So i tell the story of black women in the union and im going to tell you about the story, too. They say, that, well, history is biographical. In my case, it is. Im an immigrant. And i went to university and, you know, started doing history and very much interested in immigration and you know what were women doing. And the story is that is that, you know, you have these women coming from the south end work on the great migration and from the british west indys. They worked as domestic servants. They came across a book and there was one line in it and said that, well, they were also garment workers. And i was just fascinated because it was a new narrative. I it made the difference to black folk the an opportunity to break into industry you have men going to war but in the case of the Garment Industry in new york, the sort of sensation of transatlantic you didnt have the supply of eastern and workers and that was the traditional supply for the Garment Industry. Well, there were all of these black women. This was their opportunity. In the closing years of world war i is when you get black women going into the industry unmasked so by 1920 you have, like, 2500 black women in the industry. It took me from now i know these women are not just working as domestic servants. Theyre working in the Garment Industry. Theyre skilled workers. Many of them from the british west indys, in particular, im able to trace them because of records brought sewing skills with them. These are skills they learned at school. Im also from the south but im able to sort of tie in sort of give specific numbers from the south. Sort of less clearly because the lack of documentation because its eternal migration. Never the less, theres evidence to indicate that many of these women also brought dress making skills with them to new york city. They go into the Garment Industry. A few of them, this is one of the things about it which is very different to other afl affiliated unions is that it knew from the inception was open to organizationing black folks. 1920s is a period where they go to a lot of internal disarray. Theres a struggle for control between socialists and the communists. All though they start to really make an effort to organize black women by 1920, because theyre a significant number. Right. 2500. They start these campaigns but theyre interrupted by this internal dissent. Some disarray, im going to call it, in the union. Then they come out of that. The union comes out of that in sub 1928. In 29 the Union Reaches out. They employ the first black woman organizer. She comes out of the brooklyn ywca. Shes sent to Labor Institute on a scholarship, which is funded in part by the naacp. They realize its important for black folks to become part of the Industrial Work force and to join interracial unions. The Campaign Staff in september of 1929, well, they one month after you enter the depression era. Its very interesting and alice and i have an interesting take on that. Definitely the depression matters in that i think that i think that the conditions caused by the depression those conditions itself i dont think that is what gets them to join the union. But the nra its not that. Its not the National Recovery act that does it either. But i think a response by the unions to the nire that said we have to organize. This sort of protected labor legislation is not all that it is made out to be. And it energizes the union and by then black women are ready. The foundations, i think, were laid in the early 1930s. The big moment, the water shed moment is august 16th, 1933 when the press makers called a strike overnight. The black membership in the union goes from 400 to over 4,000. Thats the moment. They become very, very active in the union from the moment they go in. I think part of this is and most of them are in local 22, which is run by charles zimmerman. He has a particular take. Hes committed to the idea of a social unionism. He takes it seriously. And black women embrace this. Theyre on the executive board of local 22. Theyre active in all aspects of the union. My work sort of traces them from the union into the civil rights moment. The skills they developed in management and what i call the democratic life of the union really prepares them to play to be part of the vanguard of the black Civil Rights Movement in the 1940s. So theyre at the forefront of the struggle for the fair employment practice commission. Theres a massive rally at Madison Square garden that these women organize in 1946. We never get a permanent naacp but it takes into 1964 so, you know, all the steps, youre writing the history and go you go that didnt work. I think it is important that all of these steps of these women are integrally part of the constant way of working for rights. In my case, particularly workers right and civil rights. They sort of come together. Theyre very active in the 1950s in raising funds for some of the civil rights struggle in the south. And they are there front and center in the 1963 march on washington. So that. Is the story i tell. At first, i want to say thank you for having me. Ill continue, actually, from world war ii. From world war ii is when you start beginning to see chinese immigrants go into the Garment Industry. Early on so it has to do chinese immigrants are here and the way they come into the u. S. , which is structured by the Immigration Laws, will tell you exactly how many people are here. During world war ii, it was still the chinese exclusion. There were few women here but they were americanborn men. Americanborn men were in world war ii and when they came back, they had access to the g. I. Bill. And the very few who had access to the g. I. Bill, they saw that, you know, we cant actually come in and do laundry again because before they left to go off to war, a lot of chinese were in hand laundry. When they came back, washing machines were invented. They looked to their neighbors in china town who were the Jewish Community who actually had garment shops and thought maybe we can do this. Many of them who had access to the g. I. Bill actually got money for that and the chinese world war ii vets were actually allowed to bring more brides to the u. S. This was the beginning of women in greater numbers coming to the u. S. When they came with their husbands, these exg. I. They needed work. To facilitate their need for working, they opened some of the very early garment shops. There were just very few. Documents showed there were a dozen, maybe, at that point. We dont see huge numbers of chineseowned contracting shops in china town until after 1965. Now 1965 was the next major Immigration Law that allowed chinese immigrants to come in. They came in in huge numbers after that. By the time we get to the late 1970s and the 1980s, we begin to see 500 garment shops in china town. Thats the height. So all those years with immigration, we see women coming in. Women needing work. Women who couldnt speak english. Women who lived in china town and in china town, there, i guess their refuge or work was in the garment shops. 7 we see a proliferation of them. One of the reasons they were able to open was the massive exodus of blacks and italians and jewish women shops. The midtown area as well as the downtown area. So you actually see the chinese actually some of them, going into the exact same shops, the locations, and taking over the sewing machines but the workers changed. They didnt speak italian anymore. They spoke chinese instead. When they came into the area to work, how did they become unionized . So the iog was very interesting. They did not know how to organize these Chinese Workers at all. So they actually organized them by organizing the contractors. The contractors. So these women did not know they were members of the union. All though they loved the union benefits. When you speak to women, Chinese Women, you ask them what was your union benefit like. Tell me about them. They called their Union Membership their they called it in chinese my blue cross card. So what did you think they valued of the union most . Health insurance. Health insurance. So when they joined the union, when they worked in the garment shops, they knew they would become a member of the union and get Health Insurance. Health benefits. Thats how they became accustomed to the union. Not until way later in the 80s there was a massive strike of 20,000 Chinese Workers in 1982 in the summer. They walked out of their shops and demanded to stay and remain in the union because by that time, by the mid 1980 to 1990s, there was huge global competition. Global kcompetition. So they were, you know, it was harder to maintain their wages. Right. And a lot of contractors said, you know, we dont really need the union. We dont need to be the middle person. We can keep these women working for us. Theyre basically captured here. They dont really know english. They really cant find another job. Thats what the contractors thought. The women did not want to put up with that. They wanted their union. They wanted the union not only for the Health Insurance but also for the dental insurance, the pension they could get, the sick leave, and, also, for the Immigration Project that actually taught them english. They wanted it for their pay stubs. They wanted pay stubs because a lot were going to become u. S. Citizens. Then what they would do is use those pay stubs to file income taxes to actually learn about getting credit to show their income taxes to the immigration. The women had more power. All of that. They also had access to banking knowing the credit system, knowing how to get a mortgage. So many of these early garment workers ended up buying homes outside of china town in the boroughs in queens, brooklyn, other places. Thats gbeginning of it. From the 1980s on, after the strike, we begin to see Chinese Women become hired or become i guess, representatives in the union. The union actually hired them. I have to say, they didnt move that far up but at least the Garment Union was beginning to recognize the value of having Chinese Workers in the union. From then on the 1990s we see the competition increase. Globalization increase. The decrease of workers. We begin to see the increase of undocumented workers come in by the 1990s competing with the chinese unionized workers. And so there was this, i guess, friction, you know, but the union decides not only are they social but they decide to also have a workers project. Immigrant workers project where they would actually organize the undocumented to teach them that everybody is a worker that we should actually have a workers wage that is responsible and that everybody should support each other. At least we can have that then over time we begin to see a decline. The major decline in the Garment Industry was in 2001. Especially in china town. What happened is after in 2001 after september 11th, it ended after this. In september 11th, at the World Trade Center, it was only 10 blocks away from china town. It meant when the World Trade Center buildings fell, china town was impacted tremendously. There were blockades on 14th street down to canal street. It meant that trucks that had fabric could not go into china town to deliver work. Trucks couldnt go in to take out the garments sewed. All of that was shut down for close to six months. No work could be done. By 2000s, there was incredibly sophisticated Computer Technology where people could send their designs overseas and a lot of these shops took over. They took over. As of today, there are few garment shops left in china town. Very few left in midtown. The largest devastation was after 9 11. I can talk more later. Well end there. Thank you so much. [ applause ] this is essential for understanding womens garment work and immigration and wars and depression, the Civil Rights Movement, human rights movement. I want to open up a few questions. Theres a couple of them. I would like to ask about tension and triumph. I mean, you tell the stories often. You want to tell the stories. The stories of success and solidarity. Efforts to break the union so im sure you can talk about all of these. That would bring us over time but i thought i would pose the question. Even in the early years, there are multiple layers of tension. And maybe if i sort of can outline some of them, you can see how they continue. Some diminish and some continue. The first level of tension, i think, comes from the way in which the industry is organized. So the industry is and weve talked about contractors and contracting shops. Here is how the industry is organized. Some small, usually male, person decides [ laughter ] sorry about that. [ laughter ] sorry. Thats correct. This male person. Decides that he wants to go to business for himself. Hes tired of working for somebody else. Hes generally an immigrant who has been in the United States a fairly short period. A matter of a few years. He goes and he purchases, basically, a bundle of cut garments. So he goes to a cutting shop and he purchases a bundle of cut garments and then he brings them to either his home or a small shop that hes set up and his job is to sew those garments for a particular, you know, particular amount of time. Now how much he pays for the cut garments determines how much he can pay his workers. Generally in the early years, those are people that come from the same general area that he comes from. Sometimes their family members and he pays them as little as he can possibly can or nothing, if theyre family members, which enables him to buy more cut garments and to exploit more workers. But the system is selfdestructive system or a workerdestructive system, if you like. Because the contractor simply cant afford to pay enough to purchase the garments. To pay the workers more because somebody else will beat him to it, if he pays more and somebody pays less but produces more garments by paying his workers less. Hell be out of business pretty soon. So the system that contracting system remains in place even when the industry in the early 1900s moves into factories. Those things like the triangle shop, all though the shop is owned by the two men who are later charged with being responsible for the fire. The contracting within the shop is done by individuals who hired their own supplied their own machines and hired their own workers. Its in their interest to pay the workers as little as possible to work them as hard as possible. That contracting system remains throughout the history of the Garment Industry including in the chinese period, which is what enables chinese entrepreneurs to create these shops but which also means that women can get those jobs but they can never really be paid enough. Now when the union comes in, in those early years, theres a clear conflict. Contractors dont want to deal with the union. Why should they want to do deal with the union, which will ask them to pay more when the whole system is so structured that they cant make any money if they pay more and, indeed, theyll lose their jobs. Thats one set of tensions. When the union intervenes in those tensions, it intervenes hoping, and this is the power of that great strike of the 19091910 period. It hopes to organize enough contractors so they wont be cutting each others throats and, therefore, the throats of the workers. Its only when they can do that by establishing common, you know, interests among the contractors and the workers that they are able to make any money. So the Garment Industry uniquely among american unions and employers creates what are called the protocols of peace in 1911, 1912, 1913, by 1914 vir virtually garment manufacturers are signed on to the protocols of peace. And the protocols of peace assign prices, basically, for peace work that the workers do so they no longerer competing with each other. Now the system breaks down. It doesnt last very long. Its a wonderful example how the union and the contractors can actually join with each other to benefit the workers in the system. Thats thats one kind of tension. The second kind of tension, the men dont want the women to organize. They dont think they can organize. Where do the women get help organizing . From other women. Middle class women. Those women supply the money and the resources and the organizational know how to help the immigrant women. It produces even greater tension between the women and the union because the women are getting benefits from the middle class women who they dont particularly care about the union. They care about organizing these poor women. It also produces tensions among the women. Some beginning to resent and one of the most famous of them there are interesting stories she happens to be gay. She lives a life with another woman. Shes a great organizer. She cant tolerate the middle class women who have this sort of, you know, american ideal of Family Structure and so on which is ant theres a threelayer tension there that emerges. Who they go to for help. The union deals with who they go to for help and so on. Then theres a third layer of tension and thats ethnic tension. We sort of dismiss that. A lot of meetings are held in yiddish, which is the language that the workers spoke. There are a lot of italians in the industry and they are working in their own shops. Slowly as the factory system develops, they move into the factories but the Italian Women feel completely excluded from the Union Movement because they dont understand what is going on. Until 1920, the ilg pays no attention to them. Then it begins to publish an italian newspaper and try to involve them. Well, the result is, of course, that Italian Women become strike breakers. Why should they support a strike. They dont know what its about. The organization doesnt happen around them. That tension is reflected as the industry begins as early as 1912, 1913 to move south into the coal mining countries. Those women the englishspeaking women are also uncomfortable with this jewish union. If we put the layers of tension together and we dont have anything that looks like a huge, you know, a unified process. What you have is an international ladys Garment Workers Union which is run, lead, and largely occupied in the early years by jewish immigrant people thats the socialist background. The 02 becomes the period where theres so much eternal tension between socialists and the communists in the iogw or who is going to control the union. But i want to take the tension and sort of tell the story that im trying to make into one of the black women she goes into the union in 1931. Shes one of the earlier black women. Her name is lilian. She is gung ho from the beginning. You see her in the harlem meetings and shes speaking out and shes a true believer. By 1934, she is chosen by zimmerman to go and organize black workers in chicago at the factory. This is all underground work. She goes to chicago and relocates. She spends months doing real underground work to talk to these black women because they are scared of losing their jobs. Shes finally getting somewhere. Im not quite sure how many months she spends but it seems to me a good six to nine months. All of a sudden shes plucked out of chicago and brought back to new york. A jewish male is put in her place. Just as she said im just about to bring all of this thing to some sort of productivity. Now the women arent ready. And she writes the letter to zimmerman and says i feel like i have been used. Its such an amazing phrase. And, you know, what happens to her she takes her name off the election to run for the exit. This was a woman on the executive committee. Executive board of local 22 and she just kind of disappears after that. And she just and i cant find her anywhere after a that. If you get the idea. Oh, she also to zimmerman be careful how you are treating black garment workers because you will soon find a situation on your hands. Shes talking about the communists. The communists are constantly trying to get, you know, workers particularly black workers. She almost threatens zimmerman. Its a very interesting little antedote that when you start peeling back the layers exposes tensions along the lines of race and gender. Ill tell you a little bit about the women and the men and also at home the tensions. Its tied to the union because of how much more the women get. Its strauchbt work and garment work. Thats with the majority work. The restaurant work is mostly women. Mostly women in garment are not unionized at all. They get cash payments. So the women the men are mostly just getting enough for wages. They dont get any benefits at all. But what it means is when the women work and get benefits, the women are actually bringing maybe not more in wages home but theyre bringing more in terms of benefits. So the men actually feel this tension. However, the men also appreciate what the women do. What the women do in terms of getting especially health care for their kids. Its expensive to take your kids to the doctor. Its expensive to do everything. The women because, theyre able to get it from the union sometimes gets push back from the men. There are cases where i spoke to some of the women. They remember early on that current, you know, times in the late 1990s where there would be domestic violence. Men demanded their wages. And then all the rest of the stuff is, you know, good but you have to remain in your place. There are also cases where the women were able to get more power in the household because of the union. Because everything was documented. Men and the women chose, in their families, which members would be the next to emigrate to the u. S. And once that happens, their relatives, even if theyre the mens relatives, gave a lot of high regard is what the men would say, or the women, to their wives. So the wives were elevated in a way that the men werent looked at. The tensions are there the whole time. The whole time. Its because the union, you know, was able to provide all these extra things for the women. And just to elaborate on that a little bit. One of the big differences is that your Chinese Women are mostly married with families. Right. The women who tended its not universally true, but the women who work in the Garment Industry in the early 1900s are young and unmarried. Yeah. For the most part. And the assumption was that you would quit working for somebody else. You might continue to work for your spousal partner. Thats right. You wouldnt be working outside the home if you could avoid it. The vast majority were unmarried women and their paychecks went to their mothers or fathers. In other words, they didnt most of them, keep anything until like male workers. The women turned it over to their families and were sometimes given a little spending money or transportation money or whatever it was. And thats so far from resentment, you know, the women were, you know, they were essential to the running of the household. So my question is the africanamerican women were they married . Were they umm, i cant remember the exact percentages but its a mix. Several were married. But the as far as wages are concerned, wages of black women had always been essential to the Household Economy because black men didnt have unemployed, under employed, or worked at such low paying jobs that the wages of women were essential to the household because even more essential to the survival of the household during the depression. Right. So one of the things i argue is in the early years female garment workers are still employed in the Garment Industry they are afraid to join the union in the early years because they feel that if they join the union, theyre going to lose their jobs. Thats the end of the household. I mean, i have cases where the woman loses her job. The man is not working because unemployment among africanamerican men is so high. Its Something Like 10 or 15 points higher than white male unemployment. This is in manhattan. Families just break up. They just have to because the womens earnings are holding stuff together. So, yeah. Its essential. And its a mix. And as far as the single women are concerned, im not sure to the extent in which these young single women are turning over their pay packets. I dont think its to the extent you had in jewish households or italian households. I think theres a slightly different sort of dynamic there but, yeah. The wages are essential. I have a dozen more questions. We are, in fact, out of time. The museum closes at 8 00. We wont be locked in. So, please, join me in thanking our speakers. [ applause ] well have refreshments and conversation. Enjoy. Weeknights this month on American History tv, were featuring the contenders. 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