ILGWU was founded 119 years ago today...

cmpollack

cmpollack

VFG Member
according to Jewish Currents magazine...

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The International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) was founded on this date in 1900, bringing together several smaller labor groups representing Jewish and Italian workers, predominantly young women. They “worked nine-hour days,” writes Cody Bay, “probably crammed into some moldy basement with locked doors and a complete dickhead for a boss who was likely also a mobster.” Wages were about $3 a week, the equivalent of about $77 today, some of which had to be kicked back to bosses to pay for electricity and thread. The ILGWU mounted strikes (which were met with violence) in 1909 and 1910, and grew rapidly after the 1911 Triangle Fire disaster. David Dubinsky served as president of the union for 32 years until 1966, by which time it had some 450,000 members.

“The bosses set themselves up as your fathers, and punish you by slapping you in the face, just like your father does.” — Rose Schneiderman, 1913
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Great to read. Does anyone remember the old TV commercials back in the 1960s (?) with members of the ILGW singing their newly worded theme song to the tune of the old "Look for the Silver Lining"? I still sing that today and think of it every time I see an old label. Sorry if I cannot recall all of it right now. "Look for the Union Label...when you are buying that coat dress or blouse....remember somewhere our Union's sewing, our wages going...to feed the kids... Sure we work hard, but whose complaining" etc. It ends with "So always look for the Union Label, it says we are able to make it in the USA". Or close to that.

Dwayne's uncle was a CPA for the ILGWU. Well, actually he was a member all right and a shop leader. But not in finance. He said CPA stood for Cleaning Pressing and Alterations. :hysterical:
 
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