Monday, June 03, 2013

Today in Labor History



Int’l Ladies Garment Workers Union founded - 1900
 A federal child labor law, enacted two years earlier, was declared unconstitutional - 19182013.06.03history-kids-at-work

(Kids at work: Lewis Hine and the Crusade Against Child Labor: Your heart will be broken by this exceptional book’s photographs of children at backbreaking, often life-threatening work, and the accompanying commentary by author Russell Freedman. Photographer Lewis Hine – who himself died in poverty in 1940 – did as much, and perhaps more, than any social critic in the early part of the 20th century to expose the abuse of children, as young as three and four, by American capitalism.)

Some 25,000 white autoworkers walk off the job at Packard Motor Car Co. in Detroit when three African-Americans are promoted to the assembly line, where they will be working next to whites.  The three were relocated and the walkout ended - 1943

Working Class Heroes -- via -- www.unionist.com
International Ladies Garment Workers Union founded – 1900 ~De

The ILGWU was formed on June 3, 1900, by eleven delegates representing local unions from the major garment centers in New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Newark. These local unions' memberships numbered about two thousand workers and were comprised primarily of Jewish immigrants, many of them socialist, who had recently arrived in the United States from Eastern Europe. Many had been active trade unionists before coming to America, and in some instances, had participated in or organized unions upon arrival.

Seven local unions were represented at the International's founding meeting, and their delegates agreed that the efforts to improve working conditions within their cities would benefit from a national organization of workers in the ladies' garment trade. They agreed to name the new organization the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, and that it would affiliate with the American Federation of Labor.
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The ILGWU was an important force in organized labor. However, it faced serious challenges in expanding and even maintaining membership numbers and union funds, in part because of many manufacturers' hostile attitudes.
 

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