Transcripts For CSPAN3 Unionizing Women Garment Workers 20240712

The panel, but i do want to do a special shout out to our moderator, she was the 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 he is here with us, at a very important moment in the development of the center. I also want to do a special shout out to the milk foundation, which about four years ago gave us a giant vote of confidence, and helped us to get the center up and running. So, because of the foundation, we are here and we are here to stay. And we are really happy about that. In any case, nick juravich, when you column university, ph. D. Student just a couple of years ago, as did i, more than a couple of years ago. But, starting in september, 2019, he will be assistant professor of labour and public history at university of massachusetts, in boston. We will be desolate when he leaves by law he is very fortunate to have boston except him. Our [applause] next first book, the work of Education Community based educators in school, community in the labor movement, is on your contract. He is the curator of ladies garment, one is work, womans activism, which is the exhibition right outside this that inspired this conversation this evening. So we have for the redo,. I think so much, valerie, and good evening everyone. Thank you so much for being with us here. On this final friday of womens history month. Its really been a remarkable month for what is history, and i do want to take a moment to Say Something about what made it possible. Just this top alone, we have our Fourth Annual diana conference on womens history, we also had it doesnt have on our museum, and weve brought which makes me very excited. And before i go any further, i want to acknowledge the two people who make this all happen, starting with our special assistant, who worked really hard, and she had made all the details on the specific of the event, we could not have done it without her. We also want to thank our leader valerie paley, who built a senator from the ground up. And all of those who work there, here, help us realize our vision for this work, this history, and the addition of those programs. Lets get valerie around. [applause] and, i should say, most of us know what were looking forward, every month is womens history month, here at the New York Historical society. Our exhibition are on the fourth floor, in the gallery, as well as further here. We also worked closely with our teaching division, in this month we launched women in the American History, which is an online womens history class for middle high school classes. And we built that program working for another project, their first ever Massive Open Online Course womens history, taking women of all the work, which we produced with alice, in columbia never city. [applause] so to stay up to date with everything happening, we have brochures, and you can sign up for the email list, you can get more and more involved with the center as well. You will be the first to hear about this so please check out that literature. So thanks were very grateful for the support of the members in the history council, the support of womens support council, we also like to acknowledge diane, our trusty, and the foundation that funded our programs, its because of their generous involvement that many of us in the room are able to do what we are doing and i should add, the exhibition will be discussed tonight, was inspired by the generosity of the member of a member whose commitment to the womans history helped to sustain it. In this brings me to tonights program. This is, in a way, our Opening Event for this exhibition, which is titled the ladies garments, what is working activism. We saw, its great, you can look at the way out. And this is a show that tells the story of women workers in and in the government woman, in the 20th century. It explores how they were shaped by the movement, and the movements across the unions. Its a very specific topic. Which is exactly why you convened this panel. We have a first of the few event on the topic, and we will be joined tonight by three scholars who will help us better understand this. I will introduce improperly. Alice kesslerharris, chair of the scholarly advisory board, center for the womens history here in New York Historical society. She is a professor of American History at columbia. As well as a professor in merit on women in gender, and sexuality. We have the whole version here. Her book is about equity, was awarded a prize in 2002, and she has recently published a class on womens history. Women have not always worked. At university of illinois and for the purposes of todays conversation, she actually has a copy, her very First Published articles in the journal women labor history, analyzed women worker organizations. Gayle, this is an archival document, thrilled to have it here. Gayle assistant professor of history at harvard colleges, her work lies with the intersection of African American women in libra histories. She eliminates the intricate histories of the black movement freedoms, and for workers rights. Specifically on the world of black female migrant that played in the struggles as a transition from home base production to the garment industries, in the early 20th century. Her forthcoming book, titled fashioning, freedom dressmakers of the early 20th century, new york in 1945. Towards migration of the immigrants in the south, and the west indies, to new york city, and as the excelled is rule its really important about this. The fashioning of new need growing entity, the integration the integration of a mark industrial working class with organized labor. And the struggle for civil rights. And finally, chin, associate professor of sociology in the graduate center, she was born and raised intercity and is herself a child of chinese immigrant parents. She has a ph. D. From columbia, and is the older of so many women immigrants in the industry. Its an extensive school fieldwork. And she is currently finishing the book manuscript on Asian American, examining how they move in the workplace. Asian americans make up to 20 to 25 of college students, who work in the working world, shes also working on a private to said the leon the pure effect of the graduates from times in history. Take your time in topic, shes a faculty associate, whos about the passer qualities and a member of the committee to member an american as well as a community, Asian American conspiracy cases. Please join me, in welcoming our community. Finally just a couple of things, cspan is filling this event, and we are it will be filmed over your heads, and our conversation tonight will last about an hour and we dont have a formal q as but, we have a conversation afterwards. And also its time to silence your cellphones. So ive been talking about enough already i did want to say of course that this was inspired, by who is very involved and he was a leader into her father was a leader into the 1930s into the sixties. This is a current show at least to my mind and first of all this was the 108th anniversary of the chinese factory fire, and many of you chose the course of the aisle g, and change the course of the labor, and the safety of fires in United States. After years of the labor movement, and these were workers, often lead by women, and teachers and flight attendants, and these women embrace these larger movements, speaking about about metoo and others. So the questions we are trying to ask you know how they organized, and how women activism is something that is here now. Will shed some light on that. Last thing i will say, you know the history of the aisle g, and i think that there are about 2500 linear feet, on this alone. So small show, we have a big topic and thats why we have this panel tonight. And i wanted to start asking our speakers to give us a sense from their own words first who these women were in the periods they study. How their own ethnic and racial background and where they migrated from, shaped their organizing. Sometimes constrained it. And also the inequalities that they faced on the job. And we have our historians, lets go chronologically. So. Think you thank you for that introduction. As always its a wonderful program. Let me start by telling you a story here is the story it is 1968, and yes, i am that old. [laughter] i had just completed my doctoral dissertation at Rutgers University on the Jewish Labor Movement in new york in the 1890s. I got my first job lined up and suddenly i realize, there is a Womans Movement out there, just beginning, and i dont have a single woman in my dissertation. How could that be . Well, it is the 1890s, of course labor in the 1890s, labor in the 1950s and 1960s, that didnt have anything to do with women, it had to do with men, male workers, at least in my consciousness at that point. But when the Womens Movement exploded and i became immediately active in it, i realized there was no way 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 looking for the labor organizers in the unions. My big excuse was that i was working on the 1890s, and women joined the ilg in large numbers not until the early 1900s. So i escaped my blame game. But here was an industry, the Garment Industry in new york, which already in the early days, it was probably about 70 of the workers jewish, about 30 italian and a sprinkling of other people. But the industry was dominated by immigrants, and Something Like 85 of the workers in the industry and the operators, the sewingMachine Operators, were female. So how could it be that i had missed all the women . Could it have been that the women were unimportant in the formation of a union . The ilg was founded, the International Ladies garment workers union, was founded in 1901 formally, and joined the American Federation, first the united hebrew trades, the American Federation of labor shortly thereafter. The early founders were skilled male operators, the cutters in the industry, the fur workers, those who were have said to have brought to the industry the skills to design at cut and make the garments which they had been given. But the labor in the industry, almost all of it, was done by females, sometimes at home and workshops, but much of the time in what were called small contractorsshops, and then in early burgeoning factories, which began in the early 1900s with the expansion of the shirtwaist industry. We will talk about what the shirtwaist was later. But the majority of the workers in the industry were not members of the International Ladies garment workers union. By 1903, 1904, they were agitating to become Union Members, because as Union Members they understood that they would be protected from arbitrary rules of employers. Thos rules, you can imagine those arbitrary rules if you like. They were charged fines for coming in late or docked if a garment was badly sewn. They were sometimes charged for the needles they used, the sewingmachine needles they used and for the threads that they used. At the beginning they had to supply their own machines, so they had to go out and rent the machines and bring them to the workplace, and on and on and on. And of course the days were endless, not just six days a week, but six and a half days a week usually, and long hours. So these women really wanted to organize, and the men in the industry resisted it. They didnt want women because women were said to be unskilled. Well, you and i would ask questions about, what did they mean by skilled . They defined scale in terms of the work that men did, and if it was work that women did, it was by definition unskilled, even though we could be a good sewing Machine Operator in a particular task. But women nevertheless pushed, and a special moment that has gone down in history as an uprising of the 30,000 some say 20,000 but i will stick with the 30,000 number, in 1909, the women became particularly agitated by wage cuts in the industry. They were doing piecework and there were cuts on those pieces, and they were angry, angry, angry, that they were being asked to work endless hours of seasonal work, then 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 immigrants, maybe even immigrants themselves. And when they lost their jobs, even if it was only six weeks, the whole family suffered. So the women in 1909 went on strike. They did it over the objections of the men. There are famous stories about a meeting that the women called and said, i have had enough of your conversation, to the men who were resisting striking, i say we should go out on strike, and the famous saying, if i betray the oath i now make, let this hand i shake shrivel, im paraphrasing there. But you get the picture. [laughter] and thousands of women went on strike. The strike lasted several months. It was not entirely a success. In fact, perhaps one third of the industry decided to accept unionization, and those shops became union shops, and the people that worked in those shops became Union Members, but two thirds did not, and yet it was that strike that convinced men that women were organizable, that they could organize, and that was that strike that raised to the forefront the names of the women that we now recognize as female strike organizers, polly newman, Rose Schneiderman, not yet one of my favorite people, she didnt emigrate to the United States until a few years later, but those names of those women have gone down in history as continuously confronting first the men who didnt want them to strike, and then working with the men to create what was one of the most enduring trade unions. Why was this important . Why did it 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. With the huge membership, the union had clout and the Union Movement in general became something that, not only employers in the Garment Industry had to respect, but then employers everywhere had to notice, that far from being unorganizeable, women were organizeable, and could create strong unions. So the ilg inspired unitization among females, textile workers, shoe workers, garment workers and male clothing, chicago, for example. But there was a second issue that makes it important. The men had organized a union to get better working conditions and better wages. Women wanted that, too, but in a famous phrase Rose Schneiderman said, we want bread, but we want roses too. Not only do we want better wages and shorter hours, but we want you to provide us with the goodies that come from the heart of the community. Those goodies included night classes, english classes for immigrants, 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 functional institution, we sometimes call it a social union, was a context of women brought into the union. You will hear more about it in the 1930s, but it begins right in the year of that strike. And there is a third thing we need to remember, and that is that the trade Union Movement, which was led by men even after this strike was over, most of the leadership still remained male leadership, nevertheless needed to acknowledge that women were workers and that as workers, they were as economically responsible as the men were for family support, not for the support of wives and children necessarily, but for the support of parents, siblings, their own children, they were Single Parents and so on. And that recognition was never lost after the ilg. Now you understand why i am captivated. Ms paley thank you. That was wonderful. Thank you. That was wonderful that was wonderful. I tell a story of black women in the union. And since we start about a story i will tell you a little bit too. Thank you. They say that history is biographical and in my history, i am an immigrant, i went to university and started doing history, very much interested in immigration, what women were doing. You had these women coming from the south and the great migration and also from the british west indies, and they worked as domestic servants. That is what they did. And then we came across a book and there was one line that said there were also garment workers. And i was just fascinated because this was a new narrative. So i decided i was going to trace this, and i discovered that certainly in the beginning years of the Garment Industry, there was a sprinkling of black women. I think in 1910 there might have been about 200 maximum, really a drop in the bucket. World war i made a difference, it gave black folks an opportunity to break into industry because of the vacancies that were created, because you had men going to war. But certainly, in the case of the Garment Industry in new york, the cessation of transatlantic shipments, shipping, meant you didnt have the supply, the traditional supply of workers from eastern and southern europe. That was the traditional labor supply for the Garment Industry. Well, there were all of these black women and this was their opportunity, so in the closing years of world war i is when you get black women going into the industry. Sort of en masse by 1920, you have 2500 black women in the industry. So now i knew that these women were not just working as domestic servants, they were working in the Garment Industry, they are skilled workers. Many were from the british west industries british west indies, they brought scales with them that they learned in school. I could track them from records. And im able to give specific numbers from the south, less clarity because of the lack of documentation, because it is an internal migration. Nevertheless there is anecdotal evidence that many of these women also brought dressmaking scales with them to new york city. So they go into the Garment Industry, and this is one of the things about the ilgw, which is different than every ot then many other aflaffiliated unions, is that the ilgw was open to black folks. Almost all of the other unions were not. There were a few black women who joined the union by the 19 by 1920. The 1920s is a period where the ilgw is in internal disarray, there is a struggle for control between socialists and communists, and they start to make a real effort to organize black women by 1920 because of their significant numbers. There is 2500. They are interrupted by this internal dissent, the disarray in the union. Then the union comes out of that in 1928. In 1929 the union starts to reach out. They actually employed the first black woman organizer, who has a really interesting history, she comes out of the brooklyn ywca, the segregated branch, she says to the brookwood she goes to the brookwood Labor Institute on a scholarship which is funded in part by the naacp, and by now people realize it really is important for black folks to become part of the industrial workforce, and to join interracial unions. The Campaign Starts in september 1929. One month after, you are into the depression era, it is very interesting and alice and i have an interesting take on that. Definitely the depression matters in that i think that the conditions caused by the depression, i dont think that that is what gets them to join the union. But the nra, it is not the National Recovery act that does it either, but i think a response by the unions to the nra that says, we have to organize, this protected labor legislation is not all that it is out made 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 watershed moment is august 16, 1933, when the ilg dressmakers call a strike overnight. Black membership in the union grows from 400 to over 40,000. That is the moment. And they become very, very active in the union from the moment they go in. And part of this, most of them are in the local that is run by charles zimmerman, and he has a particular take, he is committed to this idea of a social unionism and he takes it seriously. Embraced this, they are on the executive board of local 22, they are active in all aspects of the union, and my work traces them from the union into the Civil Rights Movement. This is sort of a pathway. The skills they develop in management, in what i call the democratic life of the union, really prepares them as a part of the vanguard of the black Civil Rights Movement in the 1940s. So they are at the forefront of one the fair employment practice commission, there is a massive rally at Madison Square gardens when people are organizing in 1946. We never get a permanent fepc, but it is an important step that takes us to 1964. So all of these steps, writing this history, i said, that didnt work. But i think it is really important that all of these steps, these women are integrally part of the constant way of working for rights, particularly workers rights and civil rights, in my case, and they both come together. They are very active in the 1960s for raising funds for the civil rights struggle in the south, and they are there in the 1963 march on washington. That is the story that i tell. First, i want to say thank you to nick and valerie for having me. I will contrinue from wwii. From world war ii as when you actually begin to see chinese immigrants going into the Garment Industry. Chinese immigrants are here, and the way they come in to the u. S. , which is structured by 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 because of chinese exclusion, but there were americanborn men. They were in world war ii and when they came back they had access to the g. I. Bill, and the very few that had access to the g. I. Bill, they saw, we cant actually do laundry again, because before they left to go off to war a lot of chinese did hand laundry. When they came back, washing machines were invented. So they looked to their neighbors in chinatown, or the jewish community, who actually had garment shops. And they thought, maybe we can do this . And many of them who had access to the g. I. Bill got money for that, and the chinese world war ii vets were actually allowed to bring war brides to the u. S. So this was the beginning of women in greater numbers coming to the u. S. , and when they came with their husbands, these exgis, and they needed jobs. To facilitate a need to, work they open the very garment shops. There were many it doesnt at that point. We dont see huge numbers of chineseowned contracting shops in chinatown until after 1965. 1965 was the next major Immigration Law that allowed chinese emigrants to come in. They came in in huge numbers after that, and by the late 1970s and the 1980s, we begin to see 500 garment shops in chinatown. That is 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 chinatown, and in chinatown, i guess there refuge or their work was in these garment shops. And we see a proliferation of them. One reason why they were allowed to open and were able to open was the massive exodus of blacks and italians and jewish women shops, in the midtown area as well as the downtown area. So you actually see the chinese, some of them, going into the exact same shop locations, but the work has changed. They didnt speak italian anymore, they spoke chinese instead. So when they came to the area to work, how did they become unionized . Ilg was very interesting. They did not know how to organize the Chinese Workers at all, so they organized them by actually organizing the contractors. So these women did not know that they were members 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, they actually called the Union Membership, they called it in chinese, my blue cross card. [laughter] so what do you think they valued from the union most . Health insurance. Health insurance. So when they worked in the garment shops they knew they would become a member of the union and actually get health benefits. Health benefits. So that is how they became accustomed to the union. Not until way later in the 1980s, there was this massive strike of 20,000 Chinese Workers in 1982, and in the summer, they walked out of there shops and they demanded to stay and remain in the union. By the mid1980s there was huge global competition, so it was harder to maintain their wages, and a lot of the contractors said that we dont really need the union, we can keep these women working for us because they are basically captives here, they dont really know english, they cant really find another job, that is how the contractors saw us, but the women didnt want to put up with that, they wanted the union, not only for the Health Insurance but also for the dental insurance, also for the pension they could get, the sick leave, and also for the Immigration Project that actually taught them english so they could become u. S. Citizens. They also wanted it for their pay stubs. Why would they want pay stubs . Because a lot of them would become u. S. Citizens, and they would use those pay stubs to file income taxes to actually learn about getting credit to show their income taxes to immigration authorities so 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 the mortgage system. So many of these early garment workers ended up buying homes outside chinatown in queens and brooklyn and other places, and that is the beginning of the spirit so in the 1980s and after the strike, we begin to see Chinese Women become representatives in the union, the union actually hired them. Although i have to say they didnt move that far up, but at least the Garment Union was beginning to recognize the value of Chinese Workers in the union. And through the 1990s we see the competition increase, globalization increase, the decrease of workers, the increase of undocumented workers come in by the 1990s, competing with chinese unionized workers, so there was this friction. But the union decides, not only are they social, but they decide to have a workers project, and immigrant workers project where they would actually organize the undocumented workers to teach them that everybody should have a workers wage that is responsible, and everybody should support each other, we would have that end it wouldnt be cutthroat against the Union Workers on the nonUnion Workers who werent documented. And over time, we actually begin to see a decline, and the major decline in the Garment Industry was in 2001, especially in chinatown. In 2001 after september 11, the World Trade Center was only 10 blocks from chinatown, so 10 blocks away from chinatown meant that when the World Trade Center buildings fell, chinatown was impacted tremendously. There were blockades on 14th street and down to canal street, which meant that trucks that had fabric could not go into chinatown to deliver, and trucks couldnt go in to take out the garments that were sewed, and all of that was shut down. There was no telephone service, no work could be done. But by 2000 there was incredibly sophisticated Computer Technology where people could just send their designs overseas, and a lot of these shops took over. As of today there are very few garment shops left in chinatown, very few left in midtown, and the largest devastation was after 9 11. I can talk more later. [laughter] we will end there. Thank [applause] you all, so much. [applause] thank you all, so much. [applause] this is illustrated for me so very much, and womens history is American History, and this history is essential to understanding migration, war, depression, the Civil Rights Movement. So much of what we know about the 20th century was shaped by these histories that we have heard. I wanted to open up a few questions. We want to tell stories about successes in the labor movement, but we also know there are these tensions, family tensions, the fact that this is womens work, how does that change gender dynamics in the home . Among fathers and daughters and husbands and wives. We also have tensions in the union, how the Union Response to black workers, Chinese Workers, and these are challenges in the wider world, efforts to move shops overseas, efforts to break the union, im sure you could talk about all of these items. I thought i would pose that question about that tension. I should begin by saying. Well even in the early years there are multiple layers of tension. Maybe if i can outline some of them you can see how some diminished and some continued the first level of tension comes from the way the industry is organized. We talked about contractors and contracting shops, so here is how the industry is organized. Some small, usually male person [laughter] decides, sorry about that, thats correct. This male person [laughter] decides he wants to go into business for himself. He is generally an immigrant who has been in the United States for just a few years, he purchases basically a bundle of cut garments. He goes to a cutting shop and purchase a bundle of cut garments and then he brings them to either his home or a small shop that he has set up, and his job is to sell those garments. How much he pays for the cut garments determines how much he can pay his workers. And generally in the early years, those workers are kin or who come from the same general area he comes from, sometimes his family members, and he pays them as little as he possibly can, or nothing if they are family members, which enables him to buy more cut garments and to exploit more workers. But the system is a 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 somebody else produces more garments by paying his workers less, he will be out on the streets soon. So that contracting system remains in place, even when the industry in the early 1900s moved into factories. So those things like the triangle shirtwaist shop, although the shop is owned by the two men who were later charged for being responsible for the fire, the contracting within the shop is done by individuals who supplied their own machines and hired their own workers. It is in their interest to pay those workers as little as possible and 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 also means that women can get those jobs, but they will never be paid enough. Now the tension then, when the union comes in, in those early years, there is a here conflict, that they dont want to deal with the union, why should they want to deal with the union who will ask them to pay more, when the whole system is so structured that they cant pay more and indeed they will lose their jobs. So that is one set of tensions, and when the union intervenes in those tensions, it intervenes hoping, and this is the power of that great strike of 1909 1910 period, it hopes to organize enough contractors, so they will not be cutting each others throats, and therefore the throats of the workers. Its only when they can do that, by establishing common interests among the contractors and the workers that they are able to make any money. So its not an industry uniquely among american unions and employers. It creates what are called the protocols of peace. In 1911 and 1912 and even 1913 up to 1914. Virtually all garment manufacturers in new york, are signed on to this protocol. And the protocols of peace, have assigned prices for peace work. The peace workers to. So they are no longer competing with each other for peace work. Now the system breaks down, because it didnt last very long but its a wonderful example of how the union and the contractors can actually, join with each others to benefit the workers and the system. So that is one kind of tension. Second kind of tension, the men dont want the women to organize, they dont think they can organize the and when they get it from other women middle class women. And those women organized in the union trade union, supply that money and the resources, and the organizational know how, to help the immigrant women. Doug well 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, who they dont particularly care about the union, they care about organizing these women. But it produces tensions, among the women. Some of whom begin to resent one of the most famous of those, who with their interesting stories, she happens to be gay. She lives a life, with another woman. Shes a great organizer. And she cant tolerate the middle class women this sort of american ideal of Family Structure and sell on, which is antithetical to everything she wants. She wants to treat the world as workers, and to organize them. So theres a three layer tension there that emerges when the women are outside of the union, inside of the union, who had a go to for help, how the union deals with who they go to for help, and so on. And then there is a third layer of tension, and thats tension. When we sort of dismiss, that the ilg is a jewish union, most of the meetings are held in yiddish just a language of the word they spoke. But there were a lot of italians in the industry, and they are working in their own shops. Slowly as these country system develops, they move into the factories, but the Italian Women feel completely excluded from the Union Movement. Because they dont understand whats going on, until 1920, the ilg pretty much pays no attention to them. And then it begins to publish in italian newspapers and try to involve them. The result is of course that Italian Women become strike breakers, you know, why should they support a strike that day dont know what its about, and it doesnt involve them, in the organization doesnt care around them . And that tension is reflected as the industry begins, as early as 1912, 13, to the south and moving into the coal mining, and the factories, and so on. Those women, the angle sacks a women, or English Speaking win in, are also uncomfortable with the jewish union. So we put all those layers intentions together, and you dont have, i need, anything that looks like a huge unified processes. What you have, is an International Ladies govern workers union, which is run and largely occupied in the early years by jewish immigrant people. Theres a fourth layer, but its too complicated, i dont want to travel this. And thats the socialist background, which actually emerges as an even greater tension in the twenties, and authorities. Im gonna leave out for. [laughs] well you know im not even going to go into that, except to say, as i said before that the twenties become a period where you are so much internal, what sort of, tension, between socialists and the communists in the white union for whos gonna control it. But i want to take that tension in tell a story that i am trying to make into an article. So, one of the women that goes, one of the black womens that goes into the union, in 1931, so shes one of the earlier of the black women who said yes, were gonna join you. Her name is lilia, and she is there from the beginning, you see her in the harlem meetings, and she is speaking on, and she is a true believer. By 1934, she is chosen by zimmer man to go and organize black workers in chicago, at the south get factory, this is ill underground though was because these are some serious people. And they do not want to organize, she is lifted, she goes, she leaves new york, she goes to chicago, she relocates, she spends months doing a really underground work, to talk to these black women, because they are scared of losing their jobs. And shes finally getting somewhere, and im not quite sure how many months dispense, but it seems to me a good six to nine months. And all of a sudden shes kind of pulled out, of chicago, and brought back to new york. One in a jewish male is put in her place just as she says i was just about to bring all of this thing to some sort of productivity, now, the women already and she writes this letter to zimmerman saying i feel like ive been used. And its such an amazing phrase. And when you, what happens to her, she takes her name off the election to run for this is a woman who is an executive board of local 22, and she just kind of disappeared after that. And she just i cant find her anywhere after that. But you get this idea, oh and she also says to zimmerman, be very careful how you are treating black garment workers, because you will soon find you have a dual situation on your hands. And shes talking about the communists, because the communists are constantly really trying to work from within, and trying to get, you know, these workers, but particularly the black workers. So she kind of almost threatens zimmerman its a very interesting little anecdote, that i think, when you start peeling delay years, it exposes tensions along the lines of race. So thats the story that i have to continue to show, you sort of whats going on i will tell you a little bit about the women and men at home in the tensions, and it is tied to the union because of how much more the women get. The men and women who work in chinatown, the chinese immigrants, the majority there is two basic industries in chinatown from the 1960s through the 2000, restaurant work and garment work, that is where the majority of the chinese immigrants work. Restaurant work for men, mostly men and must want work, mostly women and garment, are not unionized at all. They get cash payments. So the men are mostly just getting enough for wages, they dont get any benefits at all. , so the women maybe are not bringing more in wages home, but they are bringing more in terms of benefits. So the men actually feel this tension. However, the men also appreciate what the women do, what they do in terms of especially Getting Health Care for their kids. It is this pensive it is expensive to take your kids to the doctor. It is expensive to do everything. But the women, because they are able to get all this from the union, sometimes get pushback from the men. I spoke to some of the women and they remember early on and even in current times, the late 1990s, were there would be domestic violence, where men demanded their wages, and that all the rest of the stuff that is good, but you have to remain in your place. There are also cases where the women were able to get much more power because of the union, because everything was documented. Men and women chose in their families which members would be the next to emigrate to the u. S. , and once that happens the relatives, even if they are the mens relatives, give a high regard, what the men would say, to their wives, so the wives were elevated in a certain way the men werent looked at. So those tensions were there the whole time, and it is because the union was able to provide all these extra things for the women. To elaborate on that, one of the big differences is that your Chinese Women were mostly married with families. Its not universally true, but the women that worked in the Garment Industry in the early 1990s were young and unmarried for the most part, and the assumption was that you would quit work, you would quit working for someone else. You might continue to work for your spousal partner, but you would not be working outside the home if you could avoid it. There are lots of people who couldnt avoid it, they they were weighed or tied or so on, but the vast majority were unmarried women. And their paychecks went to their mothers or their fathers. In other words, most of them did not keep anything, unlike mail workers, someone, who went out to work. The women turned their paychecks over to their families, and then were sometimes given a little spending money or transportation money or whatever it was. So far from resentment, the women wear essential to the running of the household, because their income was essential. So my question is, African American women, where they married . I cant remember the exact percentages, it was a mix, several married. But as far as wages is concerned, but wages of black women have always been essential to the household economy, because black men either were unemployed, underemployed, or worked at such a lowpaying jobs that the wages of women were essential in the household, becoming even more essential to the survival of the household during the depression. One of the things i argue is that in the early years, female garment workers who are still employed in the Garment Industry are afraid to join the union in the early years because they feel that if they join the union they are going to lose their jobs. And that is the end of the household. I have cases where a woman loses her job, the man is not working because unemployment among africanamerican men is so high, it is Something Like 10 or 15 points higher than white male unemployment, and this is in manhattan, and families just break up, they just break up because the womans earnings is what is Holding Things together. So it is essential, and it is a mix, and as far as the single women are concerned, im not sure of the extent to which these young, single women are turning over their pay packets. I dont think it is to the extent you had jewish households or italian households, there is a slightly different dynamic there, but yes, the wages are essential of these women. 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