Bread Upon The Waters

Chapter 34 : Labor and the Road Ahead
CHAPTER 34 Labor and the Road Ahead MANHATTAN SKYSCRAPER. From the shop where I am working, on the thirty-fifth floor, I can look down into the teeming canyons of the midtown garment industry. On the walks below the lunch-hour crowd moves to and fro in sweltering heat. Coatless workers, shoppers, members of the armed forces. And in the streets there is a constant flurry of motor traffic. Busses, trucks, and taxis÷yellow, white, red, orange, and green÷dart hither and thither like restless bugs. Eastward we can see Bryant Park, in the rear of the Central Public Library, where people of all ages seek coolness beneath its symmetrically laid-out rock-maple trees; the needle-pointed Chrysler tower, industrial smokestacks, the East River, and Long island. To the North, Radio City, Central Park, a shimmering lagoon, Essex House, and Columbus Circle. Westward, huge wa... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Chapter 33 : End of an Era
CHAPTER 33 End of an Era RETURNING FROM THE MORMON CAPITAL, I found that Jennie Matyas, our San Francisco organizer, had been brought to Los Angeles to direct the dress campaign. The Pacific Coast director had assigned four of my staff of six to assist her. America Iglesias Thatcher and Mary Donovan, however, had held aloof pending my return. Calling together the whole six, I urged all to cooperate fully with the dress drive, holding that it was entitled to every possible chance. Jennie wanted a line on the local dress situation, and we had dinner at the Brown Derby. I explained, taking the position that the only building to be organized÷719 South Los Angeles Street, which was dominated by the Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association ÷ought to be left alone while we concentrated on a bigger problem, sportswear. But the arrangements for the general dress strike went... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Chapter 32 : Dust-Bowlers Make Good Unionists
CHAPTER 32 Dust-Bowlers Make Good Unionists BUT OUR MAIN CONCERN was organizing the field. After the unsuccessful attempt the previous spring, I decided to let the few nonunion silk dress factories in Los Angeles alone, and reach out for the workers in the growing sportswear industry. When a sufficient number had delegated our organization as collective bargaining agent, we would approach their employers to confer and discuss union terms. The sportswear workers, mostly of American stock from all parts of the country, needed special treatment. Some had entered the garment industry as a temporary means of earning a living, hoping to resume their former professions and trades. Among them were teachers, librarians, saleswomen, musicians, and nurses, who thought factory work too degrading to remain in long. Watching them hurry in and out of the garment buildings, I realized how t... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Chapter 31 : Back in the American Federation of Labor
CHAPTER 31 Back in the American Federation of Labor IN THE FACE OF THIS octopus-like opposition, the ILGWU's local leadership had failed its members miserably. Apparently it had thought that a union "just grew," like Topsy, from fresh air, California sunshine, petty squabbles, and political bickerings. And little effort was made to win the confidence of the newcomers in the sportswear industry, which had become a threat to the diminishing dress trade. Like a household, a labor union office must have some one responsible on the job to take care of routine. If the house-keeper is long absent, dust and mold accumulate and disorder grows! There, if the general membership is neglected too long, it is in no mood to serve a union loyally. Of the several miscellaneous locals chartered in Los Angeles, all but one, Cotton Dress Local No. 266, had given up the ghost. This feeble... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Chapter 30 : Return Engagement in Los Angeles
CHAPTER 30 Return Engagement in Los Angeles BACK IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA land of sunshine and starvation wages, stronghold of the open shop! The sun was bright as I stepped from the Chief on a Saturday in January, 1940. To my gratification the little old smoke-begrimed Santa Fe depot was gone, in its place a modern station of Byzantine design. Soft music came from an invisible organ; out in front was a broad garden with trees and flowers. Los Angeles "a good place in which to live" ! But that picture was deceptive, as false a front as a Hollywood stage set. The ILGWU's Pacific Coast director had been in bed six weeks, and was in no condition to discuss union problems. He might be out in six months, if he didn't have a relapse, his wife had said. That evening, at a house party in the home of Fanny and Bayrach Yellin,... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

'Outside Agitators' Strive for Peace
CHAPTER 20 'Outside Agitators' Strive for Peace EDWARD F. MCGRADY, Assistant U. S. Secretary of Labor, had come to Akron by plane, spent two days in intensive conferences with company representatives and the strike committee, and departed on Friday, February 28. He left a recommendation with the committee that the strikers return to work and let the issues be settled by arbitration. A meeting was scheduled for that evening in the strikers' hall. Around 8 o'clock Sherman Dalrymple, the rubber workers' international president, Frank Grillo, the secretary, Germer, Hapgood, and other leaders arrived. The strikers crowded in, anxious to know of the latest developments. From what I had seen and heard on the picket-lines, corroborated by the tense... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Travail in Atlantk City
Rose Pesotta Bread upon the Waters CHAPTER 17 Travail in Atlantic City ATLANTIC CITY WAS SURCHARGED with expectation of strife when I arrived on October 11. Most of the other members of our General Executive Board were there for its quarterly meeting, and we discussed what was brewing. The affairs of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, however important to us, would be overshadowed by a larger issue coming up at the American Federation of Labor convention÷the question of organizing mass-production workers into industrial unions. This had caused a six-day battle at the Federation's 1934 convention in San Francisco. A compromise had sidetracked the issue for a year. Now, in 1935, it was coming up again, and would have to ... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

French-Canadian Girls Get Tough
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California, Here We Come!
CHAPTER 2 California Here We Come! CONDITIONS IN THE LOS ANGELES dress industry had grown steadily worse in five months. Manufacturers generally were violating the state minimum wage of $16 a week for women, and the President's Reemployment Agreement, more often called the Blanket Code, in effect until a permanent Code of Fair Competition under the NRA could be agreed upon for the industry. An appallingly large labor turnover was deliberately fostered by the employers for their own benefit. Workers who showed any inclination to organize for selfprotection were promptly fired; and the blacklist operated relentlessly against those who dared protest. I got a close-up of this from local union leaders the morning after my arrival. Something dras... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

The Mohawk Valley Formula Fails
CHAPTER 27 The Mohawk Valley Formula Pads OUR KNITWEAR STRIKE was closely linked up in the daily press with two other CIO strikes one in Republic Steel, and another sponsored by the TWOC in the industrial Rayon and Cleveland Worsted mills. The principal scene of conflict in Cleveland was at the steel plants, dominated by Tom Girdler, arch-enemy of labor unions. Here 6,000 workers had walked out. July 29, 1937, saw a mass demonstration by the steel strikers in the Public Square. The speakers included Heywood Broun, then president of the American Newspaper Guild; Homer Martin of the United Automobile Workers; Leo Krzycki, Powers Hapgood, and others. This meeting, however, was cut short by a downpour of rain, which drenched thousands of worker... (From : Anarchy Archives.)