Today in Labor History June 3, 1900: The International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) was founded. In 1909, they led the Uprising of 20,000, a 14-wk strike of mostly immigrant women, sparked by a walkout at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. It led to a General Strike. Management used thugs to brutally beat the women, while police looked the other way. The women’s success surprised many of the labor leaders of the era, who had believed that neither women, nor immigrants, could be effectively organized. Meetings were often translated into Yiddish and Italian. Clara Lemlich, 23 years old, was one of the main organizers. Her family had immigrated to the U.S. in 1903 to escape antisemitic pogroms in their hometown of Kishinev, Ukraine. During the Uprising of 20,000, she returned to the picket line, even after thugs hired by the bosses had beaten her up and broken several of her ribs. As an organizer, she repeatedly challenged the male leadership of the mostly female union. The strike lasted until February, 1910, with increased wages, better working conditions, and shorter hours, but without universal union recognition. A number of companies, including Triangle, refused to sign the agreement.
Lemlich was blacklisted from the industry for her leadership of the strike. So, she turned her attention to organizing for women’s suffrage, and later organizing with the Communist Party.
In 1910, the ILGWU led an even bigger strike, The Great Revolt, of 60,000 cloak-makers. The Triangle Shirtwaist fire, in 1911, prompted many more women to join the union. In 1919, many members left to join the Communist Party. Many of those who remained were anarchists with dual membership in the radical IWW. They challenged the autocratic leadership of the ILGWU. The 1920s was marred by sectarian battles between left- and right-wing factions, and by violence from hired gangsters. Ironically, it was Arnold Rothstein (the Jewish gangster behind the Chicago Black Sox scandal, and who mentored mobsters Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano) who got the gangsters to withdraw from the union. Over the years, the ILGWU merged with other unions and is currently part of UNITE-HERE.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #union #strike #ilgwu #IWW #TriangleShirtwaist #mafia #LuckyLuciano #GeneralStrike #communism #anarchism #arnoldrothstein #meyerlansky
Rob Zazueta
General Strike Now
Dr. Baba Kofi Weusijana
MikeDunnAuthor
mosspiglet
Quasit
Peoples Histreh
Levka