584 191,183 89,644 252,522 485,677
1914 ..... 4,830 173,747 86,828 230,032 458,211
The women’s clothing industry was naturally of
later development than the men’s. The women whose
husbands bought their suits from second-hand or
ready-made establishments sewed their own dresses,
and the women who could afford custom dressmakers
were, on account of the stronger hold of fashions,
more conservative in abandoning them. Cloaks were,
however, manufactured in quantities before the Civil
War. Even in 1860 cloak manufacturers were ad-
vertising in New York papers for French women
operators. The total product of the New York ready-
made cloak business was at that time estimated at
about $3,000,000. From the very beginning, the ma-
jority of employees were women, especially young
girls who did not own sewing machines and worked
better in the factory than at home. Home work was
therefore not so prevalent as in the men’s industry,
and ‘‘inside shops’’ were the rule up to the ’eighties.
Working conditions in these shops, however, were
no better than in the men’s sweatshops. Boston was
then a leading center of the industry, and conditions
3 Of course, no deductions can be drawn from changes in money
totals without taking into consideration the fluctuations in the value
of the dollar.
THE CLOTHING INDUSTRY 25
there were reported to be better than those in New
York. The Boston Labor Bureau in 1871 made a
survey which brought out the following facts. The
shops were located on the upper floors and were
packed so densely that the girls could scarcely move
from their chairs; they had no ventilation except
from windows at one end of the rooms, and many of
the windows could not be opened. Over half the
shops had no toilet facilities and no drinking water.
In 1872, according to the same bureau, some girls
received as little as $1.50 a -week, and the highest
wage was $18.00, paid to cutters who also acted as
managers of entire departments. The usual price
for making a cloak was twenty-five cents, and two
cloaks a day was the maximum output. The working
day was usually ten hours, but as all received piece
rates, many took work home at night and sewed from
two to three hours in the evening. Some girls lived
with their parents but others dwelt in cheap boarding
houses, from three to six in a room, the room usually
unheated. A few cases were reported of girls dying
actually in the presence of investigators ‘‘from a
death for which it is impossible to find another name
than starvation.’’? Others confessed to having eked
out their existence by prostitution.
After 1880 the women’s garment industry became >
more diversified and gradually assumed more nearly |
the character of the men’s industry. Suits began to —
be made in larger quantities, more men were em- |
ployed in the manufacture of cloaks, and home work |
and contracting were introduced. Dresses and waists
26 THE NEW UNIONISM
were added to the product in the middle ’nineties.
After 1900 a particularly rapid growth was notice-
able. House dresses, wrappers, kimonos, skirts,
children’s and infant’s wear, and undergarments of
all kinds were produced for the ready-to-wear
market. The following table will indicate the strides
of the business.
In drawing inferences from this table it should be
remembered that here, as with the men’s industry,
the method of enumeration adopted by the census
was not always the same.
No. Av. No.
of Estab- of Wage- Cost of Value of
Year lishments Earners Wages Materials Product
In Thousands of Dollars
1859... 188 5,739 1,193 3,323 7,181
1869 ..... 1,847 11,696 2,514 6,838 12,901
1879 ..... 562 25,192 6,661 19,559 32,005
1889 ..... 1,224 39,149 15,428 34,277 68,164
1899 ..... 2,701 83,739 32,586 84,705 159,340
1909 ..... 4,558 153,743 78,568 208,788 384,752
1914 ..88s 5,564 168,907 92,574 252,345 473,888
Although in 1914 there were not so many wage-
earners in the women’s clothing as in the men’s
clothing industry, there were more separate estab-
lishments. This is partly accounted for by the
greater variety of styles and articles of apparel
made, which leads to more specialization. It is an
eloquent sign, however, that the contractor is as
prevalent here as in any branch of clothing manu-
facture, and that the small establishment flourishes.
It is worthy of note that the period after 1900,
which produced the great diversification of styles,
THE CLOTHING INDUSTRY 27
the intensification of seasonal unemployment, the
increase of the small establishment, and consequent
labor unrest in the men’s industry, was paralleled
by an almost identical development in the women’s
industry. In almost every respect, the character-
istics of the women’s industry are now similar to
those of the men’s. It also flourishes in the same
centers. The main differences are that the men’s
industry is steadier and less seasonal than the
women’s; it contains more large establishments; it
employs more men and fewer women workers; and
it has more invested capital and mechanical power
in proportion to the value of the product.
The most obvious problems of the workers in the
clothing industry are caused by its seasonal char- '
acter. The manufacturers of men’s garments begin.
‘their busy season in January, and the total number :
employed is greatest in February and March. After/
that there is a slow falling-off until November. The|
1914 Census figures show that the total of seasonal |
unemployment reached about 19,000, or over one-
tenth of the maximum. In the making of women’s ;
clothing, the situation is still worse. There are two
busy seasons, one reaching its climax in March, the
other in October. Between seasons the number em-
ployed shows a disastrous decrease. The maximum
in 1914 was 188,526 in March, and the minimum
145,362 in July. Thus if all the operatives thrown
out of work could find nothing else to do, there would
be in the worst period 43,000 unemployed, or 23 per
eent of the total number. Most industries have
28 THE NEW UNIONISM
serious fluctuations, but in no other are there so many
jobless concentrated in a few localities.. When cloth-
ing workers in New York or Chicago are turned on
the streets in such numbers, they cannot easily find
other employment.
More serious than the case of the actually un-
employed, moreover, is that of the majority of
workers who, while they do not lose their jobs, are
put on part-time during the slack seasons. The full
wages received during the busy times do not set the
standard of living, but the wages received during the
period of lowest remuneration limit it. Savings can-
not be great out of even the highest wage paid. It
is the current expenses like rent and weekly food bill
which determine the standard of life. These must
be regulated according to the amount in the pay
envelope when it is thinnest. In the dress and waist
industry, for instance, during 1912 the average
weekly wage earned by all the workers amounted to
only 73 per cent of that paid during the busiest week,
Census statistics of the cap-makers show little actual
seasonal unemployment, but almost all the workers
are on part time for some months in the year.
On account of differences in the busy seasons
among the various clothing industries, it is possible
in some instances for operatives thrown out of work
in one industry to find it in another, but this does
not appreciably affect the total. Taking all the cloth-
ing industries together, the difference between the
highest month and the lowest was, in 1914, 76,670
workers. And it must be remembered that this total
THE CLOTHING INDUSTRY 29
includes the more highly developed manufactures
such as shirts, collars, and corsets, which both on
account of their processes and their location do not
offer much opportunity of employment to workers
on men’s and women’s garments. A study of selected
individuals in the cloak, suit, and skirt industry of
New York was made in 1914 by the U. S. Bureau of
Labor Statistics,‘ illustrating the usual condition.
Out of 29 cutters and 30 pressers, 25 each were out
of work at their trade for more than twelve weeks.
A conservative approximation of the average period
of unemployment for these persons shows that for
the cutters it was 18.8 weeks and for the pressers
20.9 weeks. Only five of the cutters and three of
the pressers were able to find other work during this
period.
The frequency of discharge for seasonal slack work
naturally leads to a shifting personnel of the labor
force in any one shop. Out of about 15,000 workers
_ questioned in the cloak, suit and skirt industry, the
proportion who worked in only one shop during the
year from August 1, 1912 to August 1, 1913, ranged
from 79 to 57 per cent, according to operation. Some .
worked in as many as nine shops in that year. This .
high labor turnover not only adds to the expense of ©
the manufacturer and acts as an economic drag on |, »
the entire industry, but it complicates the task of the
unions. It is more difficult to keep track of such a
fluid labor force, and the frequency of discharge ,
4 Wages and Regularity of Employment in the Cloak, Suit and
Skirt Industry, U. S. Department of Labor, Bulletin No. 147.
30 THE NEW UNIONISM
gives the manufacturer many an opportunity to ge
rid of a worker whom he finds troublesome on a
count of union activities. After collective agree
ments were adopted, many of the most vexatiou
adjustments arose over such questions of imprope
discharge.
It would be a comparatively easy matter to avoir
the worst seasonal fluctuations by distributing worl
evenly throughout the year were it not for fashions
The total amount of clothing to be sold can be es
timated roughly, and if each year the manufacturer:
could decide on a few staple styles, as they used t
do in the last century, they could begin work as earl;
as they liked. But competition has forced them tc
vie with each other in showing a great variety o!
samples, some of which are destined to be popula
and others not. The public, in turn, has beer
educated to demand the ‘‘latest thing.’’ So the
dealers order as little as they can until the seasor
is upon them and they know what is selling. Prob-
ably few individual members of the public really
want so many styles and so many changes in them,
but a spirit of social emulation leads them to accept
the process. They blame the manufacturers for the
multiplicity of fashions, which they believe are
created to increase the volume of clothing sold. The
manufacturers, in turn, blame the public for being
So capricious and causing them so much extra ex-
pense; no individual manufacturer would dare to
reduce his styles for fear of losing trade to com-
petitors. He gains no benefit from any possible in-
THE CLOTHING INDUSTRY 31
creased total of clothing sold. The workers suffer
in the vicious circle by enduring year after year long
hours and rush work in the busy seasons, and semi-
starvation in the slack ones. There is no one to make
effective the communal will against the individual
weakness.
A recent change in the origination of fashions for
the ladies’ tailoring establishments, or ‘‘tailors to
the trade”’ as distinguished from the manufacturers
of ready-to-wear garments, has in fact considerably
reduced seasonal unemployment in that branch.
Whereas fashions used to originate solely in Paris,
and American tailors had to wait before beginning
large operations until the prevailing fashion for the
season established itself, now American capital has
invaded the field to such an extent that many of the
latest ‘‘Paris fashions’’ are actually produced in
New York and are known simultaneously on this
side of the Atlantic by most of the important firms.
The origination of such fashions is the specialized
function of a comparatively few bouses, whose in-
come is derived as much from the sale of designs as
from the sale of garments themselves. In this way
an approach to systematized standardization has
been made. It affects, however, only a comparatively
small proportion of the clothing workers. The re-
cent lengthening of the seasons has been due in the
main rather to the coincidence of a period of pros-
perity with the absence of immigration; if in the
future we should experience a period of depression
and an increase in the labor supply, the problem of
32 THE NEW UNIONISM
seasonal unemployment would undoubtedly be as
acute as ever.
Tf it cost the manufacturer more than it does to
keep his plant idle or going at low speed, he might
make more heroic efforts to break loose from the
round of fashions, or to find something with which
to fill the slack seasons. In other industries the
capital tied up in plant, machinery and power be-
comes a heavy weight on finances if it is not being
used. The average for all American industries was
in 1914° an installation of 3.2 mechanical horse
power for each worker. In the men’s clothing trade
there is but one mechanical horse power for every
3.2 workers. In the women’s industry there is one
horse power for every six workers. The men’s in-
dustry therefore uses ten times less, and the women’s
twenty times less power per worker than the average.
Over half this power, also, is rented, and represents
no investment when not turned on. A manufacturer
is concerned to keep engines working steadily be-
cause they represent an investment which must be
earning dividends, but he can turn man-power off
at any time without concern—for that the worker has
to pay.
The clothing industry and the employees in it also
suffer from changes in the prosperity of the con-
sumer. Clothing in the bulk may be a necessity, but
the garments that are actually sold include a large
proportion of semi-luxuries, which are cut off in time
of crisis. 1914 and 1917 saw greatly slackened pro-
5 Abstract of the Census of Manufactures, 1914,
THE CLOTHING INDUSTRY 33
duction in women’s and men’s civilian clothing,
although the uniform trade partly filled the breach in
1917.
In most industries the large establishments do the
bulk of the business and set the working standards.
Once they are controlled by labor, a decisive battle
of the workers is won. Not so in the clothing in-
dustries. Taking the men’s and women’s industries
together, there were, according to the Census of
1914, 1663 establishments with an annual product of
less than $5,000, 3098 between $5,000 and 20,000, 3496
between $20,000 and $100,000, 2129 between $100,000
and $1,000,000, and 101 over $1,000,000. The estab-
lishments with a product worth under $100,000 each
employed 126,525 persons, more than half as many
as those doing a larger business. Their total product
was valued at $207,046,000, while the larger houses
produced only a little over three times as much—
$725,055,000. There were 2,219 establishments em-
ploying from one to five persons each, and the num-
ber of workers in these shops was 7,553; while there
were only 12 establishments employing over 1,000,
and the total of their wage-earners was but 22,078.
The largest group of establishments (3,901) was
that employing from six to twenty workers; 48,415
wage-earners worked in them. The largest total of
wage-earners worked in shops employing from 21 to
50; in these 2,443 establishments there were 78,907
employed. The 934 shops employing from 51 to 100
each, accounted for 65,566 wage-earners, the 423
from 100 to 250, 63,509 workers, the 97 from 251 to
34 THE NEW UNIONISM
500, 32,591 workers, and the 36 from 501 to 1000,
25,235 workers. This condition of small enterprise
and free competition may satisfy devotees of laissez-
faire economics, but it makes untold trouble for the
workers and their unions.
The larger establishments have no great advantage
over the smaller, and do not tend to drive them out of
business, except in some few lines where a well
advertised name can be made to count. The per-
centage of manufacturing profit to net sales reported
from those men’s clothing establishments which did
an annual business of under $500,000 a year was 4.75,
a larger percentage than in any group of establish-
ments except those whose product was valued at
$2,000,000 and over apiece.* It is the medium-sized
firms which make the least.
The same tendency makes contracting prevalent.
A few ‘‘inside shops’’ have all the operations per-
formed under one roof, but many give out the work
to contractors—either part or all of it. The 1914
Census figures show in the men’s industry 124,000
workers in independent factories and 50,000 in con-
tractors’ shops; in the women’s industry 152,000 in
independent concerns and 17,000 in contractors’ es-
tablishments. Union officials state that these figures
grossly underestimate the numbers working for
contractors. It is probable that they do, for they
are made up from the manufacturers’ reports, and
many a contractor who aspires to independence and
6 The Men’s Factory-Made Clothing Industry, U. S. Department
of Commerce.
THE CLOTHING INDUSTRY 35
perhaps does sell part of his product direct to the
retailer will call himself independent. There are
also numerous sub-manufacturers—employers de-
pendent for their capital and sales on the larger
manufacturers, but each turning out complete gar-
ments in shops for whose labor management the
larger firms are not responsible. Reports from a
representative number of manufacturers show the
relation of profits to contracting as follows:’
Manufacturing Profits on
Firms having Capital Employed Net Sales
No operating contracted 12.56 5.66
Part ‘“ s 9.79 5.22
All ce ae 13.04 5.89
There seems to be little advantage to the manu-
facturer in having all his work performed under his
own roof unless he is making high grade advertised
goods where direct supervision counts.
This separation of the commercial organization
from the strictly producing one is a factor which
makes it easy for small firms to arise in great num-
bers. In most industries the necessity of large-scale
merchandizing and the economy of large-scale pro-
duction go hand in hand, and it is perhaps due to this
fact that many writers have failed to distinguish
the producing from the merchandizing process, al-
though they are different in many respects. In the
clothing industry, however, the distinction is obvious
and complete. To compete successfully in the modern
7The Men’s Factory-Made Clothing Industry, U. S. Department
of Commerce.
36 THE NEW UNIONISM
market, it is necessary to have skilled designers,
travelling salesmen, large show-rooms, and expen-
sive advertising. This makes at least moderate size
necessary to real success as a merchandizing firm.
To produce, however, size is not at all essential. An
ambitious cutter or designer has all the knowledge
necessary to set up a contracting or sub-manufac-
turing business of his own, and he needs but little
capital. He can rent a loft big enough for a few
workers, buy his materials on credit, rent his ma-
chines from the sewing-machine manufacturer and
his power from the electric company. All he needs
is the favor of an independent manufacturer and a
few orders. He can pay his expenses out of the
first year’s turnover. He may be, to be sure, a bad
manager ; poor accounting and reckless ventures may
overwhelm him the moment he tries to expand and
secure direct business from the retailer. Every year
sees hundreds of little firms drifting into and out of
business. The total capital invested in the clothing
industries was in 1914, as we have seen (page 16),
about 15 per cent less than the amount spent for
materials (including power). This shows vividly
how little fixed capital is necessary and why no con-
centration of capital can control the industry. The
total of all industries for the country shows, on the
contrary, over $22,790,000,000 capital and only
$14,368,000,000 spent for materials (including
power). The capital for all was, instead of 15 per
cent smaller, 27 per cent larger than the sum spent
for materials. A further indication of the dom-
THE CLOTHING INDUSTRY 37
inance of the small establishment in the production
of clothing is the fact that in 1914, in men’s clothing
—including shirts—only 47.1 per cent of the product
was made by incorporated firms, and in the women’s
trade only 29.1 per cent. The average for all indus-
tries was 83.2 per cent.’
With such a large number of establishments, many
of them new each year, there is of course a wide
variation in managerial and commercial efficiency.
Inefficient firms may lose out in the end, but their
constant presence exerts a depressing effect on
standards. Few manufacturers have accurate ac-
counting systems, and many cannot tell whether cer-
tain styles are being made at a profit oraloss. The
multiplicity of styles, with inaccurate accounting,
leads to great confusion and divergence in the deter-
mination of piece rates. The union, endeavoring
as it must to establish uniform minima of wages, is
limited by the least efficient employer. The styles
sold at a loss create a ruinous competition for the
established firms, while on the other hand the ma-
jority of firms in an association cannot afford the
level of wages that the best managed could pay. A
special study of the men’s clothing industry ® fur-
nishes evidence that the level of wages has little to
do with the prosperity of the establishment. Of ten
establishments showing the highest percentage of
manufacturing profit, three had a higher percentage
for direct labor than the average for the industry,
8 Abstract of the Census of Manufactures, 1914.
®The Men’s Factory-Made Clothing Industry. U. 8. Department
of Commerce.
38 THE NEW UNIONISM
and seven had a lower percentage. Of six establish-
ments showing a manufacturing loss, four had a
higher percentage for direct labor than the aver-
age, and two a lower percentage. A lower percent-
age for direct labor does not mean necessarily lower
wages, but may mean fewer employees and better
management. If all establishments were as well
managed as the most prosperous, the general level
of wages could therefore be far higher than it is,
Moreover, the workers suffer in the end from the
general economic loss due to the excess of com-
petition. One indication of this is that even some
of the best firms carry many styles at a loss in order
to present an attractive line and prevent competitors
from undermining their custom.
Managerial inefficiency is also reflected in un-
necessary unemployment or part-time employment
due to a lack of balance between various depart-
ments. The failure to provide a sufficient proportion
of operatives at one stage of the manufacturing
process may cause a congestion there and idleness
at other stages. In 1913 in the dress and waist in-
dustry, even during the busiest week of the season,
a large number of the workers were not fully em-
ployed. Although the full working week was 50
hours, 20.9 per cent of the workers were employed
for between 40 and 50 hours, 3.7 per cent between
30 and 40 hours, 2.5 per cent between 20 and 30
hours, and 2.2 per cent under 20 hours.?° Illness,
10 Wages and Regularity of Employment and the Standardization
of Piece Rates in the Dress and Waist Industry: New York City.
U. S. Department of Labor, Bulletin No. 146,
THE CLOTHING INDUSTRY 39
tardiness, and other causes leading workers to report
for only part of the week must be allowed for in
these percentages, but probably the largest factor
in them is due to managerial inefficiency. If this is
the case during the busiest week of the year, imagine
the conditions when there is no particular urgency in
finishing the product.
Attempts of the workers to improve their con-
ditions were always hindered by the extraordinary
difficulty of mobilizing and controlling the labor in
this industry. It has flourished in large cities, and
has ; depended chiefly on the work of immigrants re-
cently arrived, the majority of whom did not know
English, but all of whom needed immediate em-
ployment. Keen competition among the workers
themselves was for long the rule. The fact that
much of the work could be done in the home, and
was done there for years, prevented the growth of
solidarity among the toilers, or any effective regula-
tion of hours, conditions, or wages. Hach head of a
household might have a separate establishment. His
wife and children, and even the boarders, would work
for him. Newly come relatives or acquaintances
who had no other point of contact with the new world '
would find at his house temporary employment.
Thus they would all work seven days a week and far
into the night, in small overcrowded rooms which
they rarely had time to clean, often sleeping and pre-
paring their rude meals in the workroom. Much has
been written of the sweatshops and the insanitary
tenements in the slum. Few, however, have under-
40 THE NEW UNIONISM
stood that these conditions were not only frightful
in themselves, butsthat they hindered the growth of
labor organizations which alone could affect lasting
and fruitful improvements. It was not the fault of
the homeworker, the contractor or his employees
that long hours were the rule. Their competition
with each other continually depressed prices and
made it necessary to work longer and longer in order
to keep soul and body together.
Even after the worst sweatshops were abolished,
it was still difficult for the unions to mobilize so fluid
a supply of labor. Little skill for much of the
work is required, and that is of a type which is
usually learned in the home. Every woman knows
something about sewing; only the designers and
cutters need any special tailoring skill. The un-
organized are always in the background, in the
masses of the population, ready to drift into the
industry. No man can learn to be a toolmaker or a
locomotive engineer without undergoing a long ap-
prenticeship in the shop, coming in contact with his
fellow-workers, and being educated to union solidar-
ity and discipline. But some woman fresh from a
little town in Russia or Poland, unable to read and
write, might within a week after her arrival in this
country be working in the shop of a garment
contractor.
It is a commonplace of the labor movement that
women are harder to organize than men. Many of
them go to work while they are young and live at
home; they accept seasonal employment easily, and
THE CLOTHING INDUSTRY 41
they do not intend to stay permanently in the shop
anyway. To them marriage is the real career, and
wage-work is a mere temporary expedient, to be en-
dured without much thought until the way of escape
opens. Motives based on social status and on race
or religion are likely to be stronger with women than
with men. Many a young woman, forced into indus-
try by the pressure of circumstances, hesitates to
admit that she is a member of the working class, and
believes that it would cast a stigma upon her to join
a union. She prefers rather to maintain her as-
sociations with the women who do not have to work
for wages, to read and sympathize with the news-
papers which support the employers. If she is
native-born, she dislikes to link herself with
‘‘foreigners,’’ and if she is a Christian, she shares
a popular prejudice against Jews. She thinks it
unseemly to go to meetings where there are many
men who will treat her as an equal, but whom she
has not met in a social way, and whom she does not
wish to entertain in her home. As a result of these
preconceptions, she would rather allow the employer
to exploit her than to do anything so unladylike as
to affiliate with the labor movement and perhaps be
called on strike. Fortunately these remnants of a
passing social stratification are now weakening
among working women. When organized, their
spirit and endurance are often greater than that of
men, but it is more difficult to enlist them in the labor
army.
This has been an additional obstacle of the needle-
42 THE NEW UNIONISM
trades unions. In 1914 there were more women than
men in both the men’s clothing and women’s clothing
establishments, the totals being 147,572 men wage-
earners over 16 years of age, and 203,009 women over
16. A special study of representative establishments
making men’s garments showed only 19.3 per cent of
the women workers married, and of these about one-
third were in the shop temporarily. The percentage
of permanent married workers in the women’s indus-
try would probably be even smaller, since it is chiefly
the Italians who remain in the shop after marriage,
and there are many more Italians in the men’s cloth-
ing than in the women’s clothing establishments.
Unions facing a few strongly entrenched employ-
ers such as the manufacturers of iron and steel have
their own difficulties, but there at least the problem
is clear. It is a test of strength; the workers know
that they must organize, and then enforce the con-
ditions they wish. But the character of the clothing
industry presents the unions with a confusing en-
tanglement of obstacles. The fluctuations of busy
and slack seasons tend to destroy solidarity. For
years strikes would occur at the beginning of the
busy season, concessions would be won, and then as
more and more workers were deprived of employ-
ment, competition among them would again arise,
standards would be lowered and the concessions lost.
The struggle would have to begin anew every year.
The union itself would lose members who when out
of work could not afford to pay their dues. The large
number of small establishments made necessary, not
THE CLOTHING INDUSTRY 43
afew great victories, but a thousand small ones. An
argus-eyed vigilance was necessary to make sure that
agreements were everywhere observed. The manv- ,
facturer who himself assented to the union terms |
might employ a new or irresponsible contractor who |
obscurely violated them. After associations of em-,
ployers were formed, the divergence of the members)
in prosperity, attitude, and ability made negotiations:
difficult. It was impossible to raise the general level
of wages to the point which the best employers would |
be able to maintain. And it was difficult for the |
unions themselves to reach and include a controlling
majority of the available labor supply.
Here were evident all the worst evils of com-
petition under private enterprise. Words like un-
employment, sub-manufacturer, contractor, and
sweatshop are symbols which carry to the reader
little but a formalized intellectual concept of indus-
trial problems. What they mean in the lives of
hundreds of thousands of people, year after weary
year, escapes. They really mean the tenements of
New York at their squalid and ugly worst, they mean
tuberculosis, curved spines, hollow eyes, premature
death after an unfulfilled life, sickly children and a
stunted race.1 The important thing to remember
is that the problems of the clothing industry have
not been simply industrial problems or abstract
problems of labor organization, but problems of
human life, involving the entire existence of enough
people to inhabit a small nation.
11 See Chapter VI, under Joint Board of Sanitary Control.
‘dey THE NEW UNIONISM
The evolution of industry predicted by early social-
ists took place here only in part. It was believed that
industrial establishments would grow larger and
larger, that the concentration of capital would be-
come more and more intense, and that eventually the
workers, forming the democratic state, could take
over industries which were, so to speak, completed
products. In the clothing business, capital has been
able to approach consolidation of merchandizing, and
the bankers control credit, but, in the process of pro-
duction, competition has persisted as strongly as
ever. It has remained for the workers to assume the
constructive réle, and to perform in another way
the task which Marx assigned to capital. In order
that their lives might be tolerable, some kind of
control had to be established. Capital was unable to
furnish anything like a monopoly; enterprise and
management could not furnish it. There was no
single point at which effectual pressure could be
applied. The only possibility left was for labor to
organize so thoroughly as to provide the necessary
cohesive force. Once organized, the workers could
not rest on past victories. Since they were the only
element of cohesion, the slightest relaxation on their
part would allow the industry to relapse into its old
anarchic chaos. Furthermore, their task was not
only to extract certain concessions from the manage-
ments, but in many respects to reshape the entire
structure of the industry. No perfunctory type of
unionism could help them. The sort of union mem-
bership which carries cards and pays dues, but leaves
THE CLOTHING INDUSTRY 45
the rest to the devices of business agents and officials,
would not have survived—did not survive—their
struggle. The union had to go into the daily lives,
into the dreams and wills of its members. Its fights
had to be fought in thousands of shops, and fought
over again in thousands of new shops. Every mem-
ber had to proselyte without ceasing. And the
unions themselves had to be democratically success-
ful, they had to retain the interest and enlist the
cooperation of all their members. At the top there
had to be vision and leadership, coupled with ability
of the most practical sort. It is for these reasons
that a particularly strong and self-reliant type of
unionism has been developed in the clothing indus-
try. But before relating the history of the unions,
it is necessary to say something about the origin
and culture of the workers.
CHAPTER III
THE HUMAN ELEMENT
Ir is a common practice, because it is an easy one,
to attribute social phenomena to racial or national
causes. Loose generalities of this sort were never
more prevalent than now. Observers, seeking to ac-
count for the radicalism of the immigrant workers,
and particularly of the unions in the clothing indus-
try, point out that the largest single element of these
workers is composed of Russian or other eastern
Jews and that the next largest racial element has
come from Italy.’ In consequence it is assumed that
these people have transplanted to this country a
revolutionary socialism which may have been the
natural result of the oppression to which they were
subjected in Europe, but is out of place in the dem-
ocratic culture of America. Other observers used to
rely on similar generalities to account for other
social conditions in this country. Were the slums
overcrowded and dirty, and did the workers suffer
1No complete figures have ever been compiled. In 1910 the
United States Immigration Commission investigated 19,502 wage-
earners employed in typical shops in both the men’s and women’s
clothing industry, throughout the country, and discovered the fol-
lowing proportions: Russian Jews, 186%, Jews other than Russian,
7.1%, South Italians, 14.4%, Germans, 3.4%, Irish, 0.4%, Swedes,
0.3%. In 1913 the Joint Board of Sanitary Control found that of
the 28,484 women in the New York City dress and waist industry,
56% were Jewish, 34% were Italian, and less than 7% were native.
46
THE HUMAN ELEMENT 47
from long hours, poor pay, and insanitary conditions
in the sweatshops? That was because they were ig-
norant foreigners, unaccustomed to the American
standard of living. Leaders of the American labor
movement not so long ago used to accuse the Jewish
immigrants of being incapable of organization, and
of undermining the standard of living because their
over-eagerness for money led them to work for un-
limited hours. And in the middle and latter part
of the last century, the squalor of the slums used to
be explained by accusing the Irish or the German
immigrants of uncleanly or improvident habits. The
mutual inconsistency of these arguments is enough
to show the need for a closer examination of the
matter.
When the ready-made clothing industry first grew
up, it came naturally into the hands of the custom
tailors of the period, who were for the most part
native American, English, or Irish. The American,
English, and Irish tailors were the owners and
managers of the establishments, the manufacturers,
cutters, and foremen. From the German immigrants
who arrived in numbers during the middle years of
the century were recruited the most of the workers.
The Jews who were here at that time, most of them
of Spanish or German origin, were dominant in the
second-hand clothing trade, for which the first ready-
made clothing was manufactured. On account of
their knowledge of the market, they also took part
in the management and ownership of the industry.
The period of its first rapid growth was the period
48 THE NEW UNIONISM
of large immigration of Germans and German Jews,
many of them tailors in the land of their origin. A
few Russian Jews arrived after the Civil War, but
they were not numerous until after 1880. Since the
bulk of the immigrant tailors between 1860 and 1880
were German Jews, most of the employers were by
1880 of German origin. They did not displace the
English and Irish, but filled the gaps caused by the
growth of the business.
From 1880 on, a rapidly increasing number of
Jews came from a region in eastern Europe having
its center of Jewish population in the old Kingdom
of Poland. Most of them were from west Russia,
but others were from Rumania and Austria-Hungary,
originating mainly in the provinces of Galicia and
Moldavia. Between 1881 and 1910, there were
1,562,800 Jewish immigrants; of these, 1,119,059 or
71.6 per cent came from Russia, 281,150 or 17.9 per
cent came from Austria-Hungary, and 67,057, or 4.3
per cent came from Rumania. During these same
years but 20,454 Jews came from Germany. About
the same proportions continued until 1914, when the
war interrupted mass immigration. In the decade
from 1881 to 1890, the Jews formed 3.7 per cent of
the total number of immigrants, from 1891 to 1900
they formed 10.7 per cent, and from 1901 to 1910,
11.1 per cent.
Of these Jews a large number were tailors. No
figures are available before 1899, but between that
2 Statistics about Jewish immigration in this chapter, except as
otherwise stated, are from Jewish Immigration to the United States,
by Samuel Joseph, N. Y. Columbia University.
THE HUMAN ELEMENT 49
year and 1910, of the 394,000 Jewish immigrants who
had learned trades before arriving, 145,272 or 36.6
per cent were tailors, 39,482 or 10.0 per cent were
dressmakers and seamstresses, 4,070 were hat and
cap makers, 3,144 were furriers and fur workers, and
2,291 were milliners. Thus nearly 50 per cent were
ready to step into the e needle. trades, and most ost_ of
them did so. Aside from these artisans, the cloth-
ing g industry - recruited from the large proportion of
women who had not been gainfully e employed before
arriving (those without occupation, n, including wot women
and children, numbered in these years 484,175, or
45.1 per cent of all the Jewish immigrants) and from
the ee ae men Ae traders w who on account of
Te er a
‘The period of of ae aac eens
clothing | business therefore coincided with the period
of mass immigration of Jews from eastern Europe.
It was not long before the majority 6 of the wage
earners. ; were Russian J Jews, although the Irish, the
native-born, “and the German Jews for some years —
provided most of the employers. It is probable that .
the proportions between the two main groups of
Jews are now about the same among employers as
among employees.
The region from which this great migration poured
is in a primitive state of industrial development. In
Russia, before the war, over three-quarters of the
population were engaged in agricultural labor, and
85 per cent of the exports were agricultural products.
oop T:
PROPERTY OF LIME -RY 6235
Pee ” ee
50 THE NEW UNIONISM
In such factories as existed, much of the labor was
drawn from surrounding peasant communities,
Similar conditions persisted in Rumania. Indus-
trial establishments as we know them did not begin
to arise until 1887, when the government adopted a
policy of fostering them with subsidies. In parts of
Austria-Hungary industry was further developed,
but not in Galicia, from which most of the Austrian
Jews came.
Throughout this great territory the bulk of the
non-Jewish population consisted either of peasants
cultivating the land, or of the nobility, military,.
clergy, and bureaucracy—the ruling classes. The
Jews, however, were excluded from both these levels.
They had never been serfs, and they had been pro-
hibited to acquire land. On the other hand, being
regarded as aliens by the law, they could not rise
to the higher positions in the state, and of course
were unable to penetrate the aristocracy. The result
was that they took the place of the middle class.
They became money-lenders, traders, shop-keepers,
artisans in the home industries, supplying local
needs. They handled the sales of most of farm
products, dealing in grain, cattle, timber, furs, and
hides. Some few were professional men, rich
bankers, or stewards of great estates for noblemen.
They were in Russia the class which Americans are
accustomed to think of as the foundation of a liberal
and democratic, but not a revolutionary culture. In
business they were independent, self-reliant, am-
bitious, and inured to competition.
\
\
\
THE HUMAN ELEMENT 51
A few figures will give a picture of their situation.
\Ithough they comprised but 4 per cent of the Rus-
ian population, they formed 16 per cent of those
iving in the towns.* Over half of them lived in
neorporated cities, although three-quarters of the
tussian people were rural. Of those Jews gainfully
mployed, 39 per cent were engaged in manufac-
uring—as artisans rather than as employees in fac-
ories—32 per cent in commerce, and only 3 per cent
nagriculture. In Austria-Hungary, the figures were
4 per cent in commerce and trade, 29 per cent in
ndustry, and 11 per cent in agriculture and allied
yecupations. In Rumania there was a larger pro-
ortion in industry than in the other countries, but
t is worth noting that although a quarter of the
naster workmen and employers in Rumania were
Jews, only one-sixth of the laborers were Jews. In
nany cases Jews were actually excluded from em-
sloyment in factories.
The main industry of the Jews in all these coun-—
Ties was the manufacture of clothing; in Russia the
sroduction of wearing apparel supported one-
seventh of the Jewish population, and in Rumania
yver one-third of the garment-makers were Jews. |
But in this industry the ready-made factory prod-
ict was unknown. The tailors were independent
irtisans.
Of the Jews admitted to this country between 1899
ind 1909, 29.1 per cent were artisans, 21 per cent
were traders, merchants and of miscellaneous call-
8 After 1887 Jews were not permitted to settle in rural districts.
52 THE NEW UNIONISM
ings, 20 per cent had no occupation, 8.5 per cent were
engaged in the professions, 6.9 per cent were ser-
vants, and but 2.9 per cent were common laborers.
Of the artisans, besides the 50 per cent in the needle
trades, the only other considerable groups were
40,901 carpenters, joiners etc., or 10.0 per cent, and
23,519 shoemakers, or 5.9 per cent. Probably not
one per cent of the immigrant Russian Jews were
ever wage-earners in factories before coming to the
United States,
Their literacy was far above the average. Accord-
ing to ) the Russian Census 0: of 2 1897, tl there 1 were one-
and-one-half times as many literate Jews above ten
years of age as there were. literate | persons in { in the
general population. This is again the sign ign of an
urban, middle-class, and ambitious population. With
Jews it is a religious duty to educate the boys, anda
large proportion of girls also learned to read. They
maintained their own educational institutions, some
of which were free to those who could not pay.
The culture of the eastern Jews was based on their
religious and racial traditions, and was of a con-
servative nature. They lived apart, wore for the
most part a distinctive dress, did not intermarry with
the surrounding peoples, observed strictly their re-
ligious fast-days and rituals, and held tenaciously to
the customs of life which had developed from the
Mosaic laws and the Talmud. They spoke, besides
the languages of the countries in which they lived,
their own language—Yiddish. They believed it a
sign of social inferiority to be engaged in common
THE HUMAN ELEMENT 53
manual labor. They thought it a disgrace for their
women folk to work outside the home. This culture
was by far the strongest influence upon their mode
of thought, and opposed a heavy barrier to the
growth of socialism or other radical ideas.
The hostility which led to the persecution of the
Jews in Russia was compounded of various motives.
The tradition of the ruling classes rested upon the
orthodox church and the absolutist state, and the
nobility felt a strong affinity for the old feudal cul-
ture, which they hoped would resist the penetration
of western industrialism and the democratic liberal-
jsm which went with it. On all these counts the Jews
seemed an undesirable element. To the clericals they (
represented the lowest type of heretics. This re-
ligious prejudice was not under ordinary circum-
stances shared by the people, who were remarkably
\
tolerant. To the nationalists they were an alien and (
unassimilable people. For years. before active per- \
secution began, the Jews had no more rights under
the law than aliens, although the duties 0 of. citizens J
were exacted. of them. By the autocracy y they were
ruling classes also found them convenient sonpenonts: |
\
on whom to place the responsibility for the troubles ‘
of the people.
As a result of this almost universal attitude on the ;
part of the ruling classes, a conscious policy towards |
the Jews, first of restriction, and later of expulsion,
was carried out. When the partitions of Poland took
\
|
place, the Jews within the district later known as the |
en
54 THE NEW UNIONISM
Pale, which contained the majority of them, were for-
bidden to move out of it. There were later expul-
sions from town to town within the Pale and from
without the Pale to within it. There came to be over
1,000 special laws regulating their religious and com-
munal life, their occupations, their military service.
Special taxes were imposed upon them. Their educa-
tion was restricted.
The change from restriction to ‘suppression came
with the “May Laws’? of 1882. In spite of all all the
‘burdens placed upon them, the Jews had J measurably
prospered, as indeed any trading class would have
done through the slow but inevitable spread of com-
merce and industry. Their competitors among Rus-
sian traders were jealous of their success. The whole
middle-class was growing, and the occupations in
which Jews held supremacy began to seem more de-
sirable to the non-Jewish peoples. Since they were
the principal traders in crops and the money-lenders,
it was easy to arouse the peasants against t ;them. The
May Laws were chiefly economic in nature, and were
designed to hinder the Je ews in business enterprise.
In order to justify this attack upon them, the ery was
raised that they were extortionists and robbers_of
the poor. The religious prejudice a and the aversion
to western European culture were also played upon.
The orthodox Russian then looked upon the con-
stitutional democracies of America, England, and
France, and their thriving industrial towns, with
about as much horror as that with which the orthodox
American, Englishman, or Frenchman - recently
THE HUMAN ELEMENT 55
looked upon Bolshevist Russia.—It was the laws of
1882 which began the mass movements of Russian
Jews ews to the United States.
“Th Rumania, until the middle of the last century,
the Jews suffered under the same disabilities as in
Russia. Then, at the instance of the great Powers,
“Tiberal laws were passed; but they remained dead
letters. Int the eighties Rumania commenced a policy
even than that of Russia. ~ They were debarred from
the artisans’ guilds, v which exercised a strong control
over industry. _They were denied the rights of free-
dom of movement, freedom of work, , education, par-
ticipation in important business enterprises, and
employment i in the state services.
The anti-Jewish movement in Austria-Hungary
is most significant for the present inquiry. There
the industrial revolution was felt with greater force
than in Russia or Rumania, and the Jews developed
not only financial but political power, especially soon
after the adoption of the liberal constitution in 1866.
The Church, however, in alliance with the nobility,
_attempted to resist the intrusion of western business
“methods and culture, deli berately strengthening the
survivals of mediaevalism in industry. The most
striking of these was _the guild, an association of
artisans from master workmen down to apprentice,
which made its own regulations for the government
of industry. Upon the guild basis the Catholics built
a party known as § the Christian Socialist, which had
an n anti-Semitic tendency, and denounced | the Jews
a
56 THE NEW UNIONISM
Christian Socialists and F ihte Catholic middle-class
carried on a campaign against the Jews “from 1873
on, which reached its height in the ’nineties. Boy-
cotts were organized against the Jewish { traders,
money-lenders, and artisans, and restrictive laws
were passed.
A month after the accession of Alexander III in
Russia began the pogroms, which soon extended to
160 places in South Russia. These were semi-organ-
ized killing, looting, and burning expeditions against
the Jewish quarters, and they did not spare women
and children. Pogroms broke out at intervals there-
after, the ruling classes not scrupling to use the
Jews as scapegoats for whatever ills the people
might be suffering. The Kishineff massacre in 1903,
closely followed by that at Gomel, caused thousands
of Jews to emigrate through fear of their lives. The
Russo-Japanese War, becoming unpopular, was at-
tributed to the Jews’ desire for profit. The govern-
ment, struggling against revolutionary agitation,
attempted to divert attention from its own misdeeds
by fomenting anti-Jewish attacks. It was not, how-
ever, until after the revolution of 1905 that the ery
was raised that the Jews were revolutionary
socialists. |
The oppression, therefore, from which the Jews
_ fled was not the oppression of the capitalist system
which forms such a fruitful theme for the Socialist
agitator. What they lacked was just the sort of
liberal régime out of which modern industrialism has
THE HUMAN ELEMENT 57
rown. They wanted the freedom of movement es-
ential to the trader and business man, they wanted
volitical liberty, and an opportunity for the develop-
aent of individual business enterprise. They wanted’
ducational opportunities for their children, and an
bsence of governmental interference with their re-
igious and social customs. They wanted personal
afety. In short, they sought the very institutions
or which the American anti-Socialist values the
Jnited States. They came to the United States be-
‘ause authentic report told them that here such
llessings would be found. Some of them were indeed
evolutionists again Tsarism, but their spirit was
me ready to be transmuted into fervent allegiance to
he government of their adopted country.
At no period of J. ewish immigration was any large
yroportion of the newcomers socialist before arriv-
ng at our ports, except perhaps after the Russian
‘evolution of 1905. From the beginning, of course,
here were socialists among the intellectuals. There
vere also anarchists among them, and persons hold-
ng other forms of dissentient political faith. In the
nineties a secret socialist organization known as the
‘Bund”’ had grown up in Russia, and it claimed the
illegiance of some of the most brilliant Jews. These
iocialists were, most of them, enthusiastic and ac-
ive propagandists. On the other hand, there were
eaders of conservative thought; any innovation was
listasteful to most of the religious dignitaries. The
‘eligious community of the Jews played a lai large part
iot_only in their spiritual but in their practical
ee
58 THE NEW UNIONISM
affairs, isolated as they were from the rest_of th the
population and discriminated | against | in the laws.
Jews would rarely invoke the national law in dis-
putes with each other, but would instead submit to
the judgment of the leading member of the congrega-
tion. This man as a consequence had great influence,
and since he was usually a man of property, his op-
position to radical economic doctrine was, as a rule,
pronounced. Imagine the difficulty which socialism
would have in penetrating a community of devout
churchgoers whose leading elder or deacon was not
only president of the local bank but magistrate as
well. There was little, therefore, in the culture which
the Jews brought with them from Russia to indicate
that any large proportion of them would embrace
radical principles.
The first traces of class feeling in America on the
part of the employees as against the employers were
of social rather than of economic origin. “At the time
of the first mass immigration of Russian J ews, most
of the clothing manufacturers were German Jews.
They had risen appreciably in the social scale, and
they had a pride of origin which made them feel that
the new arrivals were outsiders. The German Jews
in their turn had been a little despised on their
arrival by the Sephardic Jews from Spain and
Portugal who were the first immigrants of Semitic
blood. Thus the Jews were no exception to the other
seekers of opportunity in America. We are a nation
of immigrants and the children of immigrants, and
yet each migratory group, as soon as it becomes
THE HUMAN ELEMENT 59
acclimatized, looks down upon the newcomers be-
cause they are ‘‘foreigners.”’
The Jewish charities, upon which fell the first
responsibility of alleviating the misery of the slums,
were in the hands of the Germans, and most of the
relief was given to the eastern Jews. This fact again
formed a barrier, for in spite of all the merit there
may be in charitable institutions, they seldom in-
crease goodwill between the givers and the bene-
ficiaries. In this case the United Hebrew Charities
seemed to emphasize the social and economic dis-
tinctions between the German and the Russian Jews.
Now and again, when the workers were on strike in
some shop, the employer would notify the charitable
institutions that he was in a position to offer jobs to
the needy, and newcomers would be sent him without
any inquiry as to the purpose for which they were
to be used. To the unions this practice, innocent
as it was on the part of the charities, seemed like
deliberate strikebreaking.
Later the Jewish workmen, following a rapidly
growing practice in this country, attempted to elim-
inate the need for charity by forming mutual benefit
associations. This was the origin of the ‘‘ Workmen’s
Circle,’’ which has had a large share in increasing
the feeling of solidarity on the part of the workers,
and has helped them out of many a difficulty.
Separated as they were from employers of their
own race, the Russian Jews had no other point of
contact with the community. Their ignorance of
English kept them apart, while the fact that they had
60 THE NEW UNIONISM
their own religious institutions prevented them from
mixing much with the immigrants of other national-
ities, such as the Irish, Italians, and Poles, who at
least had the Catholic Church in common. Owing to
their concentration in separate trades they did not
come in close touch with the American workmen even
in the workshop.
The socialist intellectuals had little opportunity to
pursue their chosen professions in a strange country,
and many of them consequently entered the clothing
shops. They were the only thinkers whose philos-
ophy led them to cultivate the workers as such; and
the great majority of the immigrants were and re-
mained employees. Socialist editors started news-
papers in Yiddish, and they attained large circula-
tions. Socialists organized: trade unions; they
brought the workers together, furnished halls for
them, and introduced the only community spirit that
seemed to fit the new environment. Yet it took years
for the radical view of affairs to take hold and
develop. The unions remained small and ineffectual.
Some of the newspaper readers accepted socialism,
but they accepted it only as an affair of ideas, be-
cause they still did not understand the modern in-
dustrial system and the concentration of capital.
Many of them cherished the hope of starting inde-
pendent businesses and laying up fortunes; some of
them, in fact, did so. Others even expected to ac-
cumulate money and go back to the land of their
origin when a more auspicious time should come.
How far the people were from unity in thought
THE HUMAN ELEMENT 61
may be inferred from an early article by Henrietta
Jzold on ‘‘Klements of the Jewish Population in the
United States.’’* ‘‘At present,’’ wrote this author,
‘“by reason of their tendency to break up into groups,
the Russian Jews are looked upon by their patrons
and by their own leaders as the most unorganizable
material among the Jews, who at best are not dis-
tinguished for the quality of being organizable.’’
A person interested in organization is likely to think
that any kind of human material is unorganizable,
and yet such testimony is not without its significance...
The Jewish immigrants did not for a long time cast
‘off their tradition of competitive individualism.
Industrial friction was prevalent, and strikes oc-
curred; but the strikes were rather spontaneous re-
bellions against the awful conditions of life and work
than planned battles of a class war. At one time,
during the early ’nineties, the anarchists had a con-
siderable influence among the workers, although they
opposed trade unions, as palliatives and substitutes
for spontaneous action.
Almost from the very beginning of the mass im-
migration, more Jews brought their wives and
children than did immigrants of other races. The
sense of permanent American residence grew ap-
preciably among the Jewish settlers as the years
went by. There has been much fluctuation in the
comparative numbers of men and women immigrants,
but the highest proportion of men among the Jewish
4Included in “The Russian Jew in the United States,” by Charles
S. Bernheimer.
62 THE NEW UNIONISM
newcomers was reached in 1886, when male arrivals
made up 67.5 per cent of the totals, and the highest
proportion of women came in 1909, when the per-
centage of females rose to 46. Among immigrants
of all nationalities from 1899 to 1910, the percentage
of females was but 30.5. From 1908 to 1912 only 8
Jews departed for every 100 admitted, while of all
immigrants 32 departed for every 100 admitted. The
only immigrants during these years who showed a
greater permanency of residence were the Irish.
It was only after a sense of permanency as em-
ployees became general among the clothing workers
that unionism received their consistent support.
They had become, as it were, acclimatized, they
understood better the peculiar difficulties with which
they had to contend, and the futility of attempting
to avoid them or to contend with them as individuals.
At first, for one reason or another, they had accepted
the hardship of the slum and the sweatshop as tem-
porary evils, from which an escape might shortly be
found. For some the hope of escape took the form
of the ambition to become employers, independent
store-keepers, or agents, for others it was a vague
intention to return to Russia, for still others it was
merely a pious faith that some day a beneficent
power outside themselves would provide the remedy.
But most of the workers never saw any of these doors
open, and the promise of the Socialist trade-unionist
was the only one which retained any measure of
redlity. They gave up hope of leaving the country,
and they gave up hope of being anything but wage
THE HUMAN ELEMENT 63
earners. As soon as the Jewish workers accepted
the facts and conditions of America as they were,
they became unionists. For them, the process of
Americanization was itself the process of accepting
the Socialist union.
The wave of Italian immigration began somewhat
later than that of the eastern Jews. According to
the census of 1890, there were not then 200,000
residents in the United States of Italian birth, and
many of these were transients. Between 1890 and
1900, 655,888 Italians arrived, and in 1900 the
resident Italian population had increased to 484,703.
After 1900 the numbers of Italian immigrants rose
rapidly. During the years immediately preceding
the Great War, a little over one-sixth as many Italian
tailors and dressmakers arrived as Jewish, the
former averaging about 2,500 a year, and the latter
12,500.° Besides these artisans, however, many un-
skilled Italians, particularly women, have entered
the clothing shops.
Most of the immigrants from Italy, like those from
eastern Europe, knew nothing of factory labor before
arriving in this country. The modern industries
have developed in the northern part of the nation,
whereas by far the greater part of the immigrants
have come from the South. Most of them are class-
ified as common laborers, farm laborers, or servants.
Of the skilled artisans, the largest group were, for
instance during the fiscal year of 1903, tailors, seam-
stresses, and dressmakers, and over nine-tenths of
5 Annual Reports, U. S. Commissioner of Immigration.
64 THE NEW UNIONISM
these came from the South of Italy. A recent inves-
tigation of Italian women workers in New York®
showed that of the cases examined, most had never
done factory work in their home country, although
93.9 per cent were working in factories here. Of
these over half were engaged in making men’s and
women’s clothing.
The motive behind this immigration was in almost
every case the desire to make money. Inequitable
and annoying taxes, combined with oppressive land-
lordism and the lack of prosperity at home, have
caused the great Italian migration. It was far less
stable than the Jewish, even during the last decade.
In 1912, for instance, 26,443 persons arrived from
the North of Italy and 13,000 returned to it, while
135,830 came from the South, and 96,881 returned.’
At the beginning of the period there were at least
four times as many male immigrants from Italy as
female. Many of the immigrants from the South of
Italy were illiterate—in 1913-14 the proportion was,
of those 14 years of age and over, 47.4 per cent.
All these facts go to show that not many of the
Italian immigrants were Socialists before their ar-
rival in this country. The stronghold of Italian
Socialism is in the northern industrial regions, where
there is a large population of literate factory and
mine workers. But the artisan or home-worker who
comes from the South with the intention of laying up
out of American wages a competency with which he
@ Italian Women in Industry. By Louise ©. Odencrantz. N. Y.
R. ssell Sage Foundation,
» Annual Reports, U. S. Commissioner of Immigration.
THE HUMAN ELEMENT 65
can later set up his little shop at home, is not likely
to take seriously the prospect of a social revolution
in the United States. Because of their greater im-
permanency and lower literacy, the Italians have
not been quite as strong a factor as the Jews in the
needle-trade unions, proportionately to their num-
bers in the industry. The radicalism of the unions
certainly cannot be traced to the land of their origin.
Yet the increasing numbers who have come to re-
gard themselves as permanent residents of America
and workers in the clothing trades are as ardent and
faithful unionists as any.
So it is with the smaller groups—the Bohemians,
who concentrated mostly about Chicago, and the
Poles, Slovenians, Russians, Finns, Lithuanians, and
others who have found work in the garment shops.
No matter what the culture and the traditions vari-
ous groups of immigrants brought with them, all na-
tionalities and races who have been subjected to the
same industrial and social conditions here have em-
braced the same hope and method of altering those
conditions.
Once the trend of their development in America
was established, the national characteristics of the |
Jews had something to do with the strength and |
effectiveness of their organizations. Whatever lack
of unity they have at times exhibited, the tradition
of unity is deep within them. After the unions be-
came powerful, they were recognized as among the
accepted institutions of the people. A scab became,
not only an unfair competitor, but a social outcast.
|
1
66 THE NEW UNIONISM
The alliance of unions known as the United Hebrew
Trades has provided not only much practical help,
but a strong morale to the workers’ organizations at
many a critical time. And the establishment of col-
lective agreements with the employers was certainly
furthered by the fact that the Jewish community is
educated to arbitrate its own disputes rather than
to seek outside intervention, and to accept the im-
_ partial arbitrament of its prominent men. But these
' influences merely cluster about the central fact that
the industrial and social experience of the Jews in
the United States have led them to accept a radical
economic philosophy. The same racial traits would
have been no less active in promoting social cohesion
if the energies of the workers had turned toward any
other form of organization.
It would be unfair to underestimate the influence
of personal leadership such as that of Morris Hill-
quit, who himself began as a worker in a shirt fac-
tory, or Abraham Cahan, the editor of the Jewish
Forward, or of other politicians, journalists, and the
numerous outstanding figures among the union offi-
cials. Without the brilliance and devotion of such
leaders, the radical unions would not be what they
are. Yet these men would be the first to point out
that to separate a leader from the mass tendency of
his time is to create an artificial distinction. They
were leaders on account of the very fact that they
were able to perceive which way the current was
flowing, and because they were able consistently to
express that which the masses recognized as truth.
THE HUMAN ELEMENT 67
In the radical unions, furthermore, leadership plays
a less important réle than in the conservative ones.
The economic attitude of the workers in the cloth-
ing industry, in short, cannot be accounted for by any
- accident unrelated with their social and economic
experience. The oppression which they endured in
the countries of their birth made them not less,
but more ready to accept the prevalent régime in
the United States. Their racial heritage was as
conservative in its influence as it was helpful to rad-
ical institutions after such institutions had become
the objects of conservation. Their isolation in this
country gave an opportunity to the Socialist
‘“‘agitators,’? but what could be made of that oppor-
tunity depended not so much on the agitators as
upon the pragmatic truth of what they had to say.
The former social and national separation between
employer and employee gave at least as much
promise of blind group hostility as it gave of
economic analysis. It is necessary to examine the
labor movement itself in order to discover why the
socialist theory assumed reality in the mind of the
clothing workers; suffice it here to say that without
successful unions the worker had no hope, and that
only unions built upon and adhering to the principles
of the new unionism—the socialist unionism—could
overcome the extraordinary difficulties to organiza-
tion inherent to the needle trades.
CHAPTER IV
THE UNIONS—THEIR BEGINNINGS AND
GROWTH
Tux history of a labor union, if fully told, would
be as complex as the history of a nation. There is,
in the first place, the outward formal history of
dates, names, numbers, and crises. There is also the
history of political philosophy, structure, and laws.
There is the cultural history, and the economic and
social one. The present chapter, in order to make
comprehensible any further discussion, must confine
itself chiefly to the formal history of the clothing
trades unions.
The unions now existing are the International
Ladies’ Garment Workers Union, having jurisdic-
tion over all branches of ready-made women’s and
children’s garments, the Amalgamated Clothing
Workers of America, which embraces the majority
of workers in the manufacture of men’s and boys’
clothing, the United Garment Workers of America,
which officially has the same jurisdiction as the
Amalgamated, but exercises actual control only in
the overall industry, the United Cloth Hat and Cap
Makers of North America, which in addition to those
specified in its title includes a large number of
68
UNIONS—BEGINNINGS AND GROWTH _ 69
illinery workers, the International Fur Workers’
nion of the United States and Canada, whose title
self-explanatory, and a number of locals of men’s
2ckwear makers. All these unions are affiliated
ith the American Federation of Labor, with the
cception of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers,
hich was organized after a conflict within the
nited Garment Workers, and is regarded as an out-
w body by the officials of the federation. To these
ight be added the Journeymen Tailors Union of
merica, because, although it consists mainly of
nployees of custom tailors, the line between the
istom tailoring house and the clothing manufac-
irer is often dim. The Fancy Leather Goods
Torkers Union should perhaps also be included,
nee they are mainly needle workers in a trade
milar in structure to the others, and they are
cially and psychologically similar to the rest of
e group. A few minor trades, such as suspender
akers and garter makers, will complete the list of
e unions.
These unions grew up and are strongest in the
‘anches of the clothing industry where immigrant
bor was chiefly employed, and large-scale produc-
on has shown the least development. They have
oroughly organized the makers of cloaks, suits,
irts, dresses of all kinds, waists, overcoats and the
ce, They are waging a heroic battle for the makers
shirts and collars. They are just beginning to
successful with the corset-makers. There are
actically no unorganized makers of cloth hats and
70 THE NEW UNIONISM
caps, but still a good many non-union workers in the
millinery trade.
Not one of these unions existed before 1890, and
only one—the United Garment Workers—has been
in continuous existence since before 1900. Strikes
occurred long before the Civil War, and after 1880
small unions were repeatedly organized and dis-
appeared again. For a union to have a dues-paying
membership above a thousand or so was unknown.
The leaders and the intellectuals never gave up the
attempt, and perennial conditions offered them fre-
quent opportunities to renew the agitation. But to
make permanent gains for the workers seemed like
trying to fill a bottomless pit. A strike at the
beginning of a busy season would win concessions,
for then every worker was needed. Gradually as
the work decreased, the concessions would be with-
drawn, and any toiler foolhardy enough to protest
would be replaced by another, already out of a job
and fearful of starvation. There was no machinery
to apply the concessions universally, and the highly
fluid competition acted to break down standards.
Union members would drop off during the slack
months, because they could not afford to pay their
dues. And eventually the union itself would vanish,
only to be replaced by another when a new rebellion
against the employers broke out.
As Abraham Cahan, editor of the Jewish Daily
Forward, put it in an address to a recent convention,
‘‘In those days when our movement gave birth to a
child, somehow or other the child did not live. No
UNIONS—BEGINNINGS AND GROWTH 771
sooner was it born than it died and then a new child
would have to be born and the same thing would
occur. But now the situation has entirely changed.
The children are beginning to thrive.’’
The history of the individual unions before 1900
is therefore the history of scattered and mostly un-
successful, though persistent efforts at organization.
Like all small and ephemeral bodies, they never
developed a consistent policy and were often at odds
with each other. First one faction would obtain con-
trol, then another. But no faction exerted a con-
siderable influence on the main body of workers.
During the ’eighties the Socialists and the Anarch-
ists waged a petty warfare over them. Then the
American Federation of Labor, with its conservative
influence, began to grow stronger, and the radicals.
fought to keep the unions out of its hands. The
anarchists soon disappeared in the unions, but the
Socialists carried on a campaign to affiliate the
workers with the old Knights of Labor. This was
not so much through a love for the Knights of
Labor as through a desire for some unifying influ-
ence. After that organization became plainly ob-
solescent, a separate central body was formed,
known as the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance.
During the second half of the ’nineties, after the
split in the Socialist Labor Party, that parent body
would not recognize unions affiliated with the Amer-
ican Federation of Labor, while the seceding Social
Democrats made no distinctions. All this time the
United Hebrew Trades was striving for unity of the
72 THE NEW UNIONISM
Jewish unions on a consciously socialist philosophy,
and was fighting corruption wherever it appeared.
For corruption did appear. The great mass of
the workers, never having been educated to union
discipline or to consciousness of their democratic
property in the union, did not feel that it was theirs,
that they could make what they liked out of it. They
regarded unions rather as outside agencies which
could be paid to conduct strikes and negotiate settle-
ments. Trading on this feeling, and on the recurring
unrest, strike promoters arose, irresponsible per-
sons whose names and achievements were obscure.
Calling themselves union officials, they would cir-
culate notices in the shops that a strike was on.
Dues would be collected, the workers would walk out,
and then a settlement would be announced. During
the rest of the year the promoter would live on the
proceeds. Asa result of the unions’ lack of victor-
ious prestige, of their transient character and quar-
rels with each other, and finally because of the pre-
valent corruption, there came a time in the ’nineties
when many self-respecting socialist workers, fully
in sympathy with the labor movement, would not
belong toa union. And yet all this time spontaneous
strikes periodically arose in a futile attempt to
better conditions.
In 1890 the cloakmakers won a lockout-strike for
higher wages and the right to belong to a union, but
by 1893 the union had only a formal existence. In
1894 another successful strike was followed by the
disappearance of the union. In 1896 a victorious
UNIONS—BEGINNINGS AND GROWTH 73
strike so exhausted the union that it perished. In
1898 the Brotherhood of Tailors, which was affiliated
with the United Garment Workers, suffered the same
fate. Thus the conservative unions ag well as the
radical were ineffectual. Although at the beginning
of the decade thirty-three organizations were afiil-
iated with the Jewish labor movement, the number
later dropped much lower. Extravagant hopes alter-
nated with despair. The spirit of organized effort
would lift its head for a moment out of the con-
fusion in which the industry existed, only to sink
back again into the morass. Life was battling for
its birth in chaos. Little experiments, tiny nuclei,
formed themselves out of the constantly renewed
instinct for order, and were swept away again in the
whirl of nebulous forces. Many of the very leaders
who today are at the head of the strong and success-
ful unions were then attempting the seemingly im-
possible, and they never gave up hope. Patiently
the Yiddish press and the socialist intellectuals
strove to educate the masses to their true interest,
and built little by little the basis for the only kind
of morale which could endure such disruptive forces.
Many of the early locals were composed of cutters,
they being at the time the more highly skilled craft.
At the beginning of the ’nineties, however, organiza-
tion spread among operators, basters, and pressers.
The decreasing differences in the amount of skill
required in the various operations made the indus-
trial form of organization, favored by the radicals,
the natural one. This led in 1891 to the formation
74 THE NEW UNIONISM:
of the first national union—The United Garment
Workers—which held its initial convention on April
18th in New York. Thirty-six tailor delegates were
present from New York, Boston, Chicago, and Phila-
delphia. These delegates elected a group of
American-born non-socialist officers, since it was
thought on account of their superior knowledge of
the language and customs they could better handle
the affairs of the union. At the same time socialist
resolutions were passed, the new officers acquiescing
in them to gain the support of the radical tailor
delegates. The union immediately affiliated with the
American Federation of Labor. It was not long
before the officers, relying on the support of the con-
servative element in the union—for the most part
native skilled craftsmen—began a warfare on all
socialist activities, and ever since then the United
Garment Workers has been anti-socialist.
In the big clothing markets this union was no more
successful during the ‘nineties than any of the
others. Its membership never grew large, and it
remained in existence simply because there was
always a group which clung to the A. F. of L. charter.
Its policy was and has remained that. of the old
unionism. Basing its strength on the. craft spirit
of the skilled, it has striven to improve the con-
dition of its members by limiting the supply of labor
and by cultivating cooperation, wherever possible,
with the employers. Peculiar conditions made this
policy effective in one respect. Some of the cheaper
ready-made suits, and a large proportion of the
UNIONS—BEGINNINGS AND GROWTH = 75
overalls, are bought by union labor. By developing
among these union men a demand for the union label,
the United Garment Workers were enabled to bar-
gain successfully with certain manufacturers. The
union label gradually became not only an inducement
for recognition by manufacturers, but a means of
discipline within the union. No label is authentic
except that endorsed by the American Federation of
Labor, the label is protected by United States regis-
try, and as long as the Federation supports the
officials of the garment workers’ union, these officials
can, by granting or withholding the label to manu-
facturers as they please, maintain almost a personal
monopoly of the labor supply. Wherever, as in the
case of overalls, such a monopoly is effective, it may
be used either to benefit or to restrict the workers,
but in any case it obviates the necessity for more
democratic methods of building up union strength,
and tends to minimize the need for conscious
solidarity on the part of the workers. So complete
has become the reliance of the United Garment
Workers upon the union label that the principal as-
sociation of employers with which it now negotiates
collective agreements is entitled the Union Made
Garment Manufacturers’ Association. This associa-
tion consists chiefly of overall manufacturers em-
ploying largely native-born operatives in the smaller
cities throughout the country, and includes almost
none of the manufacturers of regular ready-made
clothing in the great clothing markets.
The membership of the United Garment Workers
76 THE NEW UNIONISM
remained small in the large centers until the New
York strike of 1913. Up to this time the union had
not retained a membership of over 4,000 in New
York, although the International Ladies’ Garment
Workers had become powerful and negotiated the
famous ‘‘Protocol’’ as early as 1910. It was soon
after the strike of 1913 that the split in the men’s
tailoring union gave birth to the independent Amal-
gamated Clothing Workers.
Next to the United Garment Workers, the oldest
international union in the needle trades is the United
Cloth Hat and Cap Makers. One of its locals, Cap
Cutters, Local 2, has been in continuous existence
since 1880. An attempt to form an international was
made in 1886 by representatives of New York and
Boston unions, and at that time the name was
adopted. The present organization, however, was
not effected until 1901, when delegates from nine
locals, three in New York and one each in Chicago,
Philadelphia, Boston, Detroit, Baltimore, and San
Francisco, met and established it. The first con-
vention enunciated a radical policy, and voted to
remain independent, taking no part in the conflict
which was still being waged between the Socialist
Trade and Labor Alliance and the American
Federation of Labor. Yet the young international
soon was forced into a controversy with the Amer-
ican Federation of Labor, which had taken under its
protection a few outside locals of cap makers. As
a result the General Executive Board, in conjunction
with delegates from some of these outside locals,
UNIONS—BEGINNINGS AND GROWTH = 77
decided in 1902 to amalgamate and affiliate with the
American Federation of Labor. The charter was
granted on June 17th, and for a long time the Cap
Makers held it without difficulty, although they have
always remained faithful to the socialist movement.
They have consistently represented the radical at-
titude within the Federation, and have frequently
been in opposition to its larger policies.
The international immediately opened a fight
against long hours, home work, and sweatshop con-
ditions. In 1902 and 1903 general lockouts took place
in New York and Philadelphia. In December, 1903,
the largest manufacturer in New York attempted
to safeguard the open shop by a lockout which pre-
cipitated a ten-weeks’ struggle, ending in victory for
the union. This was the signal for general organiza-
tion on the part of the manufacturers, which led to
a national onslaught on the union during the winter
of 1904-5. The New York strike lasted thirteen
weeks, and there were general strikes or lockouts in
Chicago, San Francisco, New Haven, Cleveland,
Detroit, Cincinnati, and almost every other town
which the union had penetrated. The battle was
decisive, resulting in the establishment of the union
‘shop and a greatly enlarged membership. This was
the first lasting success won in the needle trades.
In the meantime the union had begun to turn its
attention to the millinery trade, which employed
many young women and was so closely associated
with the manufacture of caps that it was impossible
fully to control the one without organizing the other.
"8 THE NEW UNIONISM
Application was made for jurisdiction over the
millinery workers, and in 1903 this was granted, first
by a unanimous vote of the Executive Council of the
American Federation of Labor, and later by the
Boston Convention. The victory of 1905 cleared the
way for aggressive organization of the millinery
workers as well as for constructive improvements
in the condition of the cap makers.
Just at this time, however, the Industrial Workers
of the World came into active being and began a
campaign for the allegiance of A. F. of L. unions.
The Cap Makers, because of their radicalism, were
naturally one of the first points of attack. The
I. W. W. had not at that time adopted the weapon
of sabotage, and stood for constructive revolutionary
industrial unionism, therefore it enlisted some sup-
port among the membership. The union, however,
decided not to abandon their regular affiliation, and
an ugly quarrel resulted, which was not terminated
until 1907. The dual unions which arose during this
internal struggle naturally made the conflict with the
manufacturers more difficult, but in the end the Cap
Makers reestablished their complete jurisdiction.
With this difficulty out of the way, the union began
its progressive effort for the betterment of
conditions.
Near the end of 1909 separate locals were estab-
lished for millinery workers and in 1910 an intensive
organization campaign was begun among them. In
1915 this campaign had become so strong that the
manufacturers did not force the issue, and after one-
UNIONS—BEGINNINGS AND GROWTH ‘79
tenth of the millinery employees had been out a
short time a collective agreement was negotiated
with the Ladies’ Hat Manufacturers’ Protective
Association.
Up to this time the United Hatters, having juris-
diction over makers of felt hats, derbys, ete. had
maintained friendly relation with the Cap Makers,
and had never made any attempt to organize the girl
millinery workers, who were excluded by their con-
stitution. In 1915, however, after the successful
milliners’ strike, the United Hatters altered their
constitution to admit the women’s straw hat makers
and applied to the American Federation of Labor
for jurisdiction over them. The Executive Council
of the Federation, reversing their decision of 1903,
granted the application. The 1917 and 1918 con-
ventions of the Cap Makers both decided that it
would be against the best interests of their members
to comply with this decision, and the conventions
were supported by a referendum vote of the member-
ship, 7011 against 19. As a result the union re-
mained for a number of years suspended by the
Federation. Nevertheless, wishing to avoid another
division in the labor movement, the Cap Makers
proposed a compromise in the form of an industrial
amalgamation between themselves and the Hatters.
This suggestion was rejected by the Hatters, and not
considered by the A. F. of L. officials or convention
in 1918. In 1919, however, the Executive Council of
the Federation took it under advisement.
The United Cloth Hat and Cap Makers now con-
80 THE NEW UNIONISM
sists of 46 locals in 25 towns, with a membership of
about 15,000. They have attained a 100 per cent
organization in the cloth hat and cap trade, being the
only union in the clothing industry which has sue-
ceeded in establishing a universal closed union shop,
In the millinery trade their organization is strong
except in the custom retail shops. The strike of the
Cap Makers in 1919 won every demand made upon
the employers, including the forty-four hour week,
and the substitution of week work for piece work.
A millinery strike, however, was not so successful,
in part on account of the jurisdictional dispute with
the Hatters.
Local unions of women’s cloakmakers were among
the transitory organizations which were born and
died so frequently in the early years of the labor
movement in the needle trades. A lockout-strike for
recognition in 1890 is on record. In 1894 some of the
cloakmakers joined the United Garment Workers,
but withdrew in 1895 and continued an agitation
which they had been conducting for a national union
of workers on women’s garments. The other unions
concerned did not respond enthusiastically, however,
until the end of the nineties, when the cloak manu-
facturers began to use the injunction to prevent
strikes.
On June 3rd, 1900, the International Ladies’ Gar-
ment Workers Union was organized at a convention
at which there were present delegates from New
York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Newark, and Browns-
ville. Soon afterwards the Chicago and San Fran-
UNIONS—BEGINNINGS AND GROWTH 81
cisco workers joined. The International, adopting a
socialist constitution, immediately affiliated with the
American Federation of Labor and has retained this
affiliation ever since, although, like the Cap Makers,
it has often disapproved of the policies of the
Federation officials.
The original plan of the union was to duplicate the
success of the United Garment Workers with the
union label—this, if nothing else, made affiliation
with the A. F. of L. necessary. Between 1900 and
1907 it struggled along in a vain attempt to estab-
lish its label, relying for direct gains only on the
old method of sporadic strikes against individual .
manufacturers at the beginning of the busy season.
No organizers besides regular officials were kept in\
the field and financially the union lived from hand
to mouth.
In 1907 an event occurred which changed the whole
outlook of the membership. The reefermakers, led
by refugees from the Russian Revolution of 1905,
went out in mass and stayed on strike for nine weeks,
showing such common determination and spirit that
they won most of their demands and put courage
into the rest of the workers in the needle trades. For
the first time in years it seemed possible to win
direct results through strong organization and fight-.
ing tactics. Although the financial panic of 1907 |
severely affected industry and threatened the union
with extinction, the stimulation of this success en-
dowed it with new resolution; the members held
together and soon undertook a great organizing
82 THE NEW UNIONISM
campaign. With the recovery of business in 1908
and the rapid expansion of the women’s ready-made
clothing industry, the union grew quickly. It was
also during this period that a definite negative de-
cision was reached regarding a proposal to amal-
gamate with the United Garment Workers. The
latter organization not only rejected the proposal,
but advised the International to surrender its
charter. The current of events was bearing the two
organizations farther apart rather than closer
together.
In 1909 another surprising mass movement gave
proof of the workers’ heightened morale. The small
local of waist and dressmakers in New York called
a strike, expecting about 3,000 to respond. Instead
30,000 went out, including workers of all races, ex-
cept a few native-born women. No such strike of
women had before been known or thought possible.
It aroused the public as never before to the suffer-
ings of the needle workers. The more liberal
churches and newspapers gave it much attention,
and many of the purchasers of fine garments that
were made under such frightful conditions felt a
twinge of conscience. Substantial gains were made,
and the local succeeded in retaining for some time
afterwards a membership of 12,000.
This strike stimulated the cloakmakers to renewed
activity ; they rushed to join the union and repeat the
success of the waistmakers. Enthusiasm ran high,
and on July 8th, 1910, the great strike? was called
1 For a description of this strike, see Chapter V.
UNIONS—BEGINNINGS AND GROWTH _ 83
which aroused the whole city, lasted for ten weeks,
and resulted in the establishment of the first collec-
tive agreement in the ready-made clothing industry
—the so-called ‘‘Protocol’’ which is discussed in
detail in Chapter VI. After this the union main-
tained nearly a one-hundred per cent organization
of the cloakmakers. In 1913 another general strike
of the waistmakers brought about a collective agree-
ment in that trade as well, and the permanent mem-
bership grew correspondingly.
The Protocol remained in force for five yeurs, the
workers achieving under it progressive concession
in material conditions. Nevertheless friction was
constant and increasing, there being an element
among the manufacturers who desired complete in-
dependence and hoped to destroy the union, and an
element in the union which was too radical to be
anything but restive under a compromise with the
employers. There were many points of conflict also
which the divergent interests of both parties made
inevitable. On May 20, 1915, the manufacturers
abrogated the Protocol, charging that the union had
not lived up to its provisions. Soon thereafter eight
leaders of the cloakmakers were indicted on various
charges including murder, all these charges dating
back to the strike of 1910. The accusers were, for
the most part, characters of the underworld. The
eight men were brilliantly defended by Morris Hill-
quit; the charges against some of them were dis-
missed by the court, and the rest were acquitted.
These events aroused intense feeling among the
84 THE NEW UNIONISM
workers, and convinced them that the manufacturers
had embarked upon an attempt to destroy the union
by fair means or foul. A strike was temporarily
averted by a Council of Conciliation appointed by
Mayor Mitchel under the stress of public opinion,
but the award was abrogated by the manufacturers
in the spring of 1916. On April 30th the 400 mem-
bers of the employers’ association ordered a lockout.
The result was a bitter general strike lasting
fifteen weeks, during the entire slack season. It
ended by a victory for the union, and the establish-
ment of a new agreement modified in their favor.
This agreement was for the period of three years,
and its conclusion was marked by another successful
strike.
These repeated victories stimulated the organiza-
tion not only in New York but throughout the coun-
try, and resulted in the acquisition, since 1907, of
more than 75,000 members outside the New York
cloak trade. The union is one of the few in the
country until very recently which has been able to
organize women in large numbers. The Waist and
Dressmakers Union of New York, Local 25, is the
largest single local of women in the country, and is
strong and progressive in every respect. Dozens
of conflicts with the employers have added to the
ranks of the International not only cloakmakers and
waistmakers throughout the country, but workers
on house dresses and kimonos, white goods, rain-
coats, embroidery, corsets, ete. In the spring of
1920 the International officially reported a paid-up
UNIONS—BEGINNINGS AND GROWTH 69
membership of 102,000. In 1919 it was the sixth
largest union in the American Federation of Labor,
being surpassed only by the United Mine Workers,
the Carpenters and Joiners, the Machinists, the Elec-
trical Workers and the Railway Carmen; all these
organizations were greatly aided by the war, al-
though the war created a depression in the women’s
garment industry. If the Ladies’ Garment Workers
had included those not in good standing because in
arrears through unemployment at the time of com-
putation, the total would probably have reached
150,000.
Seeing the success of the makers of women’s gar-
ments, the workers in the men’s clothing industry
became more and more restless during the years
between 1907 and 1913. They had not made parallel
gains, and the United Garment Workers, which held
official jurisdiction over them, seemed to them in-
active and impervious to the spirit of the times. A
general strike in Chicago in the fall of 1910 resulted
in a satisfactory agreement with the large and pro-
gressive house of Hart, Schaffner, and Marx, which
already had about 6,500 employees, but in New York
no appreciable gains were made. Agitation was
continuous, however, and in December, 1912, a strike
referendum was finally submitted to the union mem-
bers in New York and overwhelmingly carried. The
referendum showed the membership to be not over
5,000. Yet about 50,000 walked out within a few
days of the strike call. Repeated efforts at a settle-
ment were rejected by votes of the determined
86 THE NEW UNIONISM
strikers, who were resolved to achieve their full
demands. A final proposal to submit the controversy
to arbitration was accepted without a referendum,
by the President of the United Garment Workers,
who on his own responsibility declared the strike
at an end. Some of the workers refused to go back to
the shops until the decision of the arbitrators should
be announced, but the action of the President effect-
ually broke the strike. On this account ill feeling
against his administration was intensified. The
award, when finally published, contained substantial
concessions, but made no provision for peaceable
settlement of future difficulties.
Dissatisfaction with the existing régime in the
union was prevalent also in the other great clothing
markets, and a movement was launched in the Yid-
dish press and among the clothing workers in the
large cities to capture the offices at the coming con-
vention. In the ensuing controversy many heated
charges were made on both sides which, if related
at length, would demand far more space than a book
like this could possibly devote to the matter. No
full and impartial investigation of these charges has
ever been made, but it is important to note that the
specific charges were but the occasion of a split
which was really the result of a fundamental differ-
ence of philosophy and spirit between the radical
workers and the conservative officers.
The radicals charged that the officers misused the
union label and employed their power to make money
for themselves, that they had private understandings
UNIONS—BEGINNINGS AND GROWTH _ 87
with the manufacturers and deceived the member-
ship, that, in order to maintain themselves in power,
they designated far-away Nashville as the conven-
tion city and fabricated unwarranted bills against
the opposition locals in order to disfranchise them.
The officers charged that the radical movement was
promoted by outsiders and intellectuals for their
own benefit, that it was founded merely on race
prejudice and aimed to secure an exclusive control
by the Jews, that it was from the beginning a con-
spiracy to found a competing union, and that with
this end in view the opposition locals withheld per-
capita taxes which were rightfully due.
The ill-fated convention met on October 12th, 1914,
at Nashville, Tennessee. As had been expected, most
of the delegates from the large cities were not seated
by the credentials committee. A hearing by that
committee after the first day of the convention failed
to smooth over the difficulty. On the second day the
convention attempted to go ahead with business, but
those few radicals who had been granted seats in-
sisted that a complete report of the credentials com-
mittee was first on the order of business. When
they were overruled, they left the hall amid a tur-
moil, and with the unseated delegates proceeded to
hold a convention of their own in another hall, which
they claimed was the only rightful convention of
the union, and to which they invited all the dele-
gates.
A comparison of the official reports of both con-
ventions, and of the subsequent first convention of
88 THE NEW UNIONISM
the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, reveals the
following figures:
: Delegates representing Locals
Seated by United Garment Workers.... 184 147
Of these, left for insurgent convention.. 19 ll
Remaining with United Garment Work-
OTS apete wre apbytisaca Witte sige avenge Maecerane ae 165 136
Present at insurgent convention....... 110 54
Absent from both conventions......... 91
Of these, represented at first convention
of Amalgamated ...............005 16
Present at first convention of Amal-
pamated sicosias ees venas sae vie v4 130 68
It thus appears that the radical element did not
have a majority of the delegates, even if all had been
seated. There was a decided inequality, however,
due to the fact that the larger locals in the big cities
did not have anything like a proportional number
of delegates. The claim of the insurgents to repre-
sent a majority of the membership was probably
just, since they included almost all the delegates
from these large locals in New York and Brooklyn,
Chicago, Boston, Rochester, Baltimore, and Phila-
delphia, besides a few from Syracuse and Cincinnati,
whereas the loyal delegates were from small locals
in scattered towns, and in great part represented the
workers in overall factories controlled by the union
label.
The insurgent convention elected its own officers
and adjourned after transacting whatever business
it could. A series of legal skirmishes followed, which
resulted in the establishment of the right on the
part of the original organization to retention of its
title and the union label, and the right on the part
of the insurgent locals to retention of the funds in
UNIONS—BEGINNINGS AND GROWTH 89
their treasuries. Toward the end of December, 1914,
the insurgents held a second convention in New
York, adopted a democratic constitution and the title
of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America,
and united with the Tailors’ Industrial Union,
formerly known as the Journeyman Tailors’ Union.
Later, however, this organization withdrew and re-
newed its original title and its affiliation with the
American Federation of Labor.
The insurgent convention in Nashville had elected
delegates to the coming convention of the American
Federation of Labor. The Credentials Committee
of the Federation, after hearing in private the claims
of the rival groups, forthwith decided not to recog-
nize the insurgents. Their decision was sustained
by the convention. Repeated attempts to bring
about a reconciliation have been rebuffed by Mr.
Gompers and the other officials of the Federation,
solely on the ground that secession cannot be
tolerated in the labor movement. The attitude of
Mr. Gompers in this matter, as fully expressed be-
fore the United Hebrew Trades, is an interesting
one. There is no room in one country, he said, for
competing labor movements; unity is the first re-
quirement of strength. Yet the labor movement has
no police power, no army and navy, to prevent the
setting up of secessidnist bodies. The only way it
can do this is by using discipline. It must insist,
first of all, that all differences of opinion and policy
be settled within the existing organizations. The
general administration cannot look back of the
90 THE NEW UNIONISM
official and regularly registered decisions of these
organizations. Therefore, no matter how many just
grievances may underlie the disaffection of the
Amalgamated Clothing Workers, these grievances
can not be investigated or relieved unless the insur-
gents shall first submit themselves again to the juris-
diction of the parent organization.
It is easy to see the force of this principle of
legitimacy, and yet it has not sufficed to make the
men’s tailors surrender or to prevent the growth
and success of the Amalgamated. To Mr. Gompers
they reply that they see perhaps even more strongly
than he the need of unity, and that they will eagerly
be accepted by the Federation as soon as their basic
principle, the principle of democracy, is recognized
and practiced. They inquire how a majority faction,
wishing to change the policy of a union and the per-
sonnel of its officers, can do so if by the rules of
that organization and the tactics of the officers the
majority is not allowed to express its will. They
assert that, if while frowning upon secession the
Federation does not exert its disciplinary powers to
make sure that honesty and democracy exist in its
component unions, secession is made necessary
rather than discouraged. They point to their own
existence as the pragmatic proof of their position.
Mr. Gompers might reply that the insurgents who
founded the Amalgamated Clothing Workers did not
represent a majority of the United Garment
Workers, and that their charges of dishonest admin-
istration are untrue. But to do so would be to raise
UNIONS—-BEGINNINGS AND GROWTH 91
at once a question of fact, and to admit that an
impartial investigation of facts is necessary before
a fair decision in the matter can be reached. That
is just what he refuses to do.
In any case it is too late now to heal the breach
-by an appeal to ancient history. The officials of the
Federation, in conjunction with those of the United
Garment Workers, were evidently animated by the
belief that if the new union were effectually out-
lawed and fought with every available weapon it
would be weakened and discredited, and its members
would individually return to the fold. Such a policy,
at least, they have attempted to execute. In Balti-
more, for instance, the local representative of the
Federation, even made an alliance with the I.W.W.
against the Amalgamated. He engineered a small
strike of sub-contractors against a manufacturer
who had just abolished sub-contracting in compli-
ance with the demand of an overwhelming majority
of the workers. During this conflict actual violence
arose, a pitched battle occurring in the shop and in
the street outside. Again and again, when members
of the Amalgamated have been on strike, officers of
the old union have negotiated an agreement with
the employers, declared the strike at an end, called
the workers back into the shop under their own
jurisdiction, and if the strikers refused to return,
attempted to fill their places with strikebreakers
from the ‘‘official’’ union. The American Federation
engaged in a long controversy with the United
Hebrew Trades, endeavoring to force the Jewish
92 THE NEW UNIONISM
central body to expel delegates from the Amalga-
mated, on pain of being itself outlawed by the general
labor movement. For a time the United Hebrew
Trades resisted this pressure, but eventually the
Amalgamated withdrew of its own accord in order
to save its fellow unions embarrassment. Still, how-
ever, the United Hebrew Trades refused to accept
delegates from the United Garment Workers as long
as the rival union was not represented. James P.
Holland, President of the New York State Federa-
tion of Labor, attempted to direct again the Amal-
gamated the popular hostility to ‘‘Bolsheviki,’’ and
gave testimony before the State Legislative Com-
mittee investigating Bolshevism which might easily
have caused trouble for the union. Apparently some
officials of the Federation and their close followers,
relying on the anti-secessionist principle, have be-
lieved that all means of battle were fair against the
outlaw. At any rate they have fought it with a
persistence and bitterness seldom shown against
employers.
The other needle-trade unions, however, have
taken no part in this campaign. The fact that in
philosophy and method they are sympathetic with
the Amalgamated, and that this union in a closely
related industry, in spite of all persecution, has
grown powerful, make it necessary for them not to
oppose it, but to strive sincerely for an end to the
quarrel. The fight in the United Hebrew Trades
against exclusion of the Amalgamated was led by the
delegate of the International Ladies’ Garment
UNIONS—BEGINNINGS AND GROWTH = 93
Workers. When, during the war, a depression in
the women’s clothing industry was accompanied by
a great demand for military uniforms, the two unions
negotiated an agreement to share equitably between
their respective memberships the jobs available.
The International introduced into the 1918 conven-
tion of the American Federation of Labor a resolu-
tion calling for the establishment of a clothing
trades department, similar to the metal trades and
mining departments, to coordinate the various
unions concerned, with the idea that such a depart-
ment might facilitate the return of the Amalgamated.
This resolution was supported by all the needle-
trades unions except the United Garment Workers,
but was defeated on account of the hostile attitude
of the Federation officials. The culmination of this
movement towards unity, fostered as it was by the
philosophy of the unions concerned, was the pro-
posal in the spring of 1920 for a Needle Trades Fed-
eration, to be consummated if need be without regard
to the American Federation of Labor. This pro-
posal seems about to bring together all the radical
clothing unions for joint action. The prevailing
sentiment among the clothing unions seems to be that
it is not worth while to persecute thousands of fellow-
workers and widen a breach in the labor movement
solely for the sake of the anti-secessionist principle.
This feeling is strengthened by the consciousness
that the historical basis of the division has never
been candidly examined, and by a strong suspicion
that the supporters of regularity are animated not
94 THE NEW UNIONISM
so much by a desire to preserve labor discipline in
general as by a desire not to weaken the prestige
and power of the existing conservative administra-
tion of the American Federation of Labor.
The jurisdictional warfare with the United Gar-
ment Workers has, however, been little more than a
distressing incident in the life of the Amalgamated.
The large associations of manufacturers were forced
to deal with it. A collective agreement in New York
was signed in July, 1915, providing machinery for
the adjustment of disputes. The formal agreement
was later destroyed, but informal arrangements
were substituted for it. A spirited general strike
in December, 1916, gained the 48 hour week for all
members of the union in New York; this struggle,
involving nearly 60,000 workers, was the first in the
history of the clothing trades to be financed entirely
with funds raised from the locals concerned. Suc-
cessful strikes in Baltimore, Toronto, Montreal,
Chicago, Boston and other centers kept the morale
high and increased the membership. The union took
a prominent part in the agitation against sweatshop
conditions which began to crop out in the manu-
facture of army clothing, and assisted the govern-
ment to put an end to them. Without any mission-
ary work on its part, shirtmakers’ locals of New
York and Boston came over to it from the United
Garment Workers, the occasion being orders from
the higher officials of the United Garment Workers
to assist in breaking strikes called by the Amalga-
mated. Karly in 1919 the Amalgamated established
UNIONS—BEGINNINGS AND GROWTH 95
a precedent in the American labor movement by
gaining the 44 hour week, being one of the first
unions in the country to win this concession.
The Amalgamated now has a membership in good
standing of over 150,000, and if it should include
those members who are in arrears through unem-
ployment the total would probably be close to 200,000.
The United Garment Workers pay to the American
Federation of Labor a per-capita tax on 46,000 mem-
bers. Their total membership can hardly be larger
than this, since there are, on a generous estimate,
not 46,000 overall workers in the country, and the
remainder of their locals, scattered among shirt
makers, raincoat manufacturers, and custom tailors,
cannot include a numerous membership.
The ‘International Fur Workers Union of the
United States and Canada, though the youngest of
the group, has been highly successful.
COLLECTIVE AGREEMENTS 149
be decided by people who did not have an intimate
technical knowledge of the trade, and so could not
pass on questions of efficiency. On April 1, 1912,
a Trade Board was therefore established to inves-
tigate and attempt to settle disputes before they
were referred to the Board of Arbitration. The
Trade Board corresponded to the Board of Griev-
ances in the New York Protocol, and like it was com-
posed of an equal number of members from each
side. The union members had to be employees of
the firm. Unlike the Board of Grievances, however,
the Trade Board had an impartial chairman. It
was empowered to appoint chief deputies and depu-
ties, corresponding to the chief clerks and deputy
clerks in the Protocol machinery.
As in New York, the deputies succeeded in adjust-
ing most of the grievances, and the Trade Board
most of the others. Only a few ever came before
the arbitrators. As in New York, by far the greater
number and the hardest fought of the employees’
grievances concerned discharge, and the employer
seemed to be most bothered by shop strikes. When,
in the spring of 1913, the agreement was about to
terminate, prolonged negotiations failed to result in
its renewal, and a strike seemed imminent. The
union asked for shorter hours and higher wages, but
its chief demand was for the closed shop, which it be-
lieved was necessary to protect its members against
discrimination. There was a feeling among the
workers that the small proportion of non-union em-
ployees not only profited by the gains of the union
150 THE NEW UNIONISM
without sharing in its burdens, but were favored
by the company in distributing work or cutting down
the force in the slack seasons. At the last moment
peace was preserved by the adoption of the prefer-
ential union shop. The right of review of discharges
by the Trade Board was granted. The powers of
the Board of Arbitration were enlarged so that it
might adjust wages. With these and some minor
additions, the agreement was renewed for three
years.
The rules for the application of union preference
were carefully formulated in detail, to minimize dis-
putes. Later the company, wishing to eliminate the
discharge grievance if possible, worked out an ad-
mirable technique in the matter. Foremen were not
allowed to discharge, but after several warnings they
might suspend. Discharge could come only from
the labor complaint department. The result was
that this means of discipline was exercised spar-
ingly. Only 21 per cent of the employees suspended
were discharged, and of these over half were rein-
stated by the Trade Board on review.
The comparative success of the Hart, Schaffner,
and Marx agreements in avoiding general strikes
is due to a number of factors. Here the union was
dealing with one firm engaged in quantity produc-
tion, making a good quality of clothing, and having
a high standing in the trade. Its product was as-
sured a relatively steady sale through advertising.
The employer was therefore able to maintain con-
ditions constantly a little in advance of those ruling
COLLECTIVE AGREEMENTS 151
throughout the industry, and to eliminate many of
the inequalities which cause trouble when the indus-
try as a whole is considered. The full force of
seasonal fluctuations was not felt in his shops. Fur-
thermore, he was wise enough to yield point after
point as the union gained strength and conscious-
ness of its desires, so that the equilibrium of power
between the organized workers and the employer
was constantly expressed in their formal relations.
In a small degree and to a limited extent, the condi-
tions in these shops indicate what might be the con-
ditions throughout the entire industry, if some force
could control and regulate it efficiently. To say this
is far from saying, however, that there is no funda-
mental opposition of interest in the shops concerned,
and that a point may not sometime be reached when
this opposition will assume precedence over the
effective community of interest which has been or-
ganized and in force since 1910.
The agreements in the clothing industry were
among the first to recognize in theory that the public
has a legitimate interest in adjusting disputes. To
their boards such distinguished ‘‘representatives of
the public’? as Justice Louis D. Brandeis of the
Supreme Court, United States District Judge Julian
W. Mack, and Rabbi Judah L. Magnes have been
called. Such men have given conscientious and valu-
able service. Yet after all it is little more than a
matter of form to call them representatives of the
public in anything like the sense in which the other
participants are representatives of employer and
152 THE NEW UNIONISM
employee. ‘‘The public’’ is still a vague and unana-
lyzed term. It may mean the people in their capac-
ity of consumer, or the community in its exercise of
police power for the general good, or the middle
classes as distinguished from organized labor and
organized capital. No representative of the public
in any specific sense can be added to arbitration
boards until organized consumers, the state, or some
other functional body elects them to safeguard spe-
cific interests. The ‘‘representatives of the public’’
who have previously been appointed are rather men
selected as impartial chairmen, chosen on account
of their reputation, authority, probity, and wisdom.
In New York the Amalgamated and the manu-
facturers of men’s clothing for several years have
had no formal agreement. During the war, the War
Department established a Board of Standards, and
later an Administrator for army clothing, who ad-
justed disputes where government orders were in-
volved. A strike broke out late in 1918, and was
finally submitted to the arbitration of an ‘‘ Advisory
Board’’ consisting of experts in industrial rela-
tions. This board granted the 44-hour week and
wage increases, recommending that the concessions
be applied throughout the country. It later sub-
mitted supplementary reports,® based on the Hart,
Schaffner, and Marx experience, and advised the
appointment of a labor manager for the em-
ployers in the New York market, and an impartial
chairman for the review of discharges and the settle-
5See Appendix.
COLLECTIVE AGREEMENTS 153
ment of other disputes. The aim was not to write
a formal agreement, but to build a basis on which
the law of the industry could grow by decisions of
the impartial chairman, just as public law grows
by successive decisions of the courts. It should be
noted that the absence of a formal agreement allows
the question of wages and hours, as well as other
issues, to be brought up at any time, rather than at
some date previously set for the expiration of an
agreement. This arrangement corresponds more
flexibly with the realities of the economic situation.
Subsequently a National Industrial Federation of
Clothing Manufacturers was formed by the employ-
ers’ associations in New York, Chicago, Baltimore,
and Rochester, the chief centers of the men’s cloth-
ing industry. Each association appointed an indus-
trial expert as its labor manager, and the four labor
managers were united in a board to work out uni-
form policies. Finally, in the summer of 1919, a
joint industrial council to cover the nation was
formed by the National Federation and the Amal-
gamated union. This council has remained tempo-
rarily dormant, but there is a chance that it may
be revived. :
Whether this ambitious undertaking will lead to
permanent industrial peace, as some of its founders
hope, remains to be seen, but at least it is an ad-
vance in systematic regulation of the industry com-
parable only with the advance made when the unions
ceased dealing with the separate manufacturers in
one market, and resorted to collective agreements
154 THE NEW UNIONISM
with an association. It clears the ground for the
consideration of some of the larger possibilities,
such as the mitigation of seasonal fluctuations
through unemployment insurance. It is the first
joint Industrial Council, the parties to which are
a national association of manufacturers and a na-
tional industrial union, to be consummated in the
United States. The new experiment in the men’s
clething industry is therefore one of the greatest
significance.
The latest agreement of the Cap Makers, consum-
mated in July, 1919, has three interesting innova-
tions. One is the provision that the schedule of
wages shall be readjusted every six months to meet
the changes in the cost of living. This provision
was included in a number of awards by the govern-
ment during the abnormal! conditions of the war, in
cases where the employer was protected by the fact
that he was working on a government contract pro-
viding for his reimbursement in the event of his
being forced by the award to grant higher wages.
Few such provisions, however, have ever before been
included in a wage agreement between a union and
a manufacturers’ association dependent on the open
market. A still more remarkable passage reads:
‘“‘No manufacturer shall give out work to be made
6 The coal miners and coal operators developed a somewhat similar
organization several years ago, but on a basis not recognizing, as
does this arrangement, the latest achievements of labor’s control in
the shop. An Industrial Council in the book and job printing in-
dustry includes, on the employees’ side, not one industrial union,
but several craft organizations typical of the old unionism, and
came near being wrecked by a quarrel between conservative officials
and radical locals.
COLLECTIVE AGREEMENTS 155
for him in non-union shops, or buy goods from such
shops. No manufacturer shall sell goods to a con-
cern at a time when there exists a controversy be-
tween the Union and the concern.’’ This clause
furnishes a suggestion of a new means of extending
union control.
The agreements whose operation we have de-
scribed in some detail are merely typical of others
set up in other branches of the industry and in
other cities. Most of them have undergone much
the same process of development, modified of course
by the experience gained in labor management, con-
ciliation and union tactics, and by the peculiar cir-
cumstances in each case. In every trade and city
in which the clothing unions are now strong, some
such agreement exists with a manufacturers’ asso-
ciation including the most firmly established and
largest producers. Similar agreements with indi-
vidual independent manufacturers cover the remain-
der of the industry in question. The tendency is
for the manufacturers’ associations to extend over
an increasing proportion of the industry. They are
also acting with greater unanimity throughout the
nation. It is quite possible that the next general
strike or lockout in the clothing trades may be a
national one, and it is even within the range of
vision that a strike may cover various branches of
the industry at the same time.
CHAPTER VIL .
PHILOSOPHY, STRUCTURE, AND
STRATEGY
Tue rapid rise of the unions in the needle trades,
contending, as they have, against enormous disad-
vantages, accounts for the keen interest, both
friendly and hostile, which they have aroused in
the public and the labor movement. On the one
hand they are put forward as shining examples for
the rest of organized labor, and on the other they
are denounced and persecuted as ‘‘Bolsheviki’’ to
be shunned by the ‘‘bona-fide’’ unions. Large em-
ployers who for some years have dealt with these
organizations praise them in the highest terms and
are satisfied with existing relations, notwithstand-
ing the fact that they know many of the members
of the unions concerned are in opposition to the
whole wage system.’ Yet there are still leaders of
organized labor who believe it their duty to cleanse
the movement of the influence of these radical
bodies. To the observer both these attitudes, strange
as they may seem, must give evidence of the power
which the needle-trades unions have developed; to
1 Ray Stannard Baker in the Evening Post, N. Y., of February 18,
1920, gives opinions of employers concerning the labor situation in
the clothing industry.
156
PHILOSOPHY, STRUCTURE, STRATEGY 157
him the primary question would be, not whether they
are ‘‘good’’ or ‘‘bad,’’ but what sort of thing are
they, and wherein lies the source of their success?
How were the workers employed in industries with
such a chaotic economic structure able to build such
strong organizations?
The strength of these unions lies primarily in the
type of unionism they have developed—a type which
binds their members in a fraternity of ideals, and
is based on a sense of solidarity in a tireless strug-
gle towards a new “system of society. ‘Tt is a com-
mon consciousness that makes it possible to knit
together workers of the most divergent trades and
varied standards into a united army, always re-
sponsive and ready for concerted action. This
spiritual brotherhood, based upon a common aspira-
tion—a thing which the old unionism so badly lacks
—made it possible for the needle workers to create
more powerful and cohesive organizations than could
their employers. The supremacy of organization
gives the workers their firm hold in the industry
and explains in large measure their achievements.
History here has repeated one of its frequent par-
adoxes. The very weakness and backwardness of
the industrial structure in the manufacture of cloth-
ing, the very difficulties which the labor organiza-
tions had to face, forced them early in their struggle
to embrace principles which gave them their ulti-
mate power.
The fundamental differences between the old and
the new unionism lie not so much in the form of
|
158 THE NEW UNIONISM
organization as in the attitude toward the methods
and purposes of the labor struggle. The gulf is to
be found in ideology rather than in structure. The
fact that the old unionism so obstinately clings to
' the remnants of craft or trade organization, while
' the new unionism strives towards complete indus-
- trialism, is merely the sequence of that difference
in attitude which makes the former seek its power
in a kind of bargaining partnership with capital,
while the latter looks for its strength primarily to
the solidarity of the working class, with a resulting
disbelief in the ultimate necessity of profit-making
capital. The old unionism has no quarrel with the
fundamentals of capitalist society. It does not ques-
tion the right of private property to control pro-
duction. In any case, it acquiesces in this right;
it recognizes the ‘‘reasonable’’ profit and dividends
on honest investment. The very conception of the
class struggle is barred from its dictionary. Its
hostilities are directed merely against ‘‘those em-
ployers who refuse to understand modern indus-
trial conditions and constant needs for advancement
of the working people.’’? It fully and unreservedly
endorses the primitive theory of competition as the
only reliable incentive of human endeavor and prog-
ress.
The old unionism therefore struggles only for the
. immediate betterment of the condition of the work-
ing people, while the new unionism thinks of imme-,
2 This and succeeding quotations on the old unionism are from the
testimony of Samuel Gompers, President of the A. F. of L., before
the Industrial Relations Commission, May, 1914.
PHILOSOPHY, STRUCTURE, STRATEGY 159
diate improvements merely as a means toward a '
larger end. The old unionism concentrates all its —
efforts on here and now, on the problems of today,
on those proximate difficulties which vary from trade
to trade and from industry to industry. ‘‘It works
along the line of least resistance,’’ and this line is
different according to circumstances. Not merely
has it no vision, no announced program, no dream
of its own, but it wishes none; more than that, it
believes every vision or dream or comprehensive
program a serious danger, which may divert the
attention of the workers from the struggle for im-
mediate betterment. Though zealously protecting
its right to strike as a safeguard against ‘‘bad’’
employers who refuse their workers a voice ‘‘in
determining the questions affecting the relations he-
tween themselves and their employers,’’ the old
unionism looks to collective bargaining to bring the
sentiments and views of the employers ‘‘in entire
accord with the organization of the working people.’’
The old unionism appeals to the business or trading
consciousness, while the new unionism makes its
chief appeal to the desire for ultimate economic
emancipation.
The old unionism was not so much the result of
plans of leadership as it was the result of adapta- |
tion to conditions. Taking the line of least resist-
ance may be repugnant as a social philosophy; it is
likely to be, however, the course pursued in the early
stages of any human institution. Well considered
programs, aims, and methods based on a broad social
160 THE NEW UNIONISM
view, are always of later origin. They come, for
the masses, only when the initial progress along the
line of least resistance has led to a point where
greater freedom of action and choice are possible,
or when all lines of resistance reveal so many ob-
stacles that to hew out the highway of a great ideal
becomes indispensable for making one’s way at all.
It would take us too far if we were here to make
a complete historical analysis of the old unionism
in this country, but a few suggestions might not be
amiss,
With inexhaustible resources of free land, with
many opportunities to acquire property, with an
apparently unlimited political equality, the Ameri-
can working people did not for a long time develop
much class-consciousness. The whole attitude of
the nation was one of individual ‘‘getting on,’’ and
this conception of affairs was always sustained by
literature, the press, and public education. Early
unionism was frequently of a welfare nature. Mu-
tual assistance in need, cultural self-perfection,
vague ‘‘uplift’’? common to the whole people with-
out distinction of class or position, were its main
characteristics. Political movements of the workers
were usually directed toward increasing the oppor-
tunities for individual advancement rather than to-
ward improving the status of wage-earners as a
whole. The free-soil parties, for instance, were of
this nature. When small groups of workers began
to combine for strictly economic betterment, their
field of activity was naturally confined to the exclu-
PHILOSOPHY, STRUCTURE, STRATEGY 161
sive possessors of skill in a given handicraft. Ma-
chinery had not become a widespread substitute for
the skilled craftsman, and, in the industries which
machinery had conquered, organization was slow.
The line of least resistance led to manipulation of.
demand and supply in the labor markets. The op- >
portunity of improving the conditions of the skilled
worker by limiting the supply of labor and elim-
inating competition within the group was con-
siderable.
The labor market of each trade at this stage was
still little influenced by the labor market in other
trades. The more skill a trade demands, the less it
can depend on a surplus of labor elsewhere. Every
effort to minimize competition and so improve bar-
gaining conditions could naturally count on far
greater success when limited to a trade than when
extended to an entire industry. For practical
achievement, for immediate betterment, the craft
union was the best form of organization. The
methods it worked out were those calculated to cre-
ate the most favorable conditions in bargaining
with employers. Long and strictly regulated ap-
prenticeship, limitations on the admission of new
members, undisputed jurisdiction over the workers
concerned, detailed regulations for accepting or
leaving a job, rules limiting the productivity of the
worker, the so-called ‘‘permit system,’’ and the
union label, were all intended to put craft groups
on a better footing when it came to bargaining with
their several employers. This was the goal of the
162 THE NEW UNIONISM
craft union; if it attained recognition and the closed
shop, it could rest at its ease.
The results accomplished by these methods were
in the early stages obvious. The difference between
the high status of the skilled and organized workers
and the misery of the unskilled and unorganized
was so striking that there was no doubt that the
craft union ‘‘delivered the goods’’ to those whom
it was formed to serve. This led to the further
strengthening of the craft union, and to a large
measure of complacency. The result of early neces-
sity was, in the minds of leaders and of many work-
ing people themselves, converted into a principle.
The program of no program, the policy of no policy,
and the philosophy of no philosophy, were them-
selves transmuted into a set of eternal and ideal
‘doctrines. Even long after industrial conditions had
radically changed, after craftsmen had been almost
all replaced by machinery, after competition itself
ceased to be such an important factor and the lines
of demarcation between trades had become most
vague, after, in the natural course of development,
the trades union had supplanted the craft union, and
even the industrial union—such as the United Mine
Workers—had come into existence within the fold
of the American Federation of Labor, this ideology
still retained its firm hold upon the official labor
movement. The old unionism is distinguished now
not by its structure, but rather by a lingering craft
interpretation of life, and by a narrow attitude
toward the aims and tasks of the labor movement.
PHILOSOPHY, STRUCTURE, STRATEGY 163
Entirely different conditions surrounded the
growth of the labor movement in the needle trades.
The distribution of free land had ceased to be such
a strong influence by the ’eighties, when these indus-
tries absorbed the immigrant hordes—and the Jews
were not accustomed to living on the land in any
case. The immigrant was handicapped in ex-
perimenting, in pioneering, and in advancing his
commercial fortunes, by his lack of knowledge of
the language and customs of the country. Even the
apparent political equality did not embrace him for
several years after his arrival, and then only as the
result of exceptional effort on his part. Our system
of public education and press had little or no influ-
ence on him. While the intolerable conditions of '
work in the clothing shops and the low wages barred ;
the great masses from the wider aspects of life, there;
was from the beginning a considerable nucleus of
cultivated socialist intellectuals who had through’
force of circumstances become manual workers, and '
who naturally took the lead in every effort towards \
organization. | ‘
A far more important factor, however, was the
utter impossibility of accomplishing results by fol-
lowing the policies established by the American
labor movement. Competition in the labor markets
of the needle trades, at least in the formative period
of the unions, could not be limited. The flood of
immigration increased every year, and most of the
operations did not demand much skill. With the |
single exception of the cutters, the period of ap-
(ii
164 THE NEW UNIONISM
prenticeship necessary for acquiring average ability
in the needle trades is too short to create much of
a barrier around the crafts. It is easy to pass from
any one of the trades to another. The conditions
in any one of the trades affect too directly those of
all others to permit separatism.
The cutters, who were the first to organize, did
_ pass through a development similar in some respects
to that of the general labor movement. At an early
period, when the passage from the cutting craft to
the employing class was somewhat easier, they prac-
ticed the welfare type of unionism, with benefits,
vague idealism, ceremonials, etc. Later they had
craft locals, businesslike, conservative, and aloof.
Even after the internationals were formed they
retained a certain separatism within the organiza-
tion, considering themselves a sort of aristocracy.
As the large unions grew, however, they became
more and more dependent on the majority of their
fellows. Recent innovations in cutting machinery,
which eliminate some of the skill of the old handi-
craftsman, hastened the process. But perhaps what
had more effect than anything else was that in some
cases they were actually outdistanced in wages and
conditions by other crafts who whole-heartedly ac-
cepted the new unionism from the beginning. The
cutters now have little particularism.
The large number of small and transitory firms,
the keen competition among them on the one hand,
and among the workers on the other, and the highly
seasonal character of the industry, made all con-
PHILOSOPHY, STRUCTURE, STRATEGY 165
ditions so unstable and fluctuating that it seemed
impossible for most of the workers to hope for
material improvement without abolishing the capital-
ist régime. The evils of competition were so ap-
parent and abhorrent that the workers could not
think of it as a valuable incentive to human endeavor
and progress. The business-like method of the old
unionism,—entrenching in the separate crafts, mak-
ing a gain here and there, and extending the organ-
ization bit by bit,—was evidently inapplicable under \,
these conditions. A strike in a single prosperous
‘
|
shop or group of shops could bring only ephemeral ;
gains. The proprietor of the struck shop would .
transfer his work to outside. sub-manufacturers or |
contractors, or would entirely reorganize his estab-
lishment a few blocks away, with a new staff. Con-
cessions granted at the height of the season would
be taken away, often with interest, as soon as the
slack season set in. While in the general labor move-
ment partial gains occurred before large organiza-
tion, the process in the needle trades was the re-~
verse. Almost a complete organization had to be
accomplished before any lasting improvement could |
be brought about. Organizers who held out promises .
of immediate betterments through partial action
could not arouse the interest of the workers after
many years of hopeless struggle. The labor move-
ment in these industries had to build its organized
strength upon a class consciousness looking towards
complete economic emancipation.
The creation of this consciousness and hope was,
166 THE NEW UNIONISM
however, a Herculean task. It took decades of in-
cessant agitation and education to coalesce the
human atoms scattered over such an endless number
and variety of shops into a solid, living organism.
During these decades the union were growing in
potentiality, in the common consciousness of the
workers, rather than in tangible form and achieve-
ment. To the outsider the needle workers seemed
unorganizable; even the insiders, the group of de-
voted leaders, were ready to despair of their own
ability to accomplish results. The leadership of the
old unionism seemed to be infinitely more successful.
It was this appearance which, at the first convention
of the United Garment Workers in 1891, led the
radical delegates, imbued though they were with the
principles of the new unionism, to elect as officers
a group of conservative unionists, and to affiliate
immediately with the American Federation of Labor,
which was in bitter opposition to socialism.
But this attempt to take a leaf out of the book
of old unionism has now shown conclusively how
ill adapted its methods are to the clothing industry.
The failure of the United Garment Workers is not
chiefly a failure of persons, it is a failure of method.
As soon as this method changed, as soon as the
majority of the members came over to the new Amal-
gamated Clothing Workers, it became possible to
create an almost one-hundred per cent organization
in the same men’s clothing industry in which the
United Garment Workers never succeeded in gain-
ing a firm foothold.
PHILOSOPHY, STRUCTURE, STRATEGY 167
When the preliminary process of agitation and
propaganda was at last completed, when a common
consciousness had become rooted in the minds of
the working people, a single stroke was enough to
give the potential organizations tangible shape, and
to endow them with a deeper solidarity and a firmer
control over their members and industries than the
old unionism could ever attain. This explains their
dramatic appearance on our social surface and their
sudden success. The appeal to organize for imme-
diate betterment failed not merely to bring any or-
ganization but also to achieve any betterment. The
appeal to organize for the ultimate emancipation of
the working class, disregarding immediate advan-
tages, brought about not merely an almost complete
organization, but also very substantial betterments.
The philosophy of the new unionism, like every
vital philosophy, was not born complete, and is being
enriched continually. It does not exist in a formal
way even in the minds of the working people adher-
ing to the organizations that exemplify it. It will
be found rather as a mental attitude, an imperfectly
expressed interpretation of events. Yet a movement
based primarily on the conscious views of its adher-
ents, as the new unionism is, was bound to attempt
at an early period to formulate its philosophy as
concisely as possible. As previously stated, the first
convention of the United Garment Workers adopted
a radical constitution, declaring for the recognition
of the socialist newspapers, the Arbeiter Zeitung,
the People, and the Volks Zeitung, as the official
168 THE NEW UNIONISM
organs of the union, and for agitation among its
membership in favor of participating in the political
activities of the socialists. Of course the action of
the officers quickly made these provisions dead
letters. The next oldest international in the needle
trades, the United Cloth Hat and Cap Makers, for-
mulated its social creed in the following preamble to
its constitution :
“‘Recognizing the fact that the world is divided into two
classes, the class that produces all wealth—the working
class—and the class that owns and controls the means of
production—the capitalist class;
“Recognizing the fact that the concentration of wealth
and power in the hand of the capitalist class is the cause
of the workingmen’s economic oppression; and
“‘Recognizing the fact that only through organization
and by united effort can the workers secure their right to
enjoy the wealth created by their labor;
“Therefore, we, the workers of the Hat and Cap Trade,
have formed this organization under the name of the
UNITED CLOTH HAT AND CAP MAKERS OF
NORTH AMERICA, in order to improve our conditions
and secure by united action our due share of the products
of our labor; to establish a shorter work day; to elevate. .
our moral and intellectual standard and develop our class
consciousness by means of propaganda and the press; to
cooperate with the national and universal labor movement
for the final emancipation of the wage earner and for the
establishment of the Cooperative Commonwealth.”
The preamble to the constitution of the Inter-
national Ladies’ Garment Workers Union, while of
the same nature, defines more clearly the method of
\
PHILOSOPHY, STRUCTURE, STRATEGY 169
attaining the final emancipation of the wage-earner.
It announces as its aim, ‘‘to organize industrially
into a class-conscious trade union’’ in order ‘‘to
bring about a system of society wherein the workers
shall receive the full value of their product.’’ In
the above preambles all the elements of the new
unionism were already contained. Further develop-
ment, however, was necessary to expand these ele-
ments into a complete system. These preambles
are vague with regard to the method in which the
‘“Cooperative Commonwealth’’ or the ‘‘system of
society wherein the workers shall receive the full
value of their product’’ is to be brought about. The
Cap Makers see this method as cooperation with the
national and universal labor movement; the Ladies’
Garment Workers refer to ‘‘cooperation with work-'
ers in other industries,” but from the context it ap-,
pears that they put much more weight upon political |
representation of the workers ‘‘on the various legis- :
lative bodies by representatives of the political party
whose aim is the abolition of the capitalist system.”’’
The constitution of the Amalgamated Clothing
Workers, as the latest in the series and also as one
created in direct opposition to the old unionism,
gives a fuller and more definite expression of faith.
Says the preamble:
“The economic organization of Labor has been called
into existence by the capitalist system of production, under
which the division between the ruling class and the ruled
class is based upon the ownership of the means of pro-
duction, The class owning those means is the one that is
170 THE NEW UNIONISM
ruling, the class that possesses nothing but its labor power,
which is always on the market as a commodity, is the one
that is being ruled.
‘¢A constant and unceasing struggle is being waged be-
tween these two classes.
“In this struggle the economic organization of Labor,
the union, is a natural weapon of offense and defense in
the hands of the working class.
‘“‘But in order to be efficient, and effectively serve its
purpose, the union must in its structure correspond to
the prevailing system of the organization of industry.
‘“‘Modern industrial methods are very rapidly wiping
out the old craft demarcations, and the resultant condi-
tions dictate the organization of Labor along industrial
lines.
“‘The history of the Class Struggle in this country for
the past two decades amply testifies to the ineffectiveness
of the form, methods and spirit of craft unionism. It
also shows how dearly the working class has paid for its
failure to keep apace with industrial development.
“‘The working class must accept the principles of In-
dustrial Unionism or it is doomed to impotence.
“‘The same forces that have been making for Industrial
Unionism are likewise making for a closer inter-industrial
alliance of the working class.
‘“‘The industrial and inter-industrial organization, built
upon the solid rock of clear knowledge and class conscious-
ness, will put the organized working class in actual con-
trol of the system of production, and the working class
will then be ready to take possession of it.’’
The philosophy of the new unionism has molded
the structure, and still more, the strategy of these
organizations. Deriving their strength from the
class consciousness of their membership, they must.
PHILOSOPHY, STRUCTURE, STRATEGY 171
depend upon intelligent appreciation by the rank and
file of their problems and policies. It is necessary
that every member shall identify himself with the
organization, shall think of it as an embodiment of
his own aspirations and will. The leadership in
these organizations, regardless of the manner of
election, must therefore be of a somewhat different
nature from the leadership in the old unionism. This
difference cannot be adequately expressed in any
constitutional provisions with regard either to
the selection or the authority of the officers. The
methods of election in the unions of clothing workers
are not uniform and do not differ materially from
those practiced by the organizations of the business
type. The general officers of the Ladies’ Garment
Workers and the Hat and Cap Makers are elected by
their biennial conventions; the general officers of the
Amalgamated Clothing Workers are nominated by
their biennial conventions and elected by a referen- .
dum vote of the membership. The same methods are
employed by the old unionism. The fundamental '
difference lies rather in the attitude of the leader- |
ship toward the rank and file and of the rank and |
file toward the leadership.
The old unionist is inclined to think of the union
as a business concern. His attitude toward it is
similar to the attitude of a stockholder toward a
corporation. As long as the directors of a cor-
poration keep it solvent, as long as dividends are
paid regularly, the stockholders have no further
interest in the affairs of the concern and are ready
i
172 THE NEW UNIONISM
to leave it entirely in the hands of the management,
They do not want to be bothered by detailed con-
sideration of methods or policies. Results are all
they ask; the rest they are ready and anxious to
forget. On the other hand, the directors hold them-
selves accountable to the stockholders only for im-
mediate results; they are likely to consider it an
intrusion if any but the large stockholders attempt
to interfere in the policies of the business.
The business consideration is to the new unionist
only secondary; he is mainly interested in the organ-
ization itself as the expression of his aspiration to
control the industrial system. The immediate gains
are, both to the members and the leaders, a by-
product derived in the process of work on the main
task, the preparation of the workers for actual con-
trol of production. This attitude makes methods
and policies far more important than immediate re-
sults accomplished. Consciously and unconsciously,
the rank and file imbued with the spirit of the new
unionism will always look behind immediate ad-
vantage to that higher goal to which they have
dedicated their efforts. Their revolt against being
arbitrarily ruled was their original motive for organ-
ization, and they cannot be expected to submit long
to boss-rule in their own communities. Neither will
they be over-anxious to give undue authority to
their representatives.
The leadership in these unions therefore has more
the character of spiritual guidance in a voluntary
fraternity somewhat like the church communities at
PHILOSOPHY, STRUCTURE, STRATEGY 173
the beginnings of Christianity, than of authoritative
control even by democratic rulers. The rank and
file look to their leadership for enlightenment, advice,
and counsel, but they consider the will of the people
as the superior wisdom and expect their leaders to
abide by it. The leaders see the mainspring of power \,~
of the organization in the mass volition of the +,’
membership. They are therefore extremely reluc-
tant to use arbitrarily their authority or discretion.
To undertake any important step, however advis-
able, before the rank and file has come to will that
step would be to undermine the only power that
could make it successful. Jt cannot be said that
the legal safeguards against abuse of authority are
much stricter than in the more advanced organiza-
tions of the old type. But there is the safeguard of
an always alert public opinion, of mutual confidence
and respect, of a common ideal to serve as a criterion
in the shaping of policies. ——
The structure of these organizations cannot be
fully outlined on the basis of written constitutions
or by-laws; it contains numerous extra-legal insti-
tutions which play a decisive part in their life.
Furthermore, the practices are not rigidly fixed.
Regarding the processes of society themselves as
constantly in flux, the unions readily change their
practices to meet changed conditions. But in all
changes the supreme consideration is to make it
possible for the organization to have behind its every
action the comprehension and resolution of the
membership.
174 THE NEW UNIONISM
The supreme authority in each of the clothing
unions is concentrated in the industrial unit, repre-
senting the entire membership in the United States
and Canada. The will of the membership as a whole
constitutionally finds its expression in the periodic
convention, in the General Executive Board and
General Officers who administer the affairs of the
union between conventions, and in the Referendum,
which may be invoked at any time. As a matter of
established practice, the general will also finds ex-
pression in the General Membership Mass Meeting,
and in the Joint Meeting of all Local Union Execu-
tive Boards of any given locality.
Next in authority to the industrial unit are the
trade units of the various localities, which constitu-
tionally are governed by the several Joint Boards or
Councils—for instance, the Amalgamated New York
Joint Board of Men’s Clothing. Extra-legally, the
trade unit is much influenced by meetings of the
Shop Chairmen of the locality and trade. The Joint
Boards are made up of delegates from Local Unions,
whereas the Shop Chairmen represent the workers
by shops, and are in constant touch with the rank
and file at their places of work.
The smallest constitutional unit is the Local
Union; this subdivision is merely for administrative
purposes and as a rule wields virtually no authority
in control of industrial action. Strikes, for instance,
are usually called by Joint Boards rather than by
Locals. Because of its purely administrative func-
tions the composition of the local varies widely.
PHILOSOPHY, STRUCTURE, STRATEGY 175
Extra-legally, the smallest unit is the shop, with its
shop committee or price committee and shop chair-
man, elected by the members employed in a given
manufacturing plant or subdivision of such plant.
This is a most important functional division in the
industrial activities of the union.
In order to give a clear idea of this administra-
tive machinery, it is necessary to describe it in more
detail, beginning with the smaller units and working
up to the main one.
The local union consists as a rule of the workers v’
at a single craft or operation, such as cutters,
operators, pressers, basters, tailors, blockers, sizers,
trimmers, finishers, muff-bed makers, hat frame
makers, etc. Sometimes it consists of workers of |
different crafts but of the same nationality. Such,
for instance, is Local 280 of the Amalgamated, con-
sisting of Italian workers of all crafts in the pants
trade, or Local 43, consisting of Jewish operators,
finishers, and pressesrs living in Brooklyn. There is
now a tendency, in distinct sections of a large city
or in smaller towns where the membership is not too ,’
large, to make the local union coterminous with the
locality irrespective of craft. A similar principle -
is applied to minority nationality groups such as
Lithuanians, Italians, Slovenians, Russians, and
Poles.
‘The nature of administrative functions differs
among locals, even within the same organization.
The special history of the craft, its position in the
trade or industry, the extent of its organization, are
176 THE NEW UNIONISM
responsible for these differences. There are, how-
ever, some functions that are common to all locals,
The local is the unit of representation in the general
convention, the number of delegates to which it is
entitled depending on its size. Another common
function is the election of delegates to the Joint
Board. Practically all locals in the International
Ladies’ Garment Workers, and some in the other
unions, collect the per capita tax from the members,
see that they remain in good standing, serve as em-
ployment agencies for manufacturers and members,
and give consideration to grievances of members
which are later submitted to the Joint Board for
action. The locals give preliminary consideration
to trade problems with the purpose of bringing in
recommendations to the Joint Board, and serve as
voting units for all decisions of the Joint Board
submitted to the membership for ratification. They
discuss and decide any disputes among their mem-
bers. Finally, perhaps the main function of the
local is the cultivation of good will and good fellow-
ship among the members. It is the social force of
cohesion and propaganda in the union. This ac-
counts in large measure for the varied forms which
the locals take.
The government of the local is in the hands of
the meeting, the local executive board, and the local
officials. The meeting is the supreme authority, sub-
ject only to referendum of the membership. There
are no fixed rules as to the use of the referendum,
but it is usually ordered only by a vote of the
PHILOSOPHY, STRUCTURE, STRATEGY 177
meeting. Many locals elect their executive boards
and officials by this means; no local will decide a
question effecting vitally its whole membership—
such as the raising of dues—without a referen-
dum.
The local executive board, consisting of no less
than five members, is the governing body of the local
between meetings. It is usually elected for a term
of from six to twelve months. The officials are sub-
ject to the supervision of the executive board. The
number and kind of officials depends upon the size
and nature of the local. The chairman of the execu-
tive board, sometimes called also the president of
the local, is an unpaid officer but an influential one.
The recording secretary is usually paid a nominal
sum and his duty is to keep the minutes of local and
board meetings; but he is also an influential officer.
In the larger locals there is a paid secretary, de-
voting all his time to the work. The one paid officer
in all locals is the financial secretary. He is charged
with the collection of dues, initiation fees, and assess-
ments, whenever this duty is left to the local, and
with the paying of bills and guarding the funds un-
less, as in the case of some large locals, responsibility
for the account is placed with a special unpaid
treasurer. Some of the larger locals, including vir-
tually all those in the Ladies’ Garment Workers,
also have paid managers. The duties of the manager
are not clearly defined. He has a general super-
vision over the office staff, and serves as a link be-
tween the general office or the Joint Board and the
178 THE NEW UNIONISM
membership of his local. He also exercises a sort of
moral leadership and guidance. This office is now
becoming obsolete.
The next larger unit, the local trade or sub-indus-
try, is governed by the Joint Board, also known as
the Joint Council or District Council. There are,
however, cases where the functions of the trade unit
are exercised by a local union. Such a case is Local
25 of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers,
which represents the whole New York dress and
waist making trade, including all the crafts with the
single exception of the cutters. Other cases are the
industrial locals previously mentioned, such as Local
7 of the United Cloth Hat and Cap Makers, a Boston
unit which embraces all the crafts, including the
cutters. There are many such cases in the Ladies’
Garment Workers, because this industry is divided
into so many distinct trades, each with a compar-
atively small number of employees.
In New York City, the largest center of the
women’s clothing industry, the International Ladies’
Garment Workers has nine trade units. The Cloak-
makers Joint Board, which embraces ten locals, is
the largest and oldest, having a total membership of
over 40,000. The second is Local 25, with a member-
ship of well over 25,000. The cause for the growth
of such a large local without subdivisions lies in its
dramatic history. The local began with a small
nucleus, and when it called its first big strike in 1909,
it did not expect that nearly the entire trade would
join it. Since then its activity and prestige have
PHILOSOPHY, STRUCTURE, STRATEGY 179
tended to keep it together. Now, however, it has
become so large as to be a little unwieldy, and sub-
division by race and craft is beginning, though
control of industrial action is left as usual in the
hands of the trade unit. At the end of 1919 an
Italian branch know as Local 89 of Ladies Waist
and Dress Makers was created. There is also a
movement to make subdivisions for drapers, fin-
ishers, tuckers, hemstitchers, and pressers. The in-
troduction of new machinery bringing with it in-
creased specialization strengthens this tendency.
The other trade units are, respectively, Local 62,
White Goods Workers, Local 6, Embroidery Workers
on machine embroidery, Local 66, Bonnaz Embroid-
ery Workers on fancy embroidery, Local 41, House
Dress, Kimono and Bath Robe Workers, Local 45,
Petticoat Workers, a newly organized trade, Local
50, Children’s Dress Makers, and finally, Local 44,
a nucleus for Corset Workers. *
The United Cloth Hat and Cap Makers have in
New York two trade units, the Joint Council of the
Cap Makers, with a membership of over 5,000, and
the Joint Board of the Ladies’ Straw Hat and
Millinery Workers, with a membership of about
7,000.
The International Fur Workers Union has three
trade units, the New York Fur Workers Joint
Board, with 4 locals aggregating 8,000 members, the
Fur Cap and Trimming Workers Board with 4 locals
3The corset workers have only recently been organized. The
strongest locals are in Bridgeport, Conn., Local 33, consisting of all
crafts except cutters, and 34, the cutters.
180 THE NEW UNIONISM
and 800 members, and the Dressed Fur Workers
Board, with 6 locals and 2,200 members.
“ The Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America
have in New York four trade units: the New York
Joint Board of Men’s Clothing, with 26 locals, the
Children’s Clothing Workers’ Joint Board, with 11
locals, the Shirtmakers’ Joint Board, with 3 locals,
and the Overall Makers Board. The men’s and chil-
dren’s boards are now to be combined. The Cutters’
Local 4 consists of the cutters of all these units, and
is a quasi-unit by itself. It is represented on the
Joint Board of Men’s Clothing with a voice and vote
on all questions except finance.
The Joint Board, Joint Council, or District Coun-
cil is the real power in the trade for the respective
locality. All negotiations with the manufacturers
about existing collective agreements, all dealings
with boards of adjustment, grievance committees, or
offices of the impartial chairmen, are under the
authority and supervision of the Joint Boards. They
also work out and present demands at the time of
expiration of agreements, though in such cases the
General Office is usually called in for advice and
counsel. All decisions concerning strikes are made
by the Joint Board, though in case of a general strike
of the trade, the sanction of the General Executive
Board is necessary. The Joint Board apportions the
amount of dues and assessments that each affiliated
local shall pay. In short, the Joint Board acts as
the executive of a single industrial group. The local
unions are merely administrative branches, with
PHILOSOPHY, STRUCTURE, STRATEGY 181
somewhat more extended authority than a branch
usually has.
The Joint Board is composed of delegates from
every local union within its territorial and indus-
trial jurisdiction. The number of delegates to which
the local is entitled varies with the organization.
In the International Ladies’ Garment Workers, every
local, regardless of its size, sends five delegates;
the Hat and Cap Makers also give locals an equal
number of delegates; in the Amalgamated Clothing
Workers, the number of delegates to which a local
is entitled depends upon its size. Each local may
have at least one delegate and no local more than
four; locals of about 300 members have 2 delegates
and those above 1,000 have three. The Amalgamated.
Joint Board is the only body which has two kinds of :
delegates: ‘‘full-fledged’’ with voice and vote, from.
locals directly represented on the Board, and dele-
gates with voice but no vote from locals indirectly
represented. The indirect representation comes
from crafts only remotely connected with the men’s
clothing industry, such as Lapel Makers, Button-
Hole Makers,. Wholesale Clothing Clerks, Bushel-
men, and Clothing Drivers and Helpers. Hach has
two delegates, and they join in the formulation of
larger policies and general enterprises. In all the
rest, however, they maintain their autonomy, as
semi-independent trade unions.
The Joint Boards have a number of paid and un-
paid officers to transact their business. The unpaid
officers are usually limited to a chairman and record-
182 THE NEW UNIONISM
ing secretary. In the Amalgamated Clothing Work-
ers, the Joint Board elects from its own number a
Board of Directors consisting of fourteen members,
as an executive committee with authority to act
between meetings and with the duty of giving pre-
liminary consideration to every important question
and bringing in a report with recommendations to
the Joint Board. The number and kind of paid
officers vary with the size of the respective Boards
and the business they have to attend to. In most
cases the Joint Board has a General Manager, a
Secretary-Treasurer, District Managers or Trade
Managers, Assistant Managers, and as many Busi-
ness Agents as may be necessary. The International
Ladies’ Garment Workers Joint Board also has a.
Recording Secretary.
The General Manager is elected either by the Joint
Board (Ladies’ Garment Workers, Furriers) or by
a referendum vote of the membership. (Amalga-
by the local ‘unions, ¢ every local being entitled to
nominate one candidate by majority vote. The
District Managers of the Ladies’ Garment Workers
are appointed by the Joint Board from among the
Business Agents. The Trade Managers exist only
in the Amalgamated, on account of the special struc-
ture of the men’s clothing industry. It is subdivided
into three sections: the making of coats, pants, and
vests, which are produced as a rule in separate shops.
These divisions are highly specialized, and an
operator or presser in one cannot easily be replaced
PHILOSOPHY, STRUCTURE, STRATEGY 183
by a worker of the same craft in another. Each of
these three subtrades therefore has an advisory joint
board, which has no authority, but gives special con-
sideration to the needs of the trade and brings in
reports and recommendations to the Joint Board of
Men’s Clothing. Each advisory board has it Trade
Manager, elected by a referendum vote of the mem-
bers concerned. The Trade Managers follow closely
the development of their trades, and serve as links
between the General Manager of the Joint Board
and the respective subdivisions. The Italian locals
also have an advisory joint board of their own,
which has an Assistant Manager, but no Manager.
The Assistant Managers in the other boards are ap-
pointed by the Manager with the approval of the
Board of Directors.
ee oi ss
The Business Agents perform many duties, but ,
are chiefly used as emissaries of the Joint Board in
dealing with individual manufacturers, in settling
minor disputes, and in seeing that agreements are
carried out. If trouble arises in any shop which
cannot be settled without reference to the Joint
Board, the Business Agent is at once called in. The
system of selecting the Business Agents varies. In
the Ladies’ Garment Workers they used to be nom-
inated by locals and elected by general ballot, each
local being entitled to a quota of Business Agents
depending on its size. This process depended too
much on electioneering and resulted frequently in
the choice of unqualified candidates, since the mem-
bers as a whole had little knowledge of the long list
/
184 THE NEW UNIONISM
of names submitted. Now, after the quotas of Busi-
ness Agents for the several locals have been ap-
portioned, an announcement is issued by the Joint
Board that all who feel themselves qualified for the
office shall make applications. A sort of civil service
examination is then held, the examining board con-
sisting of a committee from the Joint Board, with
members invited from among prominent persons in
the labor movement. Those receiving the highest
marks are appointed, provided, however, that the
quotas from the several locals are properly filled.
The practice in the Amalgamated Clothing Workers
is similar, but in this case all candidates who receive
a passing mark are submitted to referendum vote
of the locals in the respective trades, the trades vot-
ing separately. In the other unions, one or the other
of these two systems, with slight modifications, is
used.
The taxation systems of the unions are carefully
planned. In the Amalgamated Clothing Workers the
Joint Board collects all the dues through the central
office. Out of the 35c. weekly per capita, the Board re-
tains 17%4c. pays 12%c. to the General Office, and 5c.
to the local union. A similar procedure obtains in the
Furriers Union. In the United Cloth Hat and Cap
Makers, the local unions collect the dues—30c. per
week—and pass on to the Joint Board 5c., to the
Joint Council 8c., and to the General Office 12c.
There is a movement here to substitute the method
of the Amalgamated. The International Ladies’ Gar-
ment Workers have an entirely different system. At
PHILOSOPHY, STRUCTURE, STRATEGY 185
the beginning of each six-months’ period, the Joint
Board makes up a budget of expenditures. A re-
volving fund is then created to cover the expenses
of one month. Each local contributes its share to
this fund in proportion to its membership. At the
end of the month a statement of actual expenditures
is made up and the total sum divided proportionally
among the locals. Bills are sent to the locals for
their respective shares. This revolving fund at
present is $25,000; the per capita which the Joint
Board thus receives amounts to about 11c. per week;
besides this, the locals pay 6c. a week to the General
Office, and retain the remainder of the dues them-
selvés. The local unions, of course, do not need for
current expenses all the money in their treasuries;
the greater part of it goes toward building up re-
serve and defense funds to be used in case of a
strike. In an emergency the locals supply the Joint
Board with proportional contributions.
The extra-legal shop committees and shop chair-
men are highly important factors in the trade units.
The shop chairman is an unpaid official elected by
all the workers of a shop out of their own number,
irrespective of their crafts. In the very big shops,
separate crafts may have chairmen of their own,
but there is always a general chairman for the entire
shop. The shop committee consists of several
workers elected to act with the chairman. Where
the crafts have chairmen of their own, these act as
members of the committee. Whenever a dispute
arises in a shop, it must be handled first by the shop
86 THE NEW UNIONISM
hairman and committee. The collective agreements
sually provide for this preliminary negotiation. If
settlement is arrived at with the employer on the
pot, it is virtually final, though the members have
he right of appeal to the executive board of their
eal and through it to the Joint Board, which may
eopen the issue in the way prescribed in the agree-
aent. In the few shops still under a piece-work
ystem, the shop chairman and shop committee also
egotiate about prices.
But the shop chairmen perform a far more im-
ortant function as the direct channel between the
rganization and the rank and file. They are the
mmediate guardians of the spiritual and material
ssets of the organization. According to established
ractice, there are a thousand and one duties which
hey must perform. The shop chairman must see
o it that every union member in the shop remains in
‘ood standing, and that the general provisions of the
ollective agreement are observed. He must see that
he members pay their assessments. Whenever an
ppeal is made to the membership for contributions,
ither to assist another division of the same organ-
zation or another union during a strike, or to sup-
ort some enterprise of the labor movement, such
s the battle for civil liberties or the defense of the
usted Socialist Assemblymen at Albany, the shop
hairman impresses on the workers the importance
f the cause and makes the collection. He reports
n all important developments in the trade. He
ecures the correct names and addresses for the
PHILOSOPHY, STRUCTURE, STRATEGY 187
mailing list of the official journal, Whenever: an
important movement is inaugurated by the union,
the shop chairmen explain it, help create a sentiment
for it, and smooth over the difficulties that may be
in the way. Joint Boards seldom undertake a large
project without launching it first at a meeting of
shop chairmen, and securing their adherence to it.
Whether it be a plan for change from piece to week
work, a proposed increase in the per capita tax,
preparations for a general strike, or an educational
campaign, the shop chairmen will be consulted be-
fore a decision is arrived at.
The advantages of this extensive use of the shop
unit in place of the local union are obvious, especially
for a democratic and active organization. The shop
chairmen are in contact with the members at their
places of work; they see all the members every day.
They do not have to rely on the minority who attend
meetings. Their point of view is that of the worker
at his job, the worker in production. They furnish
a continuous means of communication which can be
instantly invoked. The fact that their growing func-
tion has not entirely eliminated the necessity of the
local is due partly to tradition, partly to the social
and racial elements involved, and partly, in the
strictly clothing trades, to the extreme imperman-
ence of the small establishments and the fluidity of
labor. The local union must be retained as a per-
manent nucleus. It is interesting to note, by the
way, that the use of shop chairmen had already be-
come established in the American clothing unions
-~
188 THE NEW UNIONISM
long before the shop steward movement arose in
England during the war.
The General Officers of the unions are a General
President and a General Secretary or Secretary-
Treasurer, both full-time, salaried officials. Some-
times there is also a General Treasurer, but he is
unpaid, his duties are small, and his position is not
far different from that of any General Executive
Board Member. The main duties of the General
President are assisting in the adjustment of im-
portant disputes between workers and employers, ad-
justing differences between local unions, presiding
over meetings of the General Executive Board, and
directing all organizing work. The General Sec-
retary conducts the correspondence of the organiza-
tion, is the guardian of the seal, documents, papers,
labels; he keeps account of all financial transactions
and pays bills as authorized either by the constitu-
tion or the General Executive Board. Both officers
are in practice entrusted with the main responsibility
for guidance of the organization. They submit their
reports to the Convention, and in the interim to the
General Executive Board.
Between Conventions, the General Executive
Board is the supreme authority. It consists of the
General Officers and a number of other members
elected by the same process.* It decides all points
4 The General Executive Board members of the International Ladies’
Garment Workers, besides the President and Secretary, are called
Vice Presidents: there are thirteen of these, of whom seven must
be resident in New York City. The Hat and Cap Makers have fif-
teen members on the Board, of whom no less than eleven must be
residents of New York. The Amalgamated Executive Board has
eleven members, with no restrictions on residence.
PHILOSOPHY, STRUCTURE, STRATEGY 189
of law or interpretation of the constitution, all
claims, grievances and appeals. It has the power
to authorize a general strike, to issue charters to
newly organized local unions; it publishes the official
journals; it elects trustees for any of the special
funds, such as sick benefit and defense funds; and
it has general supervision over the affairs of the
organization. If a vacancy occurs between conven-
tions, the board nominates candidates for it, who are
then submitted to a referendum vote—in the Amal-
gamated, of the entire membership, and in the Cap
and Hat Makers, of the membership of the local
unions in the city which is entitled to the seat. No
referendum is required in the Ladies’ Garment
Workers,
The Convention is the highest legislative authority.
It consists of delegates elected by the local unions in
proportion to the size of average membership for
which a per capita tax was paid for a period ranging
from six months to two years preceding the Con-
vention. Each local is entitled to at least one dele-
gate, and in the Ladies’ Garment Workers, to two
delegates; the number of members entitled to ad-
ditional delegates progressively increases with the
increase of the membership of the local. The Amal-
gamated is an exception to this rule, as it grants the
local union an additional delegate for every 300
members above the first hundred. The constitution
of the Amalgamated provides that a local of 1,000
members must send to the convention no less than
three delegates. In all the other unions each delegate
190 THE NEW UNIONISM
has a single vote regardless of the number of mem-
bers he represents. In the Amalgamated each dele-
gate is entitled to one vote for every 100 members.
The regular conventions of these unions meet bien-
nially in the month of May. At the request of five
locals, no two of which shall be in the same state or
province, the General Executive Board is obliged to
take a referendum on the subject of calling a special
convention. A favorable two-thirds or three-
fourths vote is necessary for adoption of the proposi-
tion. The General Executive Board also has the
right on its own initiative to submit sucha
referendum.
The referendum is required by all these organiza-
tions for the passage of any amendment to the con-
stitution which may be adopted by .the convention
and, in the previously specified cases, for the election
of General Officers. It has become the custom for
conventions to submit vital questions to a refer-
endum vote.
The joint meetings of all local executive boards is
an extra-legal institution invoked in cases where a
whole industry is involved, just as shop-chairmen
meetings are used when a single trade is involved.
On important occasions General Membership Mass
Meetings are arranged simultaneously in as many
halls as are necessary. They include all members of
a certain locality independent of craft or trade, and
are called usually at the initiative of a joint executive
board meeting. A proposal to declare a general
strike, or to impose a general assessment on the
PHILOSOFHY, STRUCTURE, STRATEGY 191
membership or to launch a campaign for a 44-hour
week or for a week-work system, is the typical sub-
ject for such a meeting. Sometimes the entire indus-
try of a certain city is stopped during the working
hours and the union members, headed by their shop
chairmen, march en masse to the previously assigned
halls. In such cases, virtually the entire member-
ship is reached. This method is employed in prefer-
ence to a referendum, or parallel to a referendum,
because it has the advantage of giving the worker
a chance to deliberate on the question, and to ex-
change opinions before making up his mind to vote
one way or the other.
The strategy employed by these organizations
must be interpreted in the light of their philosophy
and structure. Both old and new unions, to be sure,
employ similar weapons, such as the strike and the
collective bargain. Behind this superficial uniformity
of method, however, there is a vast difference of
emphasis and attitude. The question is not so
much what weapons a union uses, as how it uses
them, what relative importance it attaches to them,
and what strategic positions it regards as secondary
and what as primary.
An analysis of the strategy of the new unionism
will discover in it two fundamental objectives to
which all other policies are subordinated. The first
is to organize all the workers in the industry; the
second is to develop them, through their daily
struggles, into a class-conscious labor army, able and
ready to assume control of industry. These fun-
192 THE NEW UNIONISM
damentals may not always be clear even in the minds
of the leaders, but a study of policies will reveal
them.
The supreme importance attached to the organiza-
tion of all the workers in the industry is revealed
by the attitude of the new unionism to such questions
of policy as the admission of new members, appren-
ticeship, immigration, the union label, jurisdiction,
and formation of employers’ associations.
As soon as a union gains control over a trade or
any part of it, the selfish instinct of its members
under present conditions is naturally to keep the
gain to themselves, and to restrict as far as possible,
the invasion of their sphere of influence by new
workers. Most business unions have high initiation
fees, complicated examinations, and other means of
making admission difficult. There are cases of suc-
cessful unions who close their membership books for
,ten years or more. The clothing unions, however,
raise no obstacles against the entry of new members.
The constitution of the Hat and Cap Makers def-
initely provides that no local union shall charge
more than $25 for initiation, which shall include all
payments to the various funds. The Ladies’ Gar-
ment Workers cannot charge more than $15 for ad-
mission of men and $10 for women. The Amal-
gamated has had no constitutional limitations, ex-
cept that the local must receive the approval of the
General Executive Board for its initiation fee. A
movement lately arose in the Amalgamated in New
York to inaugurate high initiation fees, but it was
PHILOSOPHY, STRUCTURE, STRATEGY 193
checked at the very start, and the 1920 convention
established a legal limit of $10.00. The practice of
these unions is even more liberal than their con-
stitution limitations. During general organization
campaigns, which occur frequently, members are
admitted at a nominal fee, in some cases as low
as 50c.
The same difference in policy applies to appren-
ticeship. The restrictions and regulations which the |
ew unionists enforce with regard to apprentices
aim not to bar apprentices from the trade but to
prevent their being used by the employer to weaken|
the organization through exploitation and under-
payment. The clothing unions merely insist that no
more apprentices shall be admitted than are actually
needed by the industry, that they shall receive the
same treatment as the organized workers of the
trade, and that their work shall be paid for at the
full amount of its value under established union
standards. The period of apprenticeship must be
no longer than necessary, and as soon as it is over,
the apprentice must join the union. This agreement
is not merely a business arrangement, but is a means
of enlisting every new recruit as soon as possible
into the real labor army.
The old unionism always combats immigration.
The new unionism, however, thinks of capitalist in-
dustry as not limited by the boundaries of a nation,
and believes that the prospective immigrant remain-
ing in his own country affects the labor market as
much in the long run as if he is admitted to our
we
me
194 THE NEW UNIONISM, | va! as Aes.
shores. The new unionism never apnoser qanhee,
tion; at several hearings before congressional com-
mittees its representatives have demanded that no
new restrictions on immigration be imposed.
All the clothing unions have an official union label,
In none of them except the United Garment Workers,
which typifies the old unionism, is much significance
attached to it. The label, distinguishing union-
made from non-union goods, is meant as a premium
for the unionized shop and a deterrent for the others,
by regulating the patronage of union sympathisers.
This device stresses indirect protection of the union
shops rather than organization of the non-union.
The benefits which the members receive from the use
of the label sometimes lead to a tendency on the part
of the business union actually to refrain from organ-
izing the whole industry.
In disputes about jurisdiction the motives of the
two types differ. The old type will look for exten-
sion of jurisdiction as a method of increasing the
number of jobs for its members, or of adding to the
‘‘ner-capita’’ in the treasury. The new unionism,
on the other hand, will seek extended jurisdiction
primarily as an opportunity of organizing all the
workers in an industry, and so extending the eco-
nomic power of the whole group. The controversy
between the United Hatters and the Hat and Cap
Makers is an example (see Chapter IIT). The Inter-
national Ladies’ Garment Workers has made re-
peated attempts to induce the American Federation
of Labor to organize a department to serve all the
PHILOSOPHY, STRUCTURE, STRATEGY 195
needle-trades unions, while the United Garment
Workers has always stubbornly fought this
proposition.
The attitude towards the formation of an em-
ployers’ association will, with the old unionism, de-
pend primarily upon whether the association is for
or against collective bargaining. The attitude of the
new unionism in this matter will be determined
largely by the question whether the existence of the
association will create more or less favorable con-
ditions for the organization of more workers in the '
industry. In the needle trades, as we have seen, the *
progress of the unions was hampered by the extreme :
div ivergence of conditions in the many shops. Em-
ployers’ associations furnished a means of exerting
a standardizing influence on the trade. In the early
~stages of the struggle, the unions concerned not
merely looked with favor on the formation of such
associations, but in some cases actively encouraged
it. The association of hat and cap manufacturers
was, for instance, brought into being partly through
the influence of the young union.
The second of the fundamental strategic policies
of the new unionism—the importance it attaches to
cultivating the solidarity of the workers and making
them ready to assume control of industry—is re-
vealed by its attitude toward mutual insurance,
strikes, collective bargaining and agreements, sys- \
tem of payment for work, productivity and sabotage,
the general labor movement and independent polit-
ical action.
196 THE NEW UNIONISM
Mutual insurance is relegated to the background.
In the old unionism large insurance funds are likely
to stand in the way of aggressive action, to prevent
the enrollment of many new members, and to be a
barrier against amalgamation. Only such benefits
as are directly related to militant action have a
prominent place in the new unionism. The clothing
unions pay liberal strike benefits, more liberal than
do many organizations of the old type. But the
strike benefit is not rigidly fixed in their constitu-
tions, and is not an insurance payment in the or-
dinary sense, since the entire resources of the union
and often of its individual members as well are mob-
ilized in support of strikers once a battle is on. Only
one of the unions under consideration has provisions
for the payment of sick benefit—the United Cloth
Hat and Cap Makers. But here the payment is not
made from an isolated fund, though of course a
separate book account is maintained. Even with the
Cap Makers, participation in this benefit is volun-
tary, and side by side with many beneficiary mem-
bers there are many non-beneficiary, who prefer to
pay a smaller per capita tax. Now that the bulk of
the needle trades have been organized, and the vested
interest tends to weaken the organizing zeal, there
is a more favorable attitude toward mutual
insurance.
There is more in common between the two types
of unionism in their attitude toward the strike as a
weapon of last resort than to any other practice of
unions. Both consider the right to strike vital to
PHILOSOPHY, STRUCTURE, STRATEGY 197
their continued existence, and will zealously guard
this right. The old unionism, however, regards the
strike as a weapon of sections of the workers against
unreasonable employers, and believes that strikes
may be altogether avoided against those employers
whose views ‘‘come in entire accord with the organ-
ization of the working people.’’ The new unionism,
on the other hand, thinks of the strike not as a
weapon of particular employees against particular |
employers, but as an irrepressible manifestation of
the class struggle, and it denies that durable har-
monious relations between the employing class and
the workers may be expected. ““* °°" free"
In the actual employment of the strike the old
unionism is more ready than the new. The business
union will use the strike wherever it may have a
chance of bringing immediately desired results. It
will permit strikes of one craft in an establishment
without the others, thus tying up work for the benefit
of a few. It will strike against one or more em-
ployers rather than against a whole trade. It will
single out the unreasonable from the reasonable.
The new unionism as far as possible reserves the |
strike for a last weapon in clashes over the degree
of control of industry. It anxiously avoids guerilla
warfare. It seeks decisive issues and movement in
masses. It does not permit strikes of single crafts.
Not ascribing too much value to immediate better-
ment, it will strike against the whole body of em-
ployers in a trade or industry rather than against in-
dividuals or sections. It almost never strikes for
198 THE NEW UNIONISM
wages alone, but places the emphasis on the intro-
duction of better systems of work, shorter hours or
greater control. The tendency now is to conserve
the strike almost entirely for this latter aim, letting
other gains follow incidentally.
Collective bargaining and the collective agreement
is to the old unionism an aim in itself—in many cases
the highest aim. The new unionism, on the con-
trary, regards the entire necessity of bargaining as
a result of economic oppression. Improved bargain-
ing conditions therefore have the same significance
to it as modified autocracy to the real democrat. It
uses collective bargaining as a means of eliminating
minor disputes so that its strength may be reserved
for the main issues, as a means of defining those
issues, and as a means of extending and strengthen-
ing the organization. The exercise of collective bar-
gaining makes concerted action on the part of em-
ployees a habit, and serves to give expression to
class solidarity within the frame of the existing
order.
The collective agreement is merely the record of
the balance of power between employers and em-
ployees at a given time. In the old unionism the
agreement is often thought of as the end of the
struggle, with the new it is an incident in it. The
agreement is a sort of political constitution enforced
upon autocratic rulers by the people; the real sig-
nificance of such a constitution depends upon the in-
dependent spirit of the people and their readiness to
defend their rights. The provisions of a collective
PHILOSOPHY, STRUCTURE, STRATEGY 199
agreement have an entirely different meaning in
practice according to whether the strength of the
union as compared with that of the employers in-
creases or decreases during the life of the agreement.
The collective agreement—strange as it may seem
—is more seldom broken by unions adhering to the
new philosophy than by those who adopt the old.
While the sanctity of contract as such between labor
and capital means little to the new unionist, there
is no inducement for him to break a contract for
trivial reasons. It would be absurd, in his form of
strategy, to incur for scattering advantages the
danger and expense of the battle which breaking an
agreement would involve. Expecting beforehand
that changes in the balance of power and in the de-
sires of the workers will take place, he either con-
cludes peace for so short a term that no great de-
velopment can occur before the contract terminates,
or gives it a flexible nature, with machinery for mak-
ing minor adjustments. The tendency now is to
avoid written constitutions altogether. The em-
ployers in the clothing industries have themselves
become infected with this conception of life as a
fluid process which cannot be confined by rigid
stipulations.
The old unionist thinks of the agreement as a fixed
law whose observance becomes a matter of good
faith only. The result is that, influenced as he is
bound to be, more by the conditions of his existence
than by abstract sanctity of contract, he is led to
break it whenever conditions have materially
200 THE NEW UNIONISM
changed or there is a tempting possibility of im-
mediate betterment. The danger of breach of con-
tract by the business union is still further increased
because the agreement is more the result of bargain-
ing shrewdness on the part of officials than the real
expression of the existing balance of power. Nego-
tiations are frequently carried on and concluded by
national officers without the participation of the
masses, who therefore do not feel that the contract
expresses their own will, and are more inclined to
discard it. An inquiry the results of which were
published by the New York World October 19, 1919,
although it revealed many breaches of contract in
nearly all other industries, did not show a single
agreement broken by the unions in the clothing in-
dustries. In justice to the old unionism, it should
be stated that this inquiry shows an abnormal state
of affairs. Rigid agreements concluded during the
recent era of rising prices had far less chance of
survival than usual.
The attitude of the business union toward method
of payment revolves chiefly about the relation be-
tween compensation and effort. That system is fa-
vored which gives the greater compensation for the
smaller effort. With the new unionism the question
is what system will better preserve the vitality of
the working class, and will promote common will and
action. If payment by the week is preferred to pay-
ment by the piece, it is primarily because the former
helps to develop solidarity among the workers and
makes it necessary for those whose demands on life
PHILOSOPHY, STRUCTURE, STRATEGY 201
are highest to seek improvement for their entire
group or class.®
Opposition to the practice of ca’ canny or slack-
ing on the job, as well as toward sabotage in all its
forms, is in the old unionism due to the principle
of ‘‘a fair day’s work for a fair day’s wage,’’ while
the new unionism regards it as an enemy of the class
consciousness of the workers and of their readiness
to assume control of industry. Inefficient work is
an instinctive expression of dissatisfaction and lack
of interest, and is in some measure unavoidable
under the capitalist system; it can be mitigated only
in so far as the worker feels a pride in his job. The
new unionism, by laying emphasis on increasing con-
trol of the process, strikes at the roots of sabotage,
whereas the old unionism, by emphasizing the bar-
gaining process, creates a favorable atmosphere for
it even while formally opposing it. Moreover, the
new unionism has much stronger reasons to dis-
courage it. Sabotage is a method that must be em-
ployed individually rather than by concerted action.
It cannot be practised openly and therefore has a
harmful influence on the dignity and personality of
the worker—a factor of prime concern to the new
unionism. It directs the struggle against the indi-
vidual rather than against the employers as a whole,
while the new unionism professes no enmity against
the individual and battles merely with the system.
Finally, sabotage may undermine the industry itself,
and, what is more important, the psychological read-
iness of the workers to control it.
5 See Appendix.
202 THE NEW UNIONISM
Similar motives prompt the new unionism to be
far more receptive to improved machinery and man-
agement than the old. To the exclusive business
union, a device for increasing productivity is merely
a threat to replace skill with a mechanical process,
and so to rob the craftsman of his monopoly. To
the socialist, it may be a valuable contribution
to industrial technique, which if put to the right
uses will lighten the burden on all the workers. The
concern of the new unionist is not so much to pre-
vent the introduction of machinery or better man-
agement as to see that they do not become instru-
ments of oppressing the worker, or of diverting to
the employer an abnormally increased share in the
rewards of his toil. The Amalgamated set a new
precedent when at its 1920 convention it voted to
establish standards of production.
The new unionism naturally takes a wider interest
and a more active part in the life of the labor move-
ment as a whole ‘than does the old. Every battle
of a union anywhere it regards as its own battle.
During the street-car strike in New York City a few
years ago the workers of the needle trades for long
weeks faithfully walked to their jobs or used all kinds
of unfamiliar conveyances, but until the last refused
to have anything to do with cars run by strike-
breakers. Hardly a struggle conducted by a union
in the country which has needed financial assistance
has failed to receive it in generous measure from
the clothing workers. The recent strikes of textile
workers and steel workers are noteworthy examples
PHILOSOPHY, STRUCTURE, STRATEGY 203
—to the steel strike the needle trades pledged half
a million dollars, and before its close had actually
contributed as much as any other group of unions
in the country, including those who officially called
the strike. The same attitude is demonstrated
in another way. Thinking of themselves as part
of the general labor movement, the clothing unions
have remained, as far as they could, within the ex-
isting Federation, regardless of their objections to
policies of its leaders. This policy is not due chiefly
to selfish motives, since the unions of the needle
trades have received negligible support from the
Federation. The contributions of all the A. F. of L.
unions toward the great Cloakmakers’ strike in 1910
was not above a few hundred dollars. The desire
to remain affiliated with the Federation is purely a
sign of loyalty to the working class, and of a belief
in the ultimate justice of the cause of labor, no
matter what fallacies its officials may temporarily
profess.
The old unionism, having no quarrel with the
present social order, has no compelling reason to’
undertake independent political action. In politics
as in industry it seeks merely to trade for imme- .
diate concessions, which may be wrested by prom- |
ises and threats from either of the two old parties. -
The new unionism, opposed as it is not merely to i
the minor evils of the social order but also to its .
fundamentals, naturally cannot rely on parties which
are themselves expressions of that order and organs |
of the powers that support it. The new unionism
204 THE NEW UNIONISM
may desire the same minor improvements which the
old unionism seeks, but they are not intimately
enough related with its cause to determine its poli-
tics. The preamble to the constitution of the Inter-
national Ladies’ Garment Workers Union provides
for the support of a party whose aim is the abo-
lition of the capitalist system. While the other con-
stitutions do not all have definite provisions to that
effect, the practice of the clothing unions is the
same. They are always in favor of vigorous inde-
pendent political action, and they cooperate with
the Socialist Party.*®
It would be impossible to enter into the minor
details of strategy, since the interests and activities
of the new unions extend to so many fields of human
endeavor. It may be said that nothing humane is
foreign to them.
6 The founding of a national Labor Party is striking evidence ot
the drift of the old unionism toward the new. The natural tendency
of the clothing unions, with their feeling for labor solidarity, would
be to work for amalgamation between the two working class parties,
but before doing so they must give the new movement time to
establish itself and prove whether it can be permanent and sincere.
CHAPTER VIII
EDUCATION
Tue educational work of the labor organizations in
the needle trades, though but a few years old, has
already reached a stage where its tendencies can
be roughly defined. The extent of these educational
efforts, and still more the broad vision which they
have revealed, have attracted considerable attention,
on the part both of the labor movement and the
general public. The 1918 convention of the Ameri-
ean Federation of Labor found the subject of suf-
ficient interest to direct the Executive Council to
appoint a special committee to investigate the edu-
cational system of the International Ladies’ Garment
Workers Union and other similar schools, with a
view of reporting to the 1919 convention whether
the methods employed could not be applied generally
to the labor movement of the United States and
Canada. The numerous articles in the press, and
the formation of the Art, Labor and Science Con-
ference with the express purpose of cooperating
with these trade unions in education, are indications
of the growing interest in this work.
It is generally recognized that, in a sense, every
labor union is an educational institution in itself.
The elementary principles of democracy, the concep-
205
206 THE NEW UNIONISM
tion of majority rule, the rudiments of representa-
tive government, the significance and practice of the
ballot, the first inklings of taxation by the will of
the people and the realization of the significance
of self-discipline in a democracy, are perhaps no-
where learned in a more direct and immediate way
than in a labor union. No amount of school train-
ing could ever cultivate that simple understanding
of the basic principles and practices of self-govern-
ment which is naturally acquired by every active
member. In addition, the regular trade activities
of a labor organization are educational in many
other ways. The process of determining the de-
mands which the organization is to present to the
manufacturers, the struggle for these demands, the
consideration and settlement of grievances and dis-
putes, the practice of mediation, conciliation, and ar-
bitration—all these activities touch upon the funda-
mentals of economics and sociology, and more
directly upon questions concerning management and
control of industry. This explains why many a
labor man, with only very scant opportunities for
a systematic education, has attained such a high de-
gree of knowledge and culture. The educational
value of the regular trade activities of labor unions
varies, however, with the type and character of the
unions.
The broader the principles upon which a labor or-
ganization is built, the wider its horizon, the greater
the community with which it identifies itself—the
greater is its educational value. The union which
EDUCATION 207
limits its philosophy to the immediate betterment
of its own craft must necessarily provide fewer op-
portunities for education than the one that considers
its work for the immediate betterment of the indus-
try as a mere link in the social process leading to-
wards full industrial and political democracy for the
entire people. The member of a craft union can
follow the work of his organization without giving
much attention to the general economic, social, or
political problems of the times. The trade unionist
of the old type does not see any close connection
between these general conditions and the immediate
tasks of his own organization. The situation is en-
tirely different in the needle trade unions. As shown
in a previous chapter, the success and very exist-
ence of the organizations in these trades depended
upon their active adherence to the philosophy of the
new unionism. Scattered in trades of an inferior
industrial structure, they could draw their organ-
ized strength only from the ties of conscious work-
ing-class solidarity. With the prospect of immedi-
ate betterment seemingly so remote, their appeal to
the workers for organization had to be based on the
greater promise of the full emancipation of the
working class. This fundamental philosophy made
it necessary for the unions in the needle trades from
the very start to devote considerable attention to
subjects with which the average union of the old
type never concerned itself. It can be said that, in
this sense, the educational work in the needle trades
began with their first attempts at organization.
208 THE NEW UNIONISM
During the early eighties, when the first attempts
at organization in the needle trades were made, the
unions had an ephemeral character. LEvery year
small and transient trade unions sprang up and dis-
appeared before sending forth roots. During this
time these unions were rather debating societies than
real trade organizations. The members of such
unions were often more interested in the theoretical
battles between the different philosophical schools
fighting for supremacy on the East Side than in their
trade activities. The evident futility of their efforts
to gain immediate improvements in sweatshop con-
ditions gave abnormal impulse to their hopes of ac-
complishing this purpose, and more, by means of a
general reconstruction of society on the basis of one
or another of the philosophies propounded to them.
Another contributing factor was the fact that all
the early efforts at organization were directed by
a comparatively small number of immigrant revo-
lutionary intellectuals. The state of mind of these
immigrant intellectuals is described best by one of
them in an article written many years later.’
These men ‘‘suddenly found themselves under the
influence of three main schools. The teachers who
dominated the three schools were idolized by their
followers. One of them was William Frey who
taught Positivism and the ‘religion of humanity;’
another was Felix Adler who preached Ethical Cul-
ture; and a third was Johann Moste who taught
2 Dr. H. Spivack quoted in The History of the Jewish Labor Move-
ment by H. Burgin, 1915.
EDUCATION 209
Anarchism. Hager audiences flocked to all three.
But, at the beginning, the teachings of the three
were confused in the minds of the youth into an
Ethical-Anarchistic-Positivistic hash.’’
Debates between the adherents of all these philo-
sophical schools, and especially between socialists
and anarchists, were a very frequent occurrence at
the union meetings. Many a time the debates were
transferred from the local union meetings to the
central body, the United Hebrew Trades. A char-
acteristic example of the interest which the workers
in the needle trades took in these chiefly abstract
discussions is supplied by a debate held in Cooper
Union in 1889 on the interesting subject, Whether
the workers ought or ought not participate in the
movement for an eight-hour day. During all these
years numerous societies and clubs for self-educa-
tion were organized and were working hand in hand
with the trade unions. They were, however, as
ephemeral and transient as the unions themselves.
An early attempt to create a labor college for
systematic education is recorded in 1899, when the
so-called Workers’ School was organized by Drs.
Peskin, I. N. Stone, and A. Ingerman. Systematic
courses in economics, natural science, socialism, and
allied subjects, were given in this school, which ex-
isted for several years, and was reorganized into
the Workers’ Educational League. Another attempt
at systematic education was made by John Deitsch,
who in 1901 organized the Jewish Workers League
for the purpose of studying industrial problems, eco-
210 THE NEW UNIONISM
nomics, and so on. The constitution of this League
contained a provision that it must remain entirely
non-partisan. When the Rand School of Social Sci-
ence was established in 1905 it met, to a great ex-
tent, the demand for systematic education which
by this time was prevalent among the more alert
element of the unions in the needle trades, especially
those who had succeeded in gaining a satisfactory
knowledge of the English language. The Rand
School always drew a very considerable percentage
of its students from the needle trades.
The first decade of the twentieth century was
the time when all the present great organizations
of the needle trades were built up; it was the time
of rapid constructive trade union progress. But
even during this period, when all these industries
were raised from the sweatshop to civilized condi-
tions, the interest of the membership in the wider
social and economic problems rather increased than
decreased. During this decade the unions made re-
peated attempts to organize educational work of
their own. Many local unions appointed educational
committees. Lectures at the regular meetings, mu-
sicales, ete., were arranged sporadically by many
of the large locals. It is also worthy of mention
that during this decade the branches of the Work-
men’s Circle * increased their educational activities
8 The Workmen’s Circle is a Jewish fraternal order established in
1900, paying to its members sick, death and consumption benefit,
and providing for them many other forms of assistance in time of
need or distress. At present it has a membership of 80,000, of
which about 75% are workers of the needle trades. The Work-
men’s Circle does a great deal of educational work through its
_ EDUCATION | 211
ee
which reached an ever growing number of Yiddish-
speaking workers.
As soon as the unions in the needle trades were
established on a firm foundation, the need for edu-
cational work not merely increased, but also changed
in character. In the early stages of their history
it was upon the necessity of solidarity and organiza-
_tion that their educational efforts were concentrated.
The lectures in economics or sociology were an in-
direct agitation for organization. They were meant
primarily to solidify the ranks by a common con.
sciousness which would make possible control over
industries which, owing to their inferior structure,
presented almost insurpassable difficulties to organi-
zation. , Even the debates among the different social
and philosophic factions struggling for supremacy
within these unions were more in the nature of gen-
eral agitation, limited to first principles and scratch-
ing only the surface of the subjects, than a sys-
tematic analysis of social and economic phenomena.
The main purpose, consciously or unconsciously,
was to develop that state of mind which makes pos-
sible concerted action upon the part of tens of
thousands of loosely organized workers, scattered
in thousands of shops with endless variety of work-
ing conditions, with no firmly fixed demarcation line
between employer and employee, and subject, in ad-
dition, to all the miseries of the sweatshop, tene-
branches, and since 1910 also through its General Office. Among
others, the Workmen’s Circle published a number of good popular
books in Yiddish on different social and economic subjects, including
a text-book on Trade Unionism by Dr. Louis Levine.
212 THE NEW UNIONISM
ment home-work and all kinds of sub-manufacturing
and sub-contracting. By the end of the first decade jes :
of the century this task of creating a common con- :.—
sciousness had been fairly well accomplished. The
unions in the needle trades succeeded in solidifying
their ranks and making concerted action on their
part the established rule and practice; they succeeded
in gaining a substantial control over their industries,
More than that, by virtue of the more highly devel-
oped common consciousness they were fairly on the
way to catching up with the standards achieved by
the general labor movement of this country. The
need for primitive education, which was primarily
agitation, had lost by this time its urgency and im-
portance. Something more fundamental grew nec-
essary.
The first record of this necessity for fundamental
education on a large scale we find in the reports
of the proceedings of the 1914 convention of the
International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union.
That convention recognized the need ‘‘to dwell par-
ticularly upon the more solid and preparatory work
of education and not to devote much time to the
mere superficial forms of agitation and propaganda
which have been the main features of our educa-
tional work in the past.’? The same motive we find
in the report of the General Secretary, Max Zucker-
man, to the convention of the United Cloth Hat
and Cap Makers held in May, 1917. Speaking of the
unsatisfactory results of the many educational ef-
forts made by the various local unions at different
EDUCATION 213
times, he gives as one of the reasons for this failure
‘‘the mistake of merely advocating it as a general
proposition instead of arranging a definite system
to carry on the educational work.’’ Perhaps the
best analysis of the causes necessitating change in
the character of the educational work is supplied
by a recent editorial (August 22, 1919) in the Fort-
schritt, the official organ of the Amalgamated Cloth-
ing Workers of America, of which the General Sec-
retary, Joseph Schlossberg, is the editor. Since the
Amalgamated Clothing Workers came into existence
later than the other unions of the needle trades, the
passage from the primitive education to the more
fundamental education arose with them at a later
date. Says the editorial:
‘Our main power always lay in the fact that we edu-
cated the membership on the questions which they had to
solve through our organization. . . . This was education
on the special tasks as they arose. These tasks have now
been accomplished. Today a different education is de-
manded. We now need such educational work as will
explain to our workers the world events, their social posi-
tion, the true purpose of a labor organization and its task
under the present world conditions.
‘“We have reached a point when education is no less
important than the organization itself. We must have it
or we cannot continue our work, unless we are satisfied
that the Amalgamated shall sink to the level of a reac-
tionary bureaucracy in which the members are mere dues-
payers and the officials are the organization.
“‘Our duties grow, and our responsibilities grow: the
intelligence and the education of the members must grow
214 THE NEW UNIONISM
together with them, or the Amalgamated will cease to be
what it has been until now... .
‘“‘The burning question before us is: What are we to
do in order that our organization may always remain
young, fresh, militant and rich in spirit? The answer is,
that we must immediately inaugurate efficient educational
work among our members.’’
It took some time for the unions to settle on defi-
nite methods. The system is not yet completed. But
at this writing it is sufficiently advanced to make
fairly certain both its permanency and its form. An
analysis of the educational work as at present con-
ducted reveals the following principles underlying
it. It is planned so as to be closely connected and
interrelated with the usual trade activities of the
organizations. Their aspiration is to make the edu-
cational and trade activities become two phases of
the same movement, completing and helping one an-
other. It aims on the one hand to increase the pro-
portion of the membership which has a thorough
understanding of the labor movement and its prob-
lems and can carry the burden of the work of the
organization, and on the other hand to develop a
stronger sentiment of fellowship among the member-
ship at large, to raise the morale in the ranks of
the organizations by imbuing them with a deeper
devotion to the ideals of the labor movement and a
greater readiness to fight for their achievement.
It seeks to supply adequate mental food and facili-
ties for a broad cultural life for that element which
already craves it, but it still more endeavors to stim-
EDUCATION 215
ulate among the great masses of the rank and file
the want for knowledge and culture. The direct
connection between the educational and the trade ac-
tivities is shown by the fact that the former con-
tribute greatly to the raising of the general standard
of living of the rank and file, thus increasing its
material wants. At the same time the higher level
of intelligence makes it possible for the organiza-
tion to accomplish more easily the task of improv-
ing conditions and increasing wages so as to meet
the higher standard of living.
The International Ladies’ Garment Workers
Union was the first organization in the needle trades
to begin this systematic educational work. As far
as is known, this union was the pioneer in education
in the labor movement of America. In accordance
with the decision of the convention of 1914 their Gen-
eral Executive Board appointed a special educa-
tional committee. This committee naturally first —
sought to take advantage of the educational insti- —
tutions which were already existing and active in
the needle trades. Arrangements were made with
the Rand School for a number of regular courses
to be conducted under the joint direction of the In-
ternational educational committee and the School.
History, Theory and Practice of the Labor Move-
ment, Method of Organization, and English were
included in this program. A number of systematic
lectures and tours, both in English and Yiddish,
were arranged by the same committee. A further
impetus to this work was given by the Waist and
216 THE NEW UNIONISM
Dress Makers Union of the city of New York (Local
25), a local of the International, which independently
inaugurated, under the direction of Miss Juliet Stu-
art Poyntz, a vigorous educational campaign among
its membership. The 1916 convention of the Inter-
national Ladies’ Garment Workers Union accepted
a plan for an extensive educational campaign and
voted $5,000 for that purpose, and the last conven-
tion of the International, held in 1918, decided fur-
ther to extend the work and appropriated a sum
of $10,000 yearly for it.
At present the International Ladies’ Garment
Workers Union has in its national office in New
York a special educational department consisting
of a staff headed by Director Dr. Louis S. Fried-
land and Secretary Fannia Cohn, working under
the supervision of the educational committee ap-
pointed by the president of the International. This
department conducts classes directly in the city of
New York and also advises and helps the local unions
of the International, both in the city of New York
and in other cities, in planning and carrying out
their own educational work. In New York, the
International has secured the cooperation of the
municipal Board of Education for the use of the
public school buildings and for the assignment of
teachers for their English classes. Six public
schools in the various residential sections of the city
serve as ‘‘Unity Centers’’ where numerous classes
in English, economics, literature, physical training,
and other subjects are conducted for the ladies’
EDUCATION | 217
garment workers. These schools also serve as cen-
ters for various recreational and social activities.
This work is of a more elementary nature, calculated
to reach a large portion of the membership. More
advanced educational work is carried on in Wash-
ington Irving High School under the name of the
Workers’ University of the International Ladies’
Garment. Workers Union. Among the courses given
there the following may be mentioned: Social inter-
pretation of Literature, Evolution of the Labor
Movement, Problems of Reconstruction, Sociology
and Civilization, Labor Legislation, Social Prob-
lems, Trade Unionism, Cooperation. In both the
Unity Centers and the Workers’ University concerts
are arranged from time to time. Lectures arranged
by local unions are also frequently accompanied by
a concert.
Since December, 1918, the Philadelphia organiza-
tion of the I. L. G. W. U. has conducted educational
projects among its membership similar to those in
New York. Efforts are being made to extend this
movement to Boston and other centers of the
women’s clothing industry.
The United Cloth Hat and Cap Makers conven-
tion in 1917 adopted a plan for systematic educa-
tion on a large scale. As a result, an educational
center known as the Headgear Workers Institute
was organized in a public school. The activities were
similar to those of the ladies’ garment workers—
classes in English, physical training, civics, history
of the labor movement, public speaking and parlia-
218 THE NEW UNIONISM
mentary law, and collective bargaining. A number
of general lectures and excursions to the Metropol-
itan Museum of Art and several ‘‘family gather-
ings’? were added. The program of the ‘family
gathering’’ consisted of a concert, lecture and edu-
cational moving pictures; it was intended for the
membership and their families and friends. The
Hat and Cap Makers did not continue their educa-
tional work long, before they inaugurated a cam-
paign for uniting the interested labor organizations
in a general educational enterprise.
The Amalgamated Clothing Workers made their
beginning at systematic education only at the end
of 1917. The trade problems with which this or-
ganization was faced were up to that time so numer-
ous, pressing, and in most cases, of such an emer-
gency nature that they took up all the energies of
the organization. At the end of 1917 the beginning
was made simultaneously in Baltimore, Chicago, and
New York. This initial effort met with considera-
ble success in Chicago and Baltimore, but it proved
rather abortive in New York. The 1918 convention
of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers instructed
the General Board to continue and extend their edu-
cational work. It was at that time that the United
Labor Education Committee was launched and the
Amalgamated Clothing Workers decided to join this
common enterprise. Since the organization of the
United Labor Education Committee, both the Amal-
gamated and the Hat and Cap Makers have con-
EDUCATION 219
tinued their educational activities through this com-
mon committee.
Cooperation of these unions in education was ini-
tiated first in June, 1918, at an informal conference
held between delegates to the A. F. of L. convention
at St. Paul. The United Labor Education Commit-
tee was finally founded in November, 1918, by the
following organizations: Amalgamated Clothing
Workers, United Cloth Hat and Cap Makers, Fur-
riers’ Union, Fancy Leather Goods Workers Union,
and the Workmen’s Circle. An Executive Board,
consisting of two representatives from each of these
bodies established a joint office and took charge
of all their educational work. While originally be-
gun by needle trade organizations, the United Labor
Education Committee later embraced a number of
other unions and consists at present of about twenty
labor organizations.
From the report submitted by the chairman of
this Committee, J. M. Budish, to the Educational
Conference of the United Labor Education Commit-
tee, held on February 7, 1920, the following sum-
mary of its first year’s activities is derived:
An educational undertaking of this sort, serving
so large a constituency, and with such limited re-
sources—$17,450 was appropriated by the affiliated
organizations—was faced by the necessity of an
important choice of policy. Any classes which it
could establish would include only a small propor-
tion of the union members. Should the emphasis,
220 THE NEW UNIONISM
then, be laid upon reaching the people in as large
masses as possible, and inducing a mental attitude
receptive to education, an aspiration which might
in great part be satisfied by outside agencies? Or
should all the effort be concentrated on supplying in
detail the wants of a few? The former course was
adopted in a memorandum approved by the commit-
tee at the start. ‘‘The fundamental necessity,”’ said
this memorandum, ‘‘is that the center of gravity of
the educational work shall be transferred from sup-
plying systematic knowledge to creating a steadily
increasing demand for it, based upon the firm con-
viction that the Kingdom of Heaven is open to him
who seriously looks for it.”’ At the same time,
‘‘no efforts certainly must be spared to supply
the elements who are craving regular systematic
education with the necessary classes, courses,
etc.’’
The pioneer work of the committee of course en-
countered difficulties. It was necessary to try ex-
periments, to stir the rank and file to their own
need for education, and to accustom them to forms
of instruction quite different from the agitation to
which they had been subjected in the past. Ob-
stacles were set up by local public officials, partic-
ularly those in charge of the school buildings, many
of whom, frightened by the prevailing anti-revolu-
tionary hysteria, feared this might be some new form
of Bolshevik propaganda. It was impossible, for
instance, to hold classes or lectures in the school
buildings in the Yiddish language, although this was
EDUCATION 221
the one chiefly spoken and understood by a large
proportion of the membership.
One of the most successful activities of the com-
mittee was the holding of forty-seven forums in
various parts of New York, which were attended by
about 11,200 persons in all. At these forums, in
addition to lectures by widely known speakers on
various important subjects, there were recitals of
good music by soloists and string quartets, educa-
tional moving pictures, lecture-recitals in which the
musical compositions presented were explained by
competent musicians, and dramatic recitals by Miss
Edith Wynne Matthison and Charles Rann Kennedy.
The music for the forums was provided by a Sec-
tion on Music of which Josef Stransky, conductor
of the Philharmonic Orchestra, was chairman.
In order to bring education directly to the rank
and file, lecturers were sent to many regular meet-
ings of the union locals. To arrange such lectures
properly, it was necessary for each local to elect
an educational committee, which should choose the
most convenient time of meeting and select from the
list of lecturers and subjects the ones preferred.
Since most of these lectures were given at regular
business meetings they had to be short; it was a
difficult task for the speaker to gauge properly the
temper of his audience, to develop his subject in
twenty or thirty minutes without sacrificing the
standards of accuracy, and at the same time to in-
terest a group of active unionists many of whom
had only the most rudimentary understanding of
222 THE NEW UNIONISM
English. If college instructors were submitted to
discipline of this sort they might gain in color and
directness. Naturally the lectures were not uni-
formly successful, but on the whole the experiment
was judged satisfactory by the union members
themselves, who in a democratic undertaking of
this sort have the final authority over what shall
be done. In all, 97 lectures were given at local
meetings which had a total attendance of 13,715.
Excellent opportunities to make contact with the
rank and file were furnished by the meetings called
by the unions conducting strikes. Arrangements
were made by the Committee to make use of the
leisure of the strikers for educational and recrea-
tional purposes. During six strikes by affiliated
unions, 59 meetings with a total attendance of over
45,000 were supplied with speakers and concerts of
the highest standard. Union officials and other ob-
servers often remark on the fact that in a strike,
when people are united in a common purpose and
their emotions are unusually stimulated, their imag-
inations become active and they are in a peculiarly
receptive mood for social and cultural values. In-
struction of a more practical sort was furnished to
girl strikers in the form of talks on sex hygiene,
given in cooperation with the American Social
Hygiene Association.
Perhaps the most ambitious undertaking of the
Committee was the provision of three concerts in
Carnegie Hall by the Philharmonic Orchestra, solely
for the affiliated membership, at a price far below
EDUCATION 223
that which the general public has to pay. It was
felt by the committee that something must be done
to counteract the degrading effect on the personality
of the worker which is produced by the amusements
easily accessible, such as cheap moving pictures and
musical shows. Most workers seldom patronize
good concerts and theaters, first because the cost is
too high, and second because these forms of recrea-
tion having been in effect monopolized by more
fortunate members of society, the workers feel little
interest in them. Nothing, however, could be more
demoralizing, both to labor and to art, than the
identification of fine and serious productions with
a remote stratum of society with which the worker
has nothing in common. On this account it was
thought advisable to give concerts under the auspices
of the unions, solely for their own membership. Few
concessions to popular taste were made in the pro-
grams, on the theory that the way to learn to appre-
ciate the best music is to hear it. The result, of
course, was that the concerts were rather thinly
attended and proved a heavy financial burden; but
a steady and rapid rise in attendance from the first
concert to the last gave hope that if the experiment
were continued it might before long become self-
supporting.
A similar experiment in drama was projected; it
was planned to have a Workmen’s Theater in Eng-
lish, giving serious productions of masterpieces sel-
dom heard on Broadway, under the best possible
direction. This plan did not mature, but the Com-
224 THE NEW UNIONISM
mittee did cooperate with the Jewish Art Theater,
organized by Louis Schnitzer, Ben-Ami and Em.
manuel Reicher and others, and performances of a
high standard were furnished to union members
at less than half price. Here enough support came
from the membership to make the experiment self-
sustaining. An English-language theater is still on
the program and may be founded before long.
According to the policy adopted by the Commit-.. .
tee in the beginning, classes offering continuous and
systematic instruction in special subjects were the
last to be developed. Several classes in English,
Economics, Industrial History and History and Ap-
preciation of Art were successfully carried on, but
on the whole this side of the movement is still in
the formative stage. In the meantime, a coopera-
tive agreement was made with the Rand School, by
which members of affiliated unions may join classes
at the school without expense to themselves.
In order to symbolize the contact with artists and
intellectual leaders which the labor movement must
make in any broad attempt at education, an Art,
Labor, and Science Conference was created by those
interested; this conference constituted itself a per-
manent body and elected Sections to cooperate with
the Committee in the various undertakings which
it had in mind. Much valuable assistance was ren-
dered by members of this conference—for instance,
by Professor Charles A. Beard, by Josef Stransky
and others of the Music Section, and by Richard
Ordynski and others of the Drama Section. The con-
EDUCATION 225
ference has interesting possibilities of future de-
velopment.
Friendly relations were established with other
bodies carrying on labor education in America, and
with the Workers’ Educational Association of Great
Britain. A national information bureau or central
office may be formed to correlate and serve the vari-
ous union educational activities in the United States.
In the eyes of the educator, perhaps the most in-
teresting feature of all is the democratic nature of
the enterprise. The report of the Chairman, from
which the above account was extracted, was pre-
sented to a conference of delegates from the local
unions which the Committee had been serving. It
was as if the faculty of a university had to submit
a report of its year’s activities to the student body,
who in turn had the right of unlimited criticism, and
could grant or withhold the funds for the support
of the institution. Criticism of all sorts was indeed
freely voiced, but defenders of the work were also
at hand, and after the Committee had had an oppor-
tunity to hear every ground of dissatisfaction, the
report was unanimously accepted. Contact of this
nature insures that as long as the Committee sur-
vives, it will be a vital institution. The conference
itself was not the least educational of its under-
takings.
The report of the committee appointed by the
American Federation of Labor to investigate work-
ers’ educational enterprises is included in the report
of the Executive Council to the thirty-ninth annual
226 THE NEW UNIONISM
convention of the Federation held in June, 1919, at
Atlantic City. It has for this study a special in-
terest because it reveals a cleavage between the
business type of unionism and the new unionism.
“Your committee recommends,’’ says the report
in the general summary of conclusions, ‘‘that cen-
tral labor bodies through securing representation on
boards of education and through the presentation
of a popular demand for increased facilities for
adult education make every effort to obtain from
the public schools liberally conducted classes in Eng-
lish, public speaking, parliamentary law, economics,
industrial legislation, history of industry and of the
trade union movement, and any other subjects that
may be requested by a sufficient number, such classes
to be offered at times and places which would make
them available to workers. If the public school sys-
tem does not show willingness to cooperate in offer-
ing appropriate courses and type of instruction, the
central labor body should organize such classes with
as much cooperation from the public schools as may
be obtained. Interested local unions should take
the initative when necessary.”’
This report was unanimously endorsed by the con-
vention with the addition that the Executive Council
was instructed to appoint a committee to investigate
the matter of selecting or preparing and publishing
unbiassed text-books on different subjects concern-
ing the labor movement.
The difference between this conception of labor
education and the one of the new unionism may be
EDUCATION 227
compared with the difference between applied sci-
ence and science. The function of education for the
business unionism is merely to supply the members
with a little more knowledge and information, from
which they may derive immediate benefit, especially
in connection with their direct trade activities. The
new unonism thinks of educational work rather in
the light of its vision of a coming commonwealth with
anew culture. The business unionism would burden
itself with this work only in case the public school
system is so reactionary and so entirely uninfluenced
by the labor movement that it refuses to supply the
necessary classes in English, public speaking, eco-
nomics, etc. The new unionism regards the crea-
tion of a labor culture, towards which educational
work is a mere initial step, as its foremost aspira-
tion, and as much a part of the task to be under-
taken by the workers themselves as the struggle for
political and industrial democracy. Says the report
of the Executive Council, ‘‘But such classes (under
union auspices) should be considered a stop-gap.
The sound solution is a progressive board of educa-
tion responsive to the public.’’ Ag against this con-
ception of labor education as a temporary stop-gap,
the new unionism believes that labor must create its
own educational agencies because they are a step
towards a new and finer culture, towards the mental
and spiritual emancipation of the people. For the
new unionism the freedom from ready-made concep-
tions, the habit of independent thinking, the search-
ing attitude of mind towards life, the creative imagi-
228 THE NEW UNIONISM
nation, the ready response to the delicate and noble
impressions of nature and the treasures of human
thought and intuition, the free and many-sided per-
sonality—and a society of equals built on this foun-
dation—is that higher ideal which underlies, con-
sciously or unconsciously, all phases of the labor
struggle. Labor education is therefore to the new
unionism not a mere passing activity made neces-
sary by a temporary wave of reaction, but perhaps
the most conscious expression of all its aspirations.
CHAPTER Ix
LABOR PRESS AND COOPERATIVES
Tue larger the community, the greater is the power
of the press. It may be said that the power of the
press increases as the power of the spoken word
decreases. During the period in which the labor
organizations of the needle trades developed, the
press in America was gaining rapidly in influence.
The city population grew enormously, social and
industrial relations became steadily more compli-
eated. The links connecting producer and consumer
have now so multiplied that the appreciation of the
connection has almost disappeared from the mind
of the man in the street. With the development
of large corporations the relation between the job
holder and the power controlling the job has become
more impersonal. The intricate development of the
money and credit system has still further removed
from the people any expert knowledge of their eco-
nomic environment. With increased transportation
facilities, the ties holding together small communi-
ties have weakened. The exchange of opinion be-
tween neighbors, local gossip and tradition, have de-
clined and lost their effect. Ever increasing special-
ization narrows the range of personal experience of
the wage-worker.
229
230 THE NEW UNIONISM
The isolation of man in the modern city is unique.
It may be compared with the isolation of the tree-
dweller among the ravaging elements. Our social
and industrial environment are to the modern city
dweller as fetichized, all-powerful and incomprehen-
sible forces as were the powers of nature to the
tree-dweller—and they have the same suppressive
effect. And the average man must depend upon the
press for almost all the information on which his
interpretation of life is based. He must depend upon
it for his imaginative connection with the world as
a whole. The concepts suggested day by day, sup-
ported as they are by information supplied, and pro-
tected by the withholding of information, influence
more and more profoundly the social viewpoint of
the reader.
Industrial development not only made it possible
for a single newspaper to reach hundreds of thou-
sands of people, but it also brought about the con-
centration of control of the news. As a result, the
selection and treatment of news becomes increasingly
uniform. With a few exceptions, the people receive
the same information in approximately the same
form. A virtual uniformity may be observed also
in opinions, both in the news and the editorial col-
umns. For months the entire press suggested the
idea that the Russian Soviet government was wicked
and unstable. Then for weeks it prepared us, with
equal thoroughness, for a recognition of the Soviet
government. With the same information supplied
in the same form, and with the same suggestions
’
LABOR PRESS AND COOPERATIVES 231
offered daily to the minds of the people, their views
of life must to a great extent become stiff and
ready-made. Consideration of the dangers in such
artificial uniformity, making life colorless, leveling
the people by machine-made ideas, replacing the
conflict of thought with the conflict of brute selfish-
ness, lies beyond the scope of this book, though it
would make an interesting contribution to a study
of the degeneracy of modern industrial society. We
are directly concerned, however, with the influence
of the capitalized press upon the labor movement.
For the press is now as much a part of business
enterprise as is any other great industry. The
metropolitan daily or the chain of newspapers and
the popular magazine with a national circulation are,
if they are making money, financially in exactly the
Same position as any industrial corporation. A
newspaper or magazine publisher depends upon the
same sources of credit as do other large proprietors.
If the journal is one which is not profitable, it is
likely to exist for no other purpose than to express
the views of someone with enough money to support
it. Frequently the holder of newspaper shares or
bonds is also the holder of industrial shares and
bonds. Often he is a landowner. He applies the
same policies wherever his influence counts. The
newspaper and magazine publisher, with almost neg-
ligible exceptions, by his social and economic posi-
tion, by his education, belongs to the class against
whose encroachment the labor movement struggles.
The character of the owners and managers of the
232 - THE NEW UNIONISM
press would of itself, without any deliberate inten-
tion on their part, give to their publications a tone
out of harmony with the inherent aspirations of
the labor movement. In selecting from the enor-
mous flow of events what deserves public notice and
what does not, what is to be stressed and what mini-
mized, the most candid publisher has little other
guide than his own view of life and the prevailing
opinions of the social group to which he belongs.
Only in those few issues where there is involved
the most immediate and obvious interest of the peo-
ple who read his paper will their opinion be sufii-
ciently crystallized to furnish a check to his normal
inclination. By force of mere circumstance, the
press gives prominence to such news and opinion
as may justify the existing social order, as will
suggest that its fundamentals are eternal. The
press will naturally support the cause of the em-
ployers in most clashes with employees. On the
other hand, the press usually avoids any news or
opinions which might suggest that the present so-
cial order is but a passing and imperfect stage in the
history of mankind, or which might exalt the cause
of the workers as against that of their employers.
By virtue of the same disposition the press dis-
criminates among different types of labor organi-
zation. While the labor movement was establishing
itself it was in great measure ignored. Now that the
movement as a whole has become an unavoidable
evil the press seeks to play one part of it against
another, to favor those forms of organization which
LABOR PRESS AND COOPERATIVES 233
are least inimical to the interests of private capital.
It rarely favors them as against employers, but
it frequently holds them up for the emulation of
factions of the labor movement which it seems to
consider more dangerous. When Mr. Gompers op-
poses a political party for labor, he is praised in
the highest terms, but when he supports the striking
steel workers or miners, the press sadly notes that
he is losing his good judgment. The press gives-pref-
erence to company-welfare unionism as against up-
lift or friendly unionism, to uplift as against busi-
ness unionism, to business unionism as against the
new or socialist unionism. The natural tendency of
- the press is to select such news, to couch it in such
terms, to introduce it with such headlines, and to
cap it with such editorials as to create in the work-
ing people an attitude most favorable to those parts
of the labor movement towards which employers
have least hostility.
These tendencies of the press have lately been
much strengthened by a well considered and con-
scious policy on the part of many large corpora-
tions. The development of the newspaper has made
it dependent for solvency upon its advertising col-
umns. Selling at a price considerably below the
cost of production, the newspaper derives its reve-
nue from the advertisers. The prosperity of busi-
ness enterprise thus becomes more directly than ever
the concern of the publisher. He becomes the de-
fender of advertisers as a class. The employers in
any one industry might take a liberal position when
234 THE NEW UNIONISM
there is a conflict between labor and capital in an-
other industry. A similar division sometimes oc-
curs between local sections of industry, or between
different classes of employers in the same industry.
As long as the press was guided merely by the
personal inclinations of the publisher, it was able
to favor the cause of the workers in any strike
which did not touch it too closely. Ina large num-
ber of minor industrial conflicts the press has in
the past remained unbiased.
But with the dependence of the press on adver-
tisers, and the rapidly growing mobilization of ad-
vertisers through chambers of commerce, mant-
facturers’ associations, and their innumerable rami-
fications, any objective attitude towards the labor
movement has a tendency to disappear. The adver-
tising and publicity departments of business firms
are now closely linked together, and few journals
are strong enough to gain the patronage of adver-
tisers if their news and editorials on so vital a sub-
ject as labor do not find favor with the ‘‘publicity”
experts of big business. It would be a mistake to
think that this influence often takes so crude a form
as threats or bribes. It does not need to. It is
good form for American editors to think what the
managers of business think, just as in autocratic
courts one does not contradict royalty. Moreover,
few large corporations rely any longer upon the
initiative of the newspaper in gathering industrial
news; they interpose their own press agents between
the reporter and the facts. From a mere uncon-
LABOR PRESS AND COOPERATIVES 235
scious coloring of news, from a mere natural bias,
the press has come to the point of garbling, sup-
pressing, and falsifying news as a result of calcu-
lated and aggressive propaganda, not only in favor
of the existing social order, but of any condition
which the employers of any great industry are bent
on continuing.. This propaganda misleads not only
the general public, but, what is more serious from
the labor point of view, the workers themselves.
It was not, however, the anti-labor attitude of the
general press so much as its total blindness to the
labor movement which first impelled English-speak-
ing unions to found journals for their immediate
needs. As soon as the unions became national in
scope, the spoken word became insufficient to supply
the members with information concerning the activi-
ties of their own organization or with the ideas nec-
essary to strengthen their cohesion. Such informa-
tion was indispensable in time of industrial conflict.
The national labor unions were therefore compelled
to establish their own organs, for the most part
monthlies and weeklies. Up to the early ’seventies
over 100 such papers had come into existence. Since
1This growing hostility of the press to the labor movement is of
course a process which in the end leads to the negation of its own
purpose. When it goes far enough it becomes so apparent that it
loses its effect. Many working people have now ceased to take news
at its face value, and have begun to clamor for a press of their
own. Thus the Central Labor Union of Seattle established during
the war its own daily paper, the Seattle Union Record, which at last
accounts had the largest circulation of any daily in the Northwest.
Other similar projects are in formation. There is now a special
cooperative press service for labor papers. The unreliability of the
New York City press on labor matters explains the growing in-
fluence of the socialist New York Call among anti-socialist elements
of labor.
236 THE NEW UNIONISM
then they have multiplied and have remained an
institution of the American labor movement. The
journals of the several unions originally could not,
and later have not contemplated any competition
with the general press. Their scope has remained
limited to the immediate trade interests of the re-
spective organizations. As a result, they have been
unable to combat effectively the steadily increasing
pressure of the general press upon the mind of the
worker: upon his attitude toward economic and so-
cial conditions, the remedial measures for the most
obvious evils from which he suffers, or his half-
conscious dreams for the modification of the pres-
ent structure of society. In this way a division of
spheres of influence has come about between the gen-
eral press and the labor journals, within the mind
of the worker. The union member has become ac-
customed to taking his economics, his politics, his
philosophy, his science and art, from the general
publication, and his narrow trade interests, discus-
sions concerning his hours and wages, and the poli-
tics of his organization, from his union journal.
Thus it happens that the American labor union
press, though it is many times larger than the labor
press of any other country, has remained until re-
cently without any noticeable influence upon public
opinion or upon the broader policies of the com-
munity. The general public in this country hardly
knows of the existence of this press, while in Euro-
pean countries the comparatively few labor publica-
tions are frequently quoted by the general press and
LABOR PRESS AND COOPERATIVES 237
exert a noticeable influence upon the currents of
public opinion.
This narrowness of the American union journal
has no doubt had its share in the development of the
social viewpoint of the old unionism. Man’s mind is
not after all divided as in water-tight compartments ;
the sources from which he derives his more funda-
mental conceptions will rule many of his minor in-
terests. The dependence of the old unionism on the
capitalist press can easily be traced in the bitter
hostility of the adherents of business unionism
towards socialism, in their lack of a conception of
solidarity of the labor movement, and especially in *
the striking identity of the terms with which leaders
of the conservative unions and the capitalist editors
attack the more radical sections of the labor move-
ment. The method of approach, the arguments used,
and the very style are so remarkably similar that
some statements of the representatives of business
unionism can hardly be distinguished from state-
ments by leaders of the financial world. The theory
of,a complete mutuality of interest between capital
and labor, of round-the-table bargaining as the par-
amount cause of improvement, and the emphasis on
“immediate betterments’’ as the dominant motive
of the labor movement, carry all the earmarks of
that interpretation of life which underlies the selec-
tion of news and opinion by our business editors.
Traces of the same influence are also apparent in
the bitter hostility which the old unionism has to all
forms of independent political action by labor. Such
238 THE NEW UNIONISM
identity, not only in basic principles but also in
forms of language, would hardly have been possible
without the uniform, steady, and powerful mental
pressure exerted by the general press, uncorrected
by any effective resistance from the union journals.
Many of the labor weeklies are even private enter-
prises which, though they are recognized as the
official organs of city or state central bodies, are
just as dependent on big advertisers as are the
capitalist papers themselves. With the theories of
business unionism firmly established, there was no
good reason why labor publications should not seek
the support and patronage of business proprietors.
Such support, of course, could not remain without
influence on the policy of the papers. A flagrant
instance of this sort was a journal published in
Pittsburgh, which until the late fall of 1919 still had
the indorsement of the city central body. It was,
nevertheless, attacking the current steel strike and
its leaders in terms as virulent as any employed by
the capitalist press, and was accepting advertise-
ments from the big business interests of the district.
The indorsement was of course withdrawn in this
case.
The press serving the needle trades from the time
when union organization was first attempted fol-
lowed an entirely different course of development.
The workers in these industries were nearly all
immigrants. The general English-language press
did not have the slightest influence on them for many
years. Even if the workers could have read English,
LABOR PRESS AND COOPERATIVES 239
the mental attitudes and traditions of the immi-
grants were such that the general press was not
adapted to their requirements. They had to depend
for their daily stock of information and opinion
upon journals of their own.
Catering to the immigrant masses who spoke their
native languages and were mostly laborers or poor
tradesmen, these papers never developed into sub-
stantial capitalist institutions. By their birth and
environment, by their social position and economic
status, the publishers of the foreign-language papers
were little removed from the people they served.
Advertising was almost negligible, and the little
there was consisted largely of notices of labor meet-
ings, and classified and personal columns. As a re-
sult the daily press, as far as the needle trades are
concerned, has been for many years a labor press,
and became so long before the unions found it either
necessary or possible to develop journals of their
own. Since the Jews are the prevailing element in
the needle trades and it is with them that the labor
organizations originated, it will be sufficient here to
trace the development of the Jewish press. :
Tn the early ’eighties, when the great flood of Jew-
ish immigration began its flow to New York, there
were two small general Jewish papers in the city,
the weekly Yiddishe Gazetten and the New Yorker‘
Zeitung. Both spoke for the orthodox religious ele-
ments, and were extremely hostile to all the currents
of radical thought that were so stormily struggling
for the adherence of the Jewish masses. Their anti-
240 THE NEW UNIONISM
pathy to the workers was so primitive and ernde
that it soon deprived them of influence among the
garment trades. As early as June, 1886, two worker-
intellectuals, Ch. Rayefsky and Abraham Cahan, the
present editor of the Jewish daily Forward, made
an unsuccessful attempt to issue a paper represent-
ing the socialist and labor point of view, Die Naye
Zeit. It existed only a few weeks and disappeared
in July of the same year. An indication of the status
of the Jewish press at this time is that the
‘‘financial’’ partner in this enterprise, Mr. Rayefsky,
was employed in a soap factory at $6.00 a week.
A more substantial and successful enterprise was
the New York Yiddishe Volks Zeitung, a weekly pub-
lication which began to appear at the end of June,
1886, and existed for three and a half years, until
1890. The publishers were two socialists who put
several hundred dollars into the business. The
paper attempted to maintain an impartial attitude
with regard to the socialist factions of the East Side.
At the same time, however, it definitely supported
the socialist movement as a whole, and was loyal to
the United Hebrew Trades. The paper devoted much
space to popular articles on natural science, thus
indicating the diversity of interest among the Jewish
workers of that time. Occasionally serious works
on economics were serialized, for example, Wages
and Capital, by Karl Marx. Thus the pioneer gen-
eral Yiddish newspaper included both the socialist
and educational features which are characteristic of
the labor organizations in the needle trades.
LABOR PRESS AND COOPERATIVES 241
In March, 1890, the organized socialists, after a
split with the anarchists, founded a weekly, the
Arbeiter Zeitung, which presently was recognized
as the official organ of the United Hebrew Trades.
In 1894 the same group began the publication also
of an evening daily, the Abendblatt. Both these
papers existed until the middle of 1902. After the
division in the Socialist Labor Party in 1897, the
Abendblaté remained the official organ of the parent
body, while the Jewish members of the new Socialist
Party established the Jewish daily Forward, which
was destined to play a large part in the labor move-
ment in the needle trades.
During the first few years of its existence the
Forward had a precarious footing, its fortunes vary-
ing as the Socialist Labor Party or the Socialist
Party temporarily gained the upper hand. Only
since 1902 has the Forward become the universally
recognized newspaper of the Yiddish-speaking work-
ers. Its circulation in that year was 18,000 and has
since then steadily increased. It reached 72,000 in
1908, and it is now about 200,000.
In a recent issue of the Forward (September 14,
1919) Max Pine, who was one of its founders, writes
of the initial struggle of this publication:
“The writer remembers an evening when a meeting of
the Publishing Society was called and it was explained
that there was no money available to start the publica-
tion. Almost the entire night was spent on a discussion
of funds. It was decided that notwithstanding the fact
that there was no money, we proceed at once to issue the
242 THE NEW UNIONISM
Forward. However impossible it may sound now, that
it was decided to publish a newspaper without money, it
is nevertheless a fact. Nothing but boundless enthusiasm,
wonderful optimism, the aspiration to accomplish a great
and noble task, could have made this possible. When
finally the decision was reached—it was almost dawn—it
was decided to raise at least $500.00. Considering the
impoverished state of the labor movement at that time this
was a considerable sum. A motion was passed that every-
one should contribute to this $500.00 fund. Those who had
no money on hand hurried home, roused their neighbors,
borrowed and returned with their share. The $500.00
was raised. Two offices were rented, one for the editorial
office and the composing room and another for the business
office. The editorial office was on Duane Street and the
business office was in Debs’ place where Seward Park is
located at present, just opposite the present Forward
Building. After the composing room was fitted up with
old stands and cases for the type and other typographical
materials, there were only a few dollars left with which the
publication of a daily paper, the Forward, was begun—a
paper which at present has a circulation of over 200,000.
The first number of the Forward appeared on May 20,
1897, and it has since appeared regularly without inter-
ruption until the present day.”’
No other daily in America has for so long a period
been so closely knit with the labor movement as the
Forward. Only recently, with the appearance of the
Seattle Union Record, has there arisen an English-
language daily that can be compared with it in cir-
culation and influence among the unions. The
Forward is issued by a private corporation, the
Forward Association, to which only members of the
Socialist Party approved by two-thirds majority of
LABOR PRESS AND COOPERATIVES 248
the members of the Association can be elected. While
the Association controls the property and business
of the Forward, its members make no investment
and of course receive no dividends. After expenses
are paid, the surplus income is used in the enterprise
itself. The Forward Association also makes fre-
quent contributions to various branches of the labor
movement. Besides being a socialist journal, the
Forward is also a labor paper in the narrower sense
of the word. It devotes at least as much space to
the trade-union movement, especially in the needle
trades, as to the socialist movement. The columns
dealing with the clothing unions are fully represen-
tative of the spirit and policy of these organizations.
The workers in the needle trades have thus not
suffered from any such division between the general
and the labor press as that which has so profoundly
influenced the English-speaking labor movement.
From the beginning their daily newspaper has also
been their labor journal, and only after the unions
were firmly established and their character definitely
formed did separate union journals appear. These
are, moreover, kindred in spirit to the daily press
read by the members.
From time to time other socialist or radical pub-
lications have existed in competition with the
Forward. In the early days the anarchist factions
started a number of journals. The only one of these
to survive is the Freie Arbeiter Stimme—but its ex-
press anarchist character has disappeared long since.
At present a stronger influence is perhaps exerted
244 THE NEW UNIONISM
by Die Naye Welt, a weekly publication of the Jewish
Socialist Federation, and by Der Yiddisher Kempfer,
the organ of the Poale Zion, a nationalist socialist
society of workers favoring the establishment of a
Jewish cooperative commonwealth in Palestine. Out-
side of their special interests, these publications de-
vote their space to articles on questions of the day,
as well as on the history, theory, and practice of the
labor movement in this country and abroad. ?
An English-language socialist press grew up as
the English-speaking members of the needle-trades
unions increased, through the gradual acclimatiza-
tion of the immigrant worker and the entry of
American-born men and women into the industry.
The first English socialist daily which had much in-
fluence in the needle trades was the Daily People
of the Socialist Labor Party, of which the late Daniel
DeLeon was the editor. It appeared first on June
28, 1900, and went out of existence on February 21,
1914. Its influence, however, had long been waning
by the time of its extinction, with the influence of the
party it represented. Ever since 1902 members of
the Socialist Party, with the cooperation of the cloth-
ing unions, had been making efforts to establish a
paper of their own, and as a result the New York
2 With the development of a substantial middle class among the
Jewish population a general press somewhat similar in nature to
the capitalist English-language papers has begun to appear, but the
process has not yet gone far. The various bourgeois dailies now
existing in New York, Philadelphia and Chicago must still depend
for much of their circulation upon the working masses. To exist
at all they must remain liberal and at least impartial in industrial
disputes. Among their editorial staffs they include numerous
socialists, and their policy is indefinite. Their influence among the
workers is limited and they may be left out of consideration.
LABOR PRESS AND COOPERATIVES 245
Call appeared on May 30, 1908. This paper has had
a steady growth, in spite of many difficulties, es-
pecially those put in its way by the Postmaster
General during the war. To a degree, it has before
for the English-speaking members of the clothing
unions—as well as for many others—what the
Forward is for the Yiddish-speaking member-
ship.
When the labor organizations in the clothing in-
dustry grew strong, the general press could no
longer satisfy all their needs. Founded as they were
on the democratic participation of their member-
ship, it became necessary for them to bring the main
problems of their organizations before all their mem-
bers. The life of the unions became more rich and
complicated as they grew, and no general press, even
the most sympathetic, could find sufficient space for
all their special problems.
The first union in the needle trades to issue its
own paper was the United Cloth Hat and Cap
Makers. The Cap Makers Journal, a monthly, first
appeared in May, 1903, and lived for three years.
It was published both in Yiddish and English. The
chief reason for its existence was the controversy
in which this international was involved with the
I. W. W. To combat the influence and expose the
-methods of the latter, to make the membership under-
stand the dangers which threatened the disruption
of the young international, was its task. After the
battle was won, the journal ceased to appear (1906).
It was revived in September, 1916, primarily because
246 THE NEW UNIONISM
of the jurisdictional controversy in which the organ-
ization became involved with the United Hatters,
which again threatened disruption. The publication
was needed, however, on other grounds as well, since
the union had become much larger and its problems
more numerous. At present the Cap Makers publish
two bi-weekly papers, one in English and the other
in Yiddish, both called The Headgear Worker.
The Cloakmakers made an attempt in August,
1905, to issue a weekly, The Cloakmaker. It lived
only a few months. It was revived in September,
1910, under the name of Die Naye Post. After that
it appeared continuously until in 1919 it was merged
with all the other publications issued by the various
subsidiary unions of the International Ladies’ Gar-
ment Workers, in the weekly of the International,
Justice, which has Yiddish and Italian edtions called
Gerechtigkeit and Giustizia, respectively. The other
needle-trades organizations have now numerous
journals in the principal languages spoken by their
members. Even so small an organization as the
Neckwear Makers published a monthly journal for a
time, as did the Fancy Leather Goods Workers. It
is unnecessary to enter into the history of each of
these publications. In most cases they are dis-
tributed free to the entire membership.
Among the more important publications not men-
tioned above are those of the Amalgamated Clothing
‘Workers: Advance, English-language weekly, Fort-
schritt, weekly, Industrial Democracy in both Polish
and Bohemian, bi-weeklies, Darbas, Lithuanian bi-
LABOR PRESS AND COOPERATIVES 247
weekly, and Rabochy Golos, Russian monthly. The
International Fur Workers Union publishes the Fur
Worker, a monthly with English and Yiddish edi-
tions, and regular departments in Italian, French
and Russian.
Two characteristics distinguish most of these
journals—the wide range of subjects treated and the
effort to deal with these subjects from a broad social
viewpoint. Their pages are never devoted to trade
matters only. Half or more of their space is given
over to events in the labor movement, both in this
country and abroad, and to the social, industrial, and
political life of America. Virtually every kind of
material found in the general magazine, including the
short story and literary and dramatic criticism is
found at some time or other among their contents.
This wide range of subjects results from a habit of
thinking of life as an entirety, as a unit of which
their particular trade is but a single phase. Of still
greater significance is the method of treatment. It
is easy to discern a painstaking endeavor to discuss
each question on the basis of general principles.
The vicissitudes of the several organizations, of the
labor movement, and of the entire body politic are
scanned, not so much in the light of some immediate
interest or policy, as of the enduring interest and
ultimate emancipation of the working class. Just
as in industrial action the new unionism is inherently
hostile to the policy of living only from hand to
mouth, of being concerned entirely with immediate
betterments as they may be secured, so in the mental
248 THE NEW UNIONISM
and spiritual sphere the new unionism is hostile to
the method of thinking from hand to mouth and dis-
regarding basic principles in each new situation
which arises. It rather emphasizes the development
of an all-embracing philosophy of life.
Cooperative enterprises on the part of labor aré
closely akin to its ventures in journalism, since they
too are efforts to supply substitutes for the insuf-
ficient and often harmful social services offered to
the workers by a business civilization. The first
cooperative undertakings by the needle-trades
unions, however, were for immediate benefit rather
than for any far-reaching purpose. The Inter-
national Ladies’ Garment Workers, having estab-
lished the dental clinic and the sanitarium mentioned
in Chapter V, went on to create a place of rest and
recuperation for members who did not need medical
attention. This project was initiated by Local 25
of New York, the women dress and waistmakers. A
vacation resort near the Delaware Water Gap in
Pennsylvania, named Forest Park, was provided at
a cost of about $100,000. The park consists of 750
acres of woodland, and includes an 80-acre lake. In
it there are twelve houses with capacity for 500
workers. Athletic recreational facilities such as
swimming pools, tennis courts, and bowling alleys
have been constructed. A pleasant walk leads to
the beautiful Bushkill waterfall. Thus, when seek-
ing relief from the noisy shops, the hot pavements,
and the crowded tenements, the girls of this union
no longer have to compete with women who can
LABOR PRESS AND COOPERATIVES 249
afford expensive resorts, most of which are after all
not adapted to those seeking rest and intimacy with
nature. The Philadelphia waistmakers, Local 15,
have provided for themselves a summer home also,
earning the $50,000 necessary by overtime work.
This local has in the city a cooperative lunchroom,
which serves good food at low prices.
In the establishment of consumers’ cooperative
stores the clothing unions have naturally been out-
distanced by such unions as the miners, who, living
in isolated communities as they do, have found co-
operation a more obvious remedy for extortionate
prices. In large cities private retail shops are so
numerous and expenses like rent and taxes are so
high that the cooperative is later of development and
finds a less secure footing than in the smaller towns.
Nevertheless the Italian local 48 of the Ladies’ Gar-
ment Workers has established two cooperative gro-
ceries in New York, and their example has been
followed by a few members of the waistmakers. This
movement will develop more rapidly when the union
has its own building and can devote space to a
wholesale.
The most substantial and far-reaching cooperative
plans are those formed at the Chicago conference in
February, 1920, in which the Amalgamated Clothing
Workers participated, together with railway and
other large unions, and various organizations of
farmers.* This is not the place to discuss all the
3 In the absence of President Benjamin Schlesinger in Europe, the
International Ladies’ Garment Workers were not represented, but
they will probably participate in the work.
250 THE NEW UNIONISM
projects of the conference, which include a wide ex-
tension of both consumers’ and producers’ coop-
eration and the direct interchange of commodities
among the several groups. One of these plans, how-
ever, directly and immediately concerns the needle
trades. That is the foundation by the clothing
unions of a cooperative bank in New York. This
bank will be a depository for the funds of the organ-
izations, which taken together are no inconsiderable
gum, and also for the savings of their members. The
money thus made available will not be used, as it
now is in ordinary banking institutions, for the en-
couragement of private business enterprise, but for
building loans to the unions themselves, for loans to
cooperatives, and for the financing of other projects,
such as newspapers, in which labor has a special
interest. Since these great and firmly established
unions have at least as good credit as the average
business concern, and the aggregate earning power
of their members is enormous and can never as a
whole be destroyed, the stability of such a bank is
beyond question. It is intended, moreover, to be one
of a chain scattered throughout the country and
serving the unions in many industries. An indus-
trial depression would probably affect it less than
a bank dependent on the solvency of business con-
cerns, since it is almost inconceivable to think of
the earning power of so many thousand workers
being cut off sufficiently to wipe out its resources.
Technical legal obstructions may arise in its path,
but if they do, this will merely be an additional
LABOR PRESS AND COOPERATIVES 251
argument for labor to mobilize and use more effec-
tively its political power.
In the end such banks will give labor a positive
economic leverage it has never before been able to
exercise—a partial control of credit. It would be
inaccurate to say that in society as at present con-
stituted this power will seriously compete with capi-
talist credit, but it will be a considerable influence
in the struggle to make the working majority, rather
than the privileged few, the center of our culture. In
the hands of the old narrow unionism such a power
would be not only dangerous to society as a whole,
but to the labor movement itself. If successfully ex-
ercised, it would hopelessly compromise the unions
by making them dependent on profitable business
enterprise, and so effectively enslave their members.
In the hands of adherents of the new unionism, how-
ever, the control of credit will be a decided force for
beneficent social reconstruction. The possibilities
for service which they will derive from such control
will be a strong influence in leading the whole
labor movement towards the aspirations of the new
unionism,
CHAPTER X
TEXTILES
Tue boundary between the clothing industry and
that which produces fabrics is in some places
shadowy—as in sweaters and knit goods, hosiery,
cloth gloves, and lace. It is not chiefly on account of
this kinship, however, that we shall make a brief
excursion into the textile industry, but rather to
illustrate a characteristic of the new unionism that
is rapidly emerging—the fact that it is inter-indus-
trial as well as industrial. Just as the concentration
of capital and credit brings allied industries under a
more nearly unified control, so the advances of ag-
gressive labor organizations are forcing them to look
for practical harmony, and consequently for a more
centralized administration, among closely related in-
dustrial groups. Since the textile mills furnish the
material out of which clothing is made, it would be
an obvious advantage for the clothing unions if the
textile workers were also strongly organized and
ready to cooperate with them. For the same reason
the garment unions have much power to help organ-
ization in the textile industry.
The value of the annual product of the textile
group is exceeded only by the industries which the
census places under the heading of ‘‘food and kin-
252
TEXTILES 253
dred products.’’ Its total capitalization was in 1914
about two and a quarter billions,’ representing a
larger investment than any other industrial group
except iron and steel and food products. In number
of wage-earners it leads all others; in 1914 its 5,942
establishments gave employment to 950,880. A high
percentage of the mills is owned by corporations—
some of them enormous corporations of the sort
popularly called ‘‘trusts.’’? Most of the enterprises
have been highly profitable; their shares have ad-
vanced rapidly, are much sought after and are not
easily obtainable,
The characteristics of the industry are not the
same as those of the ready-made clothing trades.
Here large-scale production, in factories represent-
ing heavy investment in plant, machinery, and power,
is the rule. Of the cotton mills the largest group,
768 in number, had each in 1914 an annual product
valued from $100,000 to $1,000,000, and there were
187 establishments with an annual product of over
$1,000,000 each. The woolen mills also were large,
with 455 producing between $100,000 and $1,000,000,
and 84 over $1,000,000. The silk establishments aver-
age somewhat smaller. In both woolen and cotton
mills, 85 per cent of the wage-earners worked in
factories employing over 1,000 persons each; in
the silk establishments, nearly 50 per cent of the
workers were in mills employing from 100 to 500
each.
While the forces of capital are strongly entrenched
1 Abstract of United States Census of Manufactures, 1914.
254 THE NEW UNIONISM
in the textile plants, therefore, the unions are not
faced with the same obstacles as in the clothing in-
dustry. Territory here may be difficult to conquer,
but once it is won it can be more easily retained.
Home work is rare. Sweatshop competition is not
always waiting around the corner for the first re-
laxation of vigilance. New establishments cannot
spring up easily where they are least expected. Old
ones cannot die so suddenly.