Transcripts For CSPAN3 Unionizing Women Garment Workers 20240712

Other professions across the country. Next, on American History tv, a look at the challenges the union faced in fighting for workers rights and the role of minority women in the government industry. The New York Historical Society Center for womens history hosted this hour long discussion. Good evening, everyone. I am valerie paley. I am director for the center for womens history and i am so delighted to welcome you to the New York Historical society and to the center this evening. If you do not know about us, its time you did. We are the first such center within the walls of a major museum in the United States and its about time. [applause] im not going to take too much time away from the panel, but i do want to do a special shout out to our moderator, Nick Juravich, who is a post doctoral fellow in womens history and public history here at New York Historical. Nick is a fantastic scholar and human being and colleague and i am so absolutely thrilled that hes with us at a very important moment in the development of the center. I also want to do a special shout out to the Melon Foundation itself, which about four years ago gave us about a giant vote of confidence and a very lovely grant to get the center up and running. Because the Melon Foundation, we are here and we are here to stay. We are really happy about that. In any case, Nick Juravich went to Columbia University and got his ph. D. There just a couple of years ago, as did i, more than a couple of years ago. But starting in september 2019, he will be an assistant professor of labour and public history at the university of massachusetts in boston. We will be desolate when he leaves, but he is very fortunate to be had in boston. [applause] nicks first book, the work of education, Community Based educators and schools, communities in the Labor Movement is under contract with the university of new england press. He is the curator of ladies garments, womens work, when this activism, which is the exhibition right outside this room which inspired this conversation this evening. So without further ado. [applause] thanks so much, valerie. Good evening everyone. Thanks so much for being with us here on this final friday of womens History Month. It has been a remarkable month here at the central ones history. I want to take a moment to talk about what we do in the folks who make it possible. Just this month alone, we have held our fourth conference on womens history. We also have a dozen other programs across our museum and we brought over well over 1000 people which makes me very excited. Before i go any further, i want to acknowledge the two people who made this all happened starting with our special assistant alex [inaudible]. Shes worked tirelessly and has made the details and specifics of this event happened. We could not have done it without her. We want to thank our fearless leader valerie paley, who built this Season Center from the ground up. It allows us to accomplish our visions. I should say while some of us are looking forward to taking it a little slower, every month is womens History Month here at the New York Historical society. As mueller mentioned, the first such center within the walls of a major museum. We also work closely with our education division. Its an online womens history curriculum. In building that curriculum, weve relied on someone for another project. The first massive online open course on womens history. To stay up to date with everything happening, sign up for our email list to get more involved with the center. Please check out that literature. An important thanks. We are very grateful for the support of the members. We also like to acknowledge our trustees and the Mellon Foundation for funding our programs. It is because of their generous involvement and that of many in the room that we are able to do all that we do. I should at the exacerbation discussed tonight whose commitment to womens history [inaudible]. This brings me to tonights program. This is our only event for this exhibition which is titled ladies garments, ladies work, ladies activism. He saw it coming in. This is a show that tells the stories of women workers organizers in the International Ladies Garment Union in the 20th century. It explores how out their work shaped the Labor Movement and across the years. [inaudible] we have the first events on the topic. We are joined by three people who will help us examine. Introducing them properly. Alice kesslerharris is the chair of the scholarly Advisory Board on the center for womens history here at the New York Historical society. Shes professor of American History at columbia as well as professor of america at the institute of research on women and gender and sexuality. Her book, in pursuit of equity, won a prize in 2002. For the purposes of tonights conversation, she has a copy of her First Published articles analyzing the womens Union Workers. Janette gayle is assistant professor of history at Hobart William smith colleges. Her work lies at the intersection of African American, womens and labor history. A scholarship eliminates the interconnected histories of the black struggle for freedom and the struggle for workers rights, focusing specifically on the role of black female migrant dressmakers played in the struggles as weve transition from home base production to the Garment Industry in the early to mid 20th century in new york city. Her forthcoming book, fashioning freedom, charts the migration a black dressmakers for the American South and the British West Indies to new york city. The fashioning of niagara identity. Integration of the black working industrial working class of organized labor. And the struggle for civil rights. An associate professor of sociology from the graduate center. She was born and raised in new york city. From chinese immigrant parents. She had a ph. D. From columbia. Based on extensive field word. She commissioned a book manuscript on Asian Americans and the brandnew ceiling. Asian americans makeup 20 to 25 of College Students in the working world as well. Shes working on a project she is a faculty associate. A member of the Asian American please join me in welcoming our guest. [applause]. And please silence your cellphones. This is i will say be few briefings about the show. First of all, here in new york just on monday. Its the 108 anniversary of the triangle factory fire. Occupational Public Safety requirements in the United States. After years of bad news in over 40 years. These were workers and, flight attendants, women, particularly the Hotel Industry embracing the Womens Movements. Questions were kind of among [inaudible] with an introduction like this you might expect a massive i think there are about 1500 words of text and that show there are about 125 when your feet of i lg records. We have a big topic. I would like to start asking our speakers to give us a sense from their own words. These women workers how their own ethnic and racial backgrounds, how the migration shape their work and organizing. The inequalities they faced in the union and on the job. Historian school chronologically. We will start with our first guest. Thank you. Thanks for that nice introduction. Thank you as always for the wonderful programming. Thanks. Let me start by telling you a story. Heres the story. Its 1968. Yes, i am not old. I have just completed my doctoral dissertation on the jewish Labor Movement in new york. And in the 18 nineties. I put down my pen and got my first job lined up. Suddenly i realized theres a Womens Movement out there. Just beginning. I dont have a single woman in my dissertation. How could that be . Well, its the 18 nineties. Labor in the 18 nineties. Labor in the 19 fifties and sixties. That didnt have anything to do with women. It had to do with men and male workers. At least in my consciousness at that point. When the Womens Movement exploded and i became immediately active in it, i realized that there was no way that i could publish a dissertation on the Labor Movement, especially not the jewish Labor Movement without looking for the women. So i went back to work and i started to look for the labor organizers in the union. I learned very quickly my big excuse is that i was working on the 1890s. Women joined the ilg in large numbers not until the early nine hundreds. I skate my own blame game. I realized here was a Garment Industry in new york, which already, in the early days, it was probably about 70 of the workers in the industry, about 70 jewish. About 30 italian. The industry was dominated by immigrants and then Something Like 85 of the workers in the industry, the operators, the sewing Machine Operators were female. So how could it be that i had missed all the women and could not have been that the women were unimportant in the formation of the union . The ilg was funded with the International Ladies governors union. Founded in 1901 formally and joined the American Federation, the American Federation of labours. Its early founders were skilled, male operators. They were the cutters in the industry. Those who were said to have brought to the industry the skills to design, cut and make garments which they had been given. But the labor in the industry, almost all of it was done by females. Sometimes that home, in workshops, but much of the time and what or called small contractor shops. Then in early burgeoning factories, which began in the early 1900s with the expansion of the shirt waste industry. We can talk about what your waist are leader. So, we will see very elegant one in other cases. The women who worked and where the majority of employees and the industry were not members of the International Members of the ladies workers. 1903, 1904, 1905, they were agitating to become Union Members. Because as Union Members, they understood they would be protected from arbitrary rules of employers, and those arbitrary rules were, you can imagine them if you would like. They were charged fines for coming in late. If a garment was badly sewn. They were sometimes charged for the needles a used and for the sewing machine and the threats that they used. They had to supply their own machines. They had to go out and rent the machines and bring them to the workplace. On and on, and on. Of course the days were endless. Not just six days a week, but half endless hours. These women really wanted to organize. The men in the industry resisted it. They did not want women, because women were said to be unskilled. Well, you and i would ask questions about what they mean by skilled. Of course they defined skilled in terms of the work that men did. If it was work that women did, it was by definition unskilled. Even though it could take weeks and sometimes months to train a good sewing Machine Operator for a particular task. The women nevertheless pushed. At a special moment that has gone down in history as the uprising of the 30,000. Some people say 20,000. I stick with the 30,000. In 1909, the women became particularly agitated by wage cuts in the industry. There were cuts to the pieces. They were angry. Angry. Angry that they were being asked to work endless hours on seasonal work, and suddenly the work was done and they would have six weeks of no work at all, and sometimes starvation in those six weeks. Generally they lived with families. Generally they were single women. Daughters of immigrant families. Immigrant women themselves. And when they lost their jobs it was only six weeks the whole family suffered. So the women in 1909 went on strike. They did it over the objection famous stories about how Clara Lamberts stands up. There were famous meetings that women had called. Ive had enough of your conversation to the men who were trying to resist. I say we should go out on strike. And then the famous oath. If i betray the oath i now let this hand i raise shrivel from the arm i now raise. You get the picture. Thousands of women went out on strike. The strike lasted several months. It was hardly a success. In fact perhaps a third of the industry decided to accept unionization and both shops became union shops. People who worked in those shops became Union Members but two thirds did not and yes they all convinced men that women were organized able. They could organize. It was that strike that raised to the forefront the names of women who we now recognize as the female strike organizers. Pauline newman. Schneider in. Fauna comes. She did not emigrate to the United States until a few years later. Those names and those women have gone down in history as continuously confronting first the men who did not want them to strike, and then working with men to create what was one of the most enduring trade unions. Two minutes, and then i will say why is this important . Why didnt matter that these women joined the union . First of all, the International Ladies Garment Union, without women in it, would have maybe 10 of the membership that it had with women in it when the huge Large Membership of the union moved in general, became something that not only employers in a particular industry had to respect, but that employers everywhere had to notice that far from being on organize will, they were organized double and could create strong unions. That was the first importance. Textile workers among females. Shoe workers among garment workers in male clothing in chicago, for example. Shortly thereafter and so on. But there is a second issue that makes it important. The man had organized a union to get better working conditions and better wages. Women wanted that as well. In a very famous phrase that was uttered, we want bread, but we want roses as well. We want not only to have better wages, shorter hours and so on, but we want you to provide us with the goodies that come from being part of the community. Those goodies included night classes. English classes for immigrant women. Sports teams. Vacation places that working women could go and have a vacation. Dances. Musical performances and so on. This idea that the union was a social institution. We sometimes call it social unionism, was a concept that women brought into the Union Movement and it kind of spread throughout the Union Movement. You will hear more about it in the 19 thirties, that it begins right in those early years of this strike. There is a third and final thing we need to remember. That is that the trade Union Movement, which was led by men, even after the strike was over, most of the leadership still remained male leadership. Nevertheless, we need to acknowledge that women were workers. As workers, they were as economically responsible as the men were for finally supporting parents, siblings, their own children if they were Single Parents and so on. That recognition was sean lost after the ilg brought it into being. What a wonderful story. Now you understand. Thank you all so much for coming. For organizing this. I tell the story of black women in the union and since you started with the story, i will tell you a little bit of a story as well. They say that history in my case it is. I am an immigrant. I went to university and started doing history and very much interested in immigration and what were women doing. The story is, you had these women coming from the great migration. Also from the British West Indies, and they worked as domestic servants. Thats what they did. Then we came across a book. There was one line in it and said while they were also garment workers. I was fascinated. This was a new narrative. So i decided that i was going to trace this. And lo and behold, i discovered that certainly, in the beginning years of the garment thing industry, there were a sprinkling of that i think that in 1910 there might have been about 200 at max and really a drop in the bucket. World war i made a difference as it did to most gay black folks, an opportunity to break into industry, because of the vacancies that were created. Because youve got people going and going to war, but certainly in the case of the industry in new york, the sensation of transit atlantic shipment, shipping, meant that you didnt have the sort of supply, the traditional supply of workers from eastern and Southern Europe which i was telling you that was a sort of tradition for later supply for the Garment Industry. Well, there were all of these black women and this was their opportunity. And in the sort of closing years of world war i is when you get black women going into the industry on a mass. By 1920 you have like 2500 black women in the industry. It took me from knowing that these women are not just working as domestic servants, they are working in the Garment Industry. They are skilled workers. Many of them are from the British West Indies in particular because i am able to trace them because of records, they brought sewing skills with them. These are skills that they learned at school. Also from the south, but im able to sort of give specific numbers from the south less clearly because of the lack of documentation because its an internal migration. But nevertheless, there is anecdotal evidence to indicate that many of these women also brought dress making skills with them to new york city. So they go into the union into the Garment Industry. This is one of the things from the union that are very different to other afn affiliated unions. The iran gw from its inception was open to organizing black votes. Almost all of the other unions were not. So there are a few black women who join the union by 1920s. The 1920s is a period where the ingw goes through internal disarray. There is a struggle for control between the socialists and communists. Although they sort of start to really make an effort to organize black women by 1920, because they are a significant number, there are 2500. They start these campaigns, but they are interrupted by this internal dissent. Sort of disarray i want to call it, in the union. They then come out of that, the union comes out of that in 1828 or 1829. The Union Reaches out and employs the first black woman organizer who has a really interesting history. She comes out of the brooklyn sigar blade segregated black place. She sent to brooklyn Labor Institute on a scholarship. It is funded in part by the naacp. By now, these people realize its important for black folks to become part of the industrial workforce and to join into racial unions. The Campaign Starts in september 1929. You then in the depression era. Its very interesting and alice and i have an interesting take on that. Definitely, the depression matters and that i think that the conditions caused by the depression, those conditions, i dont think that is what gets them to join the union. However, its not the National Recovery act that does it either, but i think a response by the unions to the and i. R. A. That says we have to organize. This thing, this protective labor legislation is not all that it is made out to be. It energizes the union and by then, the black women already. The foundations were laid, i believe, in the early 19 thirties. The big moment, the watershed moment, is august 16th, 1933. Thats when the dressmakers called a strike overnight. The black membership in the union goes from 400 to over 4000. Thats the moment. They become very, very active in the union from the moment they go in. I think this is also part of this, and most of this and most of them are in the local 22, which is run by charless immerman. He has a particular take. Hes really committed to this idea of social unionism. He is a sort of protege, i think. He takes it seriously. With black women really embracing this, they are and the executive board of local 22. They are just active in all aspects of the union. My work sort of traces them from the union to the Civil Rights Movement. This is a pathway. The skills that they develop and management and what i call the democratic life of the union, it really prepares them to play to be part of the vanguard of the black Civil Rights Movement in the 1940s. There is a massive rally at Madison Square garden that these women organized in 1946. We never get a permanent fepc, but its an important step that takes us into 1964. So all of these steps, youre writing this history and that didnt work, but i think that it is really important that all of these steps that these women are all integrally part of, the sort of constant way of working for rights. In my particular case, workers rights and civil rights. They sort of come together. They are very active in the 19 fifties. They raise funds for the civil rights struggle in the south. They are their front and center in the 1963 march on washington. Thats the story that i tell you. Think you. First, i want to say thank you to nick and to valerie and two ali. I will continue from world war ii if you dont mind. From world war ii is actually when you start beginning to see chinese immigrants go into the Garment Industry. Very early on so, it has to do. Shiny simmer grants 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 were here. During world war ii, it was still the chinese exclusion. There were very few women here, but there were american born men. American born men were, and world war ii and when they came back, they had access to the gi bill. The very few who had access to the gi bill, they saw that we cant actually come in and do laundry again. Because before they left the fort they went to war, a lot of chinese were in hand laundry. When they came back however, washing machines were dented. So they looked to their neighbors enchanted town, where the Jewish Community who actually had garment shops, and they thought maybe we could do this. Many of them who had access to the gi bill actually got money for that. The chinese world war ii vote thats were actually allowed to bring war brides to the u. S. This was the beginning of women in greater numbers coming to the u. S. When these ex guys came with their husbands, they need to work. To facilitate their need for working, they opened some of the very earliest garment shops. There were just very few. Documents show there were about a dozen at that point. We do not see huge numbers of chinese owned contracting shops in china town until after 1965. 1965 was the next major Immigration Law that allowed chinese immigrants to come in. The came in in huge numbers after that. By the time we get to the late 19 seventies 1970s and 1980s, we begin to see 500 common shops in china town. Thats the height. With all of those years and immigration, we see women coming in we need work and could not speak english. Women who lived in china town. And in china town, i guess the refuge or their work was in these garment shops. We see a proliferation of them. One of the reasons why they were allowed to open was the massive exodus of blacks and italians and jewish women to the shops. From the midtown area as well as the downtown area. You actually see the chinese, some of them going into the exact same shops, the locations. The workers change. They did not speak italian anymore, they spoke chinese instead. So when they came into the area to work, how did they become unionized . So the eye lg was very interesting. They did not know how to organize these Chinese Workers at all. They actually organize them by organizing the contractors. So these women did not know that they were member of the union. Although they loved the union benefits. So when you speak to women, Chinese Women, and you ask them what was your union benefit like or tell me about it, they actually called their Union Membership and chinese the blue cross card. What do you think they valued in the union most . Health insurance. So when they joined the union, or when they worked in the garment shops, they knew they would become a member of the union and actually get health benefits. That is how they became accustomed to the union. Not until way later in the 19 eighties, there was this massive strike of 20,000 Chinese Workers in 1982 in the summer. They walked out of their shops and demanded to remain in the union. Because by the mid 1980s and 1990s, there was huge global competition. Global competition. So they were, you know, it was harder to maintain their wages. A lot of the contractors said we dont really need the union. We dont really need to be this middle person. We can keep these women working for us because they are basically captured here. They dont really want the no really no english. They did not really know english. They wanted the union not only for the health insurance, but also the did dental insurance, the sick leave they could get. Also the Immigration Project that taught them english so they could become u. S. Citizens. They also wanted it for their pace tabs. Why would they want pay steps . Thats because a lot of them were willing to become u. S. Citizens. What they would do is they would use those pay stabbed to file income taxes to actually learn about getting credit to show their income taxes to the immigration authorities so that they could bring their family members over. That changed their power within their households. The women actually had much more power. 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 or brooklyn and other places. Thats the beginning of it. So from nine 1980s on, after the strike we actually see Chinese Women become representatives in the union. The union actually hires them. I have to say they did not 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, through the 1990s, we see the competition increase and globalization increase. We see the decrease of workers. We begin to see the increase of undocumented workers come in by the 1990s competing with the chinese unionized workers. So there was this friction. But the union decides not only are they social, what they decide to also have a workers project. An immigrant workers project where they would actually organize the undocumented. They teach them everyone is a worker. We could actually have a workers wage that is responsible and that everyone should support each other. At least we can have that where they would not be cutthroat against the Union Workers and against the non Union Workers, who are undocumented. Then overtime, we actually begin to see a decline. The major decline in the Garment Industry was in 2001, especially china town. What happens after 2001 after september 11, it all ended after this, on september 11th, the World Trade Center was only ten blocks from china town. So ten blocks away from chinatown when the World Trade Center buildings fell. China town was impacted tremendously. There were blockades on 14 street and on canal street, which meant that trucks that had fabric could not going to chinatown to deliver work. Trucks could not going to take out the garments that were so. All of that was shut down for close to six months. No telephone service. No work could be done. By two thousands there was incredibly sophisticated Computer Technology where people which ascend their designs overseas, and a lot of the shops took over. As of today, there are a few garment shops left in china town. Few actually left in midtown. The largest devastation was after 9 11. I could talk more, but we will end there. Thank you all so much. [applause] this illustrated for me so very much how history is American History. Its not just womens garment work, but immigration, depression, Civil Rights Movement, so much of what we know that shaped history. I want to open up a few different questions. We dont have very much time. We tell stories of success, solidarity. We also know that there are these intentions we have family tensions. How does a change gender dynamic at home among fathers and daughters. In the youth. How do you respond to black workers, Chinese Workers. How the Labor Movement faces increasing challenges in each generation from shops overseas to breaking the union in a variety of ways. You could talk about all of these, but i thought i would pose that question. Maybe i should begin by saying, if even in the early years there are multiple layers of tension. Maybe if i sort of can outline some of them, you could see how they continue. The first level of tension comes in the way the industry is organized. The industry where we can talk about contractors and contracting shops. Heres how the industry is organized. Some small, usually male person decides sorry about that. Youll laughter the that he wants to go into business for himself. He is tired of working for somebody else. Hes generally an immigrant who has been in the United States a fairly short period, and matter as a few years he goes and he purchases, basically a bundle of cut garments. Sure so he goes to a cutting shop. He purchases a bundle of cut garments. And he brings them to either his home or his shop that he set up. His job is to sow those garments for a particular amount of time. How much he pays for the cut garments determines how much he can pay his workers. Generally, in the early years, those workers are akin. People who come from the general same area that he comes from. It is sometimes their family members. He pays them as little as he possibly can or nothing, which enables him to buy more cut garments, and to exploit more workers. But system is a self destructive system, or a worker destructive system, if youd like, because a contractor simply cannot afford to pay enough to purchase the governments, to pay the workers for, because somebody else will beat him to it. Somebody pays less, but produces more garments, and by paying his workers, less hell be out of business pretty soon. That contracting system remains in place, even when industries in the early 1900s move into factories. Like the triangle shirt waste shop, although the shop is owned by harrison black, the two men who were 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 people. Its in their interest to pay those workers as little as possible and to work them as hard as possible. That contracting system she remains throughout the history of the Garment Industry, including in the chinese period, which is what enables chinese entrepreneurs to create the shops, but it also means women could get those jobs, but they cannot never be paid enough. Now the tension when the union comes in, in those early years, there is a clear conflict. Contractors dont want to deal with the union. Why should they want to deal with the union which will ask them to pay more, when the whole system is so structured that they cannot make any money if they pay more. Indeed, they would lose their jobs. That is one set of tensions. When the union intervenes in those tensions, it intervenes hoping, and this is the power that led to the strike of 1909, 1910 period. It helps to it hopes to organize enough contractors so they wont be cutting each others throats, and therefore the throats of the workers. It is only when they can do that by establishing common interests among the contractors and workers that they are able to make any money. So the Garment Industry uniquely among law american unions and employers creates what are called the protocols of peace in 1911, 1912, 1913. By 1914, virtually all garment manufacturers in new york are signed on to this protocol. The protocols of peace assign prices basically. So there are no longer competing with each other. Now the system breaks down. It does not last very long, but it is a wonderful example of how the union and the contractors can actually join with each other to benefit the workers in the system. That is one kind of tension. Second kind of tension, the men dont want the women to organize. I dont think they can organize. The way women get health organizing . From other women. From middle class women. Those women organized in the womens trade union lead, large measure supply the money, the resources and the ocean is organizational know how to help. They help them organize. That is great, but it of course produces even greater tension between the women of the union because the women are getting benefits from the middle class women what they do not particularly care about the union, they care about organizing these poor women. It also produces tensions among the women. Some of whom some of them begin to resent. One of the most famous of them is a great organizer. She cannot tolerate the middle class women who have this sort of american ideal of Family Structure and so on, which is antithetical to everything she wants. She wants to treat the workers as workers and to organize them. So there is a three layer tension there that emerges when the women are outside the union, when they are inside the union, when they go to for help, how the union deals with who they go to for help. Then there is a third layer of tension and that is ethnic tension. We sort of dismiss that. The ilg is a jewish union. A lot of the meetings are held in yiddish which is the language that these pokers workers spoke. However, there are lots of italians in the industry and they are working in their own shops. Slowly as these factories 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 pretty much paid no attention to them and then it begins to publish and italians paper and try to involve them. The result is, of course, that Italian Women become strike breakers. Why should they support a strike that they do not know what its about and does not involve them. The organization doesnt happen around them. That tension is reflected as the industry begins, as early as 1912 and 1913, to move south and into the coal mining country. Those women, the anglosaxon women, or English Speaking women, are also uncomfortable with this jewish union. So you put all of those layers of tension together and you dont have anything that looks like a huge unified process. What you have is an International Ladies Garment Workers Union which is run, lead and largely occupied in the early years by jewish immigrant people. Theres a fourth layer, but its so complicated. Its the socialist background. It actually emerges as an even greater tension in the twenties and thirties, but i will leave that for you. Im not even going to go into that, except to say, as ive said before, that the 20s becomes this period where theres so much internal tension between socialists and economists in the ilgw. Who is going to control the union. Im going to take the tension and sort of tell a story that im trying to write an article about. One of the black women who goes into the union in 1931. Shes one of the early black women who joins the union. She is gung ho from the beginning. We see her in the harlem meetings and she is speaking out and shes a true believer. By 1934, she is chosen bys immerman and dubinskiy to go and organize black workers in chicago at the factory. This is all underground work because these are some serious people. They do not want to organize. Shes lifted, she leaves new york and goes to chicago. She relocates. She spends months doing some 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. Then, all of a sudden, shes just kind of blocked out of chicago and brought back to new york. A jewish male is put in her place just as she says, im just about to bring all of this thing to some sort of productivity. Now the women are ready and she writes this letter to simmer men. She says i feel like ive been used. Its such an amazing what happens to her is she takes her name off of the election to run for her. And this is a woman who was on the executive board of local 22. She just kind of disappears after that. I cant find her anywhere after that. She also says twos immerman, be very careful how you are treating black garment workers because you will soon find you have a dual situation on your hands. Shes talking about the communists because the communists are constantly trying to work and bore from within. Trying to get workers, but particularly young workers, and she kind of just almost threatens these immerman. Its a very interesting little anecdote that i think when you start peeling back the layers, it exposes tensions along the lines of race. Also geography. That is a story that i have to contribute to sort of show you what is going on. I will tell you a little bit about the women and the men as well as the tensions at home. Its tied to the union because of how much more the women get. So the men and the women who work in china town, the chinese immigrants, the majority. Theres two basic industries in china town from the 1960s to the 2000s. Its restaurant work and comet work. That is the where the majority of the chinese immigrants work. Its mostly men in restaurants and mostly women in government. They are not unionized at all. They get cash payments. The men are mostly just getting enough for wages. They dont get any benefits at all. But what it means is that when the women work and get benefits, the women are actually bringing in, maybe not more in wages home, but 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 Health Care for their kids. Its expensive to take your kids to the doctor. Its expensive to do everything. But the women, because they are able to get all of this from the unions, they sometimes get pushed back from the men. There are cases when i spoke to some of the women, they remember early on and even currently times, in the late 1990s where they were be domestic violence. Where men demanded their wages and then all of the rest of the stuff is good, but you have to remain in your place. There are also cases where the women were able to get much more power in the household because everything was documented. The men and the women chose and their families which members would be the next immigrate to the u. S. Once that happens, even if theyre the mens relatives, had a lot a high regard, its what a lot of men would say to their wives. The wives were elevated in a certain way that men werent. Those tensions are there the whole time. Whole time and its because the union was able to provide all these extra things for the women. Just elaborate on that a little bit. What is the big difference is that youre women are mostly married with families that for women who tended to university that the women who work in the Garment Industry in the early 1900s are young and and married for the both part, and the assumption was that you would quit work. It would quit working for somebody else. You might continue to work for years, but you would not be working outside the home if you could avoid it. There are lots of people couldnt avoid it. They were windowed where they but the vast majority were unmarried women. The paychecks went to their mothers or fathers, but most of them didnt keep anything, unlike mail workers, some went on to work. The women took their pays back to their families and were sometimes given a Little Something for transportation or whatever it was. Far from tourism women were essential to the running of the household. Their income was an important piece of income. Were African American women married . I cant remember the exact percentages, but there is a mix. Several of them were married, but as far as wages were concerned, wages of black women have always been essential to household economy, because black men did not have they were either not employed, under employed and worked at such low paying jobs that that became the wages of women who were essentially in the household, because even more essential to the survival of the household during the depression. In the early years female garment workers who were still employed in the Garment Industry, they were afraid to join the union in the early years because they felt if they joined the unions they would lose their chops. That would be the end of the household. I have cases where the women lose their job. The man is not working because unemployment among African American man is so high. It is Something Like ten or 15 points higher than white male unemployment. This is in manhattan families just break up. The womens earnings is what was holding stuff together. So, yeah, it is essential. It is a mix. As far as the single women are concerned, im not sure to the extent of which these young single women are turning over their pays. I dont think it is to the same extent that you had in jewish households or retain households. There is a slightly different set a dynamic there. Their wages were essential. I have a dozen more questions. laughter but we are out of time. Please join me in thanking our speakers. [applause] you can go get refreshments. And enjoy your weekend. You are watching American History tv