clever policy deliberately thought out, as it was the sudden uprising
and revolt of exasperated girls against a system of persistent cutting
down extending over about four years. A cent would be taken off here,
and a half-cent there, or two operations would be run into one, and
the combined piece of work under one, and that a new, name would bring
a lower rate of pay. The practice of paying for oil needles, cotton
and silk had been introduced, a practice most irritating with its
paltry deduction from a girl's weekly wage. Next there was a system of
fines for what was called "mussing" work. Every one of these so-called
improvements in discipline was deftly utilized as an excuse for taking
so much off the girls' pay.
Patience became exhausted and the girls just walked out. Two-thirds of
the waist-makers in the city walked out. Of these about eighty-five
per cent., it is believed, were Jewish girls, the rest made up of
Italians with a few Poles. The girls who did not go out were mostly
Americans. One observer estimated at the time that about forty per
cent. of those in the trade were under twenty years of age, running
down to children of twelve.
When the workers, with no sort of warning or explanation, or making
any regular preliminary demands, just quit, it upset matters
considerably. A little girl waist-maker may appear to be a very
insignificant member of the community, but if you multiply her by
four thousand, her absence makes an appreciable gap in the industrial
machine, and its cogs fail to catch as accurately as heretofore. So
that even the decent manufacturers felt pretty badly, not so much
about the strike itself, as its, to them, inexplicable suddenness.
Such men were suffering, of course, largely for the deeds of their
more unscrupulous fellow-employers.
One manufacturer, for instance, had gained quite a reputation for
his donations to certain orphanages. These were to him a profitable
investment, seeing that the institutions served to provide him with a
supply of cheap labor. He had in his shop many orphans, who for two
reasons could hardly leave his employ. They had no friends to whom to
go, and they were also supposed to be under obligations of gratitude
to their benefactor-employer. One of his girl employés, to whom he
paid seven dollars a week, turned out for that wage twelve dollars'
worth of work. This fact the employer admitted, justifying himself by
saying that he was supporting her brother in an orphanage.
It was a hard winter, and the first week of the strike wore away
without a sign of hope. Public opinion was slow to rouse, and the
newspapers were definitely adverse. The general view seemed to be that
such a strike was an intolerable nuisance, if not something worse. At
length the conservative _Ledger_ came out with a two-column editorial,
outlining the situation, and from then on news of the various
happenings, as they occurred, could be found in all the papers. But
the girls were unorganized. There was no money, and they faced
the first days of the new year in a mood of utter discouragement.
Organizers from the International of the Ladies' Garment Workers had,
however, come on from New York to take charge. The strikers were
supported by the Central Labor Union of Philadelphia, under the
leadership of the capable John J. Murphy, and representatives of the
National Women's Trade Union League, in the persons of Mrs. Raymond
Robins and Miss Agnes Nestor, were already on the scene.
In the struggle itself, the New York experiences were repeated. The
fight went on slowly and stubbornly. Arrests occurred daily and still
more arrests. Money was the pressing need, not only for food and rent,
but to pay fines and to arrange for the constantly needed bonds to
bail out arrested pickets. At length a group of prominent Philadelphia
women headed by Mrs. George Biddle, enlisted the help of some leading
lawyers, and an advisory council was formed for the protection of
legal rights, and even for directing a backfire on lawbreaking
employers by filing suits for damages. With such interest and
such help money, too, was obtained. The residents of the College
Settlement, especially Miss Anna Davies, the head resident, and Miss
Anne Young, the members of the Consumers' League, the suffragists and
the clubwomen all gave their help.
These women were moved to action by stories such as those of the
little girl, whom her late employer had been begging to return to his
deserted factory. "The boss, he say to me, 'You can't live if you not
work.' And I say to the boss, 'I live not much on forty-nine cents a
day.'"
As in New York, the police here overreached themselves in their zeal,
and arrested a well-known society girl, whom they caught walking
arm-in-arm with a striking waist-maker. Result, the utter discomfiture
of the Director of Public Safety, and triumph for the fortunate
reporters who got the good story.
An investigation into the price of food, made just then by one of the
evening newspapers came in quite opportunely, forcing the public to
wonder whether, after all, the girls were asking for any really higher
wage, or whether they were not merely struggling to hold on to such
a wage as would keep pace with the increasing prices of all sorts of
food, fuel, lighting, the commonest clothing and the humblest shelter.
The strike had gone on for some weeks, when an effort was made to
obtain an injunction forbidding the picketing of the Haber factory.
This was finally to crush the strike and down the strikers. But
in pressing for an injunction the manufacturers came up against a
difficulty of their own making. The plea that had all along been urged
upon the union had been the futility of trying to continue a strike
that was not injuring the employers. "For," they had many times said,
"we have plenty of workers, our factories are going full blast."
Whereas the Haber witnesses in the injunction suit were bringing proof
of how seriously the business was being injured through the success of
the girl pickets in maintaining the strike, and, the money loss, they
assured the court was to be reckoned up in thousands of dollars. This
inconsistency impressed the judge, and the strikers had the chance
of telling their story in open court. "Strikers' Day" was a public
hearing of the whole story of the strike.
That night both sides got together, and began to discuss a
working agreement. After twenty-five hours of conference between
representatives of the Shirt Waist Makers' Union and of the
Manufacturers' Association, an agreement was arrived at, giving the
workers substantial gains; employment of all union workers in the
shops without discrimination; a fifty-two-and-a-half-hour week and
no work on Saturday afternoon; no charges for water, oil, needles or
ordinary wear and tear on machinery; wages to be decided with the
union for each particular shop, and all future grievances to be
settled by a permanent Board of Arbitration; the agreement to run till
May 1, 1911.
The workers' success was, unfortunately, not lasting. Owing to the
want of efficient local leadership, the organization soon dropped to
pieces. That gone, there was nothing left to stand between the toilers
and the old relentless pressure of the competitive struggle,
ever driving the employers to ask more, and ever compelling the
wage-earners to yield more. The Philadelphia shirt-waist strike of
1910 furnishes a sad and convincing proof of how little is gained
by the mere winning of a strike, however bravely fought, unless the
strikers are able to keep a live organization together, the members
coöperating patiently and steadily, so as to handle the fresh shop
difficulties which every week brings, in the spirit of mutual help as
well as self-help.
These first Eastern strikes in the garment trades, although local in
their incidence, were national in their effects. There had been so
much that was dramatic and unusual in the rebellion of the workers,
and it had been so effectively played up in the press of the entire
country that by the time spring arrived and the strikes were really
ended, and ended in both cities with very tangible benefits for the
workers, there was hardly anyone who had not heard something about the
great strikes, and who had not had their most deeply rooted opinions
modified. It was an educational lesson on the grand scale. But the
effects did not stop here. The impression upon the workers themselves
everywhere was wholly unexpected. They had been encouraged and
heartened to combine and thus help one another to obtain some measure
of control over workshop and wages.
The echoes of the shirt-waist strikes had hardly died away, when there
arose from another group of dissatisfied workers, the self-same cry
for industrial justice.
There is no doubt that the Chicago strike which began among the makers
of ready-made men's clothing in September, 1910, was the direct
outcome of the strikes in New York and Philadelphia. While the Western
uprising had many features in common with these, yet it presented
difficulties all its own, and in its outcome won a unique success.
Not only was the number of workers taking part greater than in the
previous struggles, but, owing to the fact of a large number of the
strikers being men, and a big proportion of these heads of families,
the poverty and intense suffering resulting from months of
unemployment extended over a far larger area. Also the variety
of nationalities among the strikers added to the difficulties of
conducting negotiations. Every bit of literature put out had to be
printed in nine languages. And lastly, the want of harmony between
certain of the national leaders of the union involved, and the deep
distrust felt by some of the local workers and the strikers for a
section of them provided a situation which for complexity it would be
hard to match. That the long-continued struggle ended with so large
a measure of success for the workers was in part owing to the
extraordinary skill and unwearied patience displayed in its handling,
and in part to the close and intimate coöperation between the local
strike leaders, both men and women, the Chicago Federation of Labor
and the Chicago Women's Trade Union League. Much also had been learned
from recent experience in the strikes immediately preceding.
The immediate cause of the first striker going out was a cut in the
price of making pockets, of a quarter of a cent. That was on September
22 in Shop 21, in the Hart, Schaffner and Marx factories. Three weeks
later the strike had assumed such proportions that the officers of the
United Garment Workers' District Council No. 6 were asking the Women's
Trade Union League for speakers. The League organized its own Strike
Committee to collect money, assist the pickets and secure publicity.
At the instance of the League also an independent Citizens' Committee
was formed.
In time of sorest need was found efficient leadership. The
garment-workers of Chicago, in their earlier struggles with the
manufacturers, had had no such powerful combination to assist them as
came to their aid now, when a Joint Strike Conference controlled
the situation, with representatives upon it from the United Garment
Workers of America International Executive Board, from the Chicago
District Council of the same organization, from the Special Order
Garment Workers, the Ready Made Garment Workers, the Chicago
Federation of Labor and the Women's Trade Union League. The American
Federation of Labor sent their organizer, Emmett Flood, the untiringly
courageous and the ever hopeful.
The first step to be taken was to place before the public in clear and
simple form the heterogeneous mass of grievances complained of. The
Women's Trade Union League invited about a dozen of the girls to tell
their story over a simple little breakfast. Within a week the story
told to a handful was printed and distributed broadcast, prefaced, as
it was, by an admirable introduction by the late Miss Katharine Coman,
of Wellesley College, who happened to be in Chicago, and who was
acting as chairman of the grievance committee. The Citizens'
Committee, headed by Professor George Mead, followed with a statement,
admitting the grievances and justifying the strike.
From then on the story lived on the front page of all the newspapers,
and speakers to address unions, meetings of strikers, women's clubs
and churches were in constant demand. Here again, the suffragist and
the socialist women showed where their sympathies lay and of what
mettle they were made. Visiting speakers, such as Miss Margaret
Bondfield and Mrs. Philip Snowden, took their turn also. The socialist
women of Chicago issued a special strike edition of the _Daily
Socialist_. With the help of the striking girls as "newsies" they
gathered in the city on one Saturday the handsome sum of $3,345.
Another group of very poor Poles sent in regularly about two hundred
dollars per week, sometimes the bulk of it in nickels and dimes. A
sewing gathering composed of old ladies in one of the suburbs sewed
industriously for weeks on quilts and coverings for the strikers. Some
small children in a Wisconsin village were to have had a goose for
their Christmas dinner, but hearing of little children who might have
no dinner, sent the price of the bird, one dollar and sixty-five
cents, into the strikers' treasury.
At first strike pay was handed out every Friday from out of the funds
of the United Garment Workers. But on Friday, November 11, the number
of applicants for strike pay was far beyond what it was possible to
handle in the cramped office quarters. Through some misunderstanding,
which has to this day never been explained, the crowd, many thousands
of men, women and children, were denied admittance to the large wheat
pit of the Open Board of Trade, which, it was understood, had been
reserved for their use. It was a heart-rending sight, as from early
morning till late afternoon they waited in the halls and corridors and
outside in the streets. At first in dumb patience and afterwards in
bewilderment, but all along with unexampled gentleness and quietness.
At this point, Mr. John Fitzpatrick, president of the Chicago
Federation of Labor, took hold of a situation already difficult, and
which might soon have become dangerous. He explained to the crowd that
everyone would be attended to in their various district halls, and
that all vouchers already out would be redeemed. This relieved the
tension, but the Joint Strike Committee were driven to take over at
once the question of relief, so that none should be reduced to accept
that hunger bargain, which, as Mrs. Robins put it, meant the surrender
of civilization.
With such an immense number of strike-bound families to support,
the utmost economy of resources was necessary, and it was resolved
hereafter to give out as little cash as possible, but to follow the
example of the United Mine Workers and others and open commissary
stations. This plan was carried out, and more than any other one plan,
saved the day. Benefits were handed over, in the form of groceries on
a fixed ration scale. As far as we know, such a plan had never before
been adapted to the needs of women and children, nor carried out by
organized labor for the benefit of a large unorganized group. Of
the economy of the system there is no question, seeing that a
well-organized committee can always purchase supplies in quantities at
wholesale price, sometimes at cost price, and frequently can, as was
done in this instance, draw upon the good feeling of merchants and
dealers, and receive large contributions of bread, flour, coal and
other commodities. Commissary stations were established in different
localities. Here is a sample ration as furnished at one of the stores,
although, thanks to the kindness of friends, the allowance actually
supplied was of a much more varied character:
Bread 18 loaves
Coffee 1 lb.
Sugar 5 lbs.
Beans 5 lbs.
Oatmeal 2 pkgs. (large)
Ham 10 lbs.
For Italians, oatmeal was replaced by spaghetti, and Kosher food for
those of the orthodox Jewish faith was arranged for through orders
upon local grocery stores and kosher butchers in the Jewish quarter.
The tickets entitling to supplies were issued through the shop
chairman at the local halls to those strikers known to be in greatest
need.
The commissary plan, however, still left untouched such matters as
rent, fuel, gas, and likewise the necessities of the single young men
and girls. Also the little babies and the nursing mothers, who needed
fresh milk, had to be thought of and provided for. There were certain
strictly brought up, self-respecting little foreign girls who
explained with tears that they could not take an order on a restaurant
where there were strange people about, because "it would not be
decent," a terrible criticism on so many of our public eating places.
So a small separate fund was collected which gave two dollars a week
per head, to tide over the time of trouble for some of these sorely
pressed ones. There was a committee on milk for babies, and another on
rent, and the League handled the question of coal.
With these necessities provided for, the strikers settled down to a
test of slow endurance. Picketing went on as before, and although
arrests were numerous, and fines followed in the train of arrests, the
police and the court situation was at no time so acute as it had been
in either New York or Philadelphia.
The heroism shown by many of the strikers and their families it would
be hard to overestimate. Small inconveniences were made light of.
Families on strike themselves, or the friends of strikers would crush
into yet tighter quarters so that a couple of boys or two or three
girls out of work might crowd into the vacated room, and so have a
shelter over their heads "till the strike was over." A League member
found her way one bitter afternoon in December to one home where lay
an Italian woman in bed with a new-born baby and three other children,
aged three, four and five years respectively, surrounding her. There
was neither food nor fuel in the house. On the bed were three letters
from the husband's employer, offering to raise his old pay from
fifteen to thirty dollars per week, if he would go back to work and so
help to break the strike. The wife spoke with pride of the husband's
refusal to be a traitor. "It is not only bread we give the children.
We live not by bread alone. We live by freedom, and I will fight for
it though I die to give it to my children." And this woman's baby was
one of 1,250 babies born into strikers' homes that winter.
To me those long months were like nothing so much as like living in a
besieged city. There was the same planning for the obtaining of food,
and making it last as long as possible, the same pinched, wan faces,
the same hunger illnesses, the same laying of little ones into baby
graves. And again, besides the home problems, there was the same
difficulty of getting at the real news, knowing the meaning of what
was going on, the same heart-wearing alternations of hope and dread.
Through it all, moreover, persisted the sense that this was something
more than an industrial rising, although it was mainly so. It was
likewise the uprising of a foreign people, oppressed and despised.
It was the tragedy of the immigrant, his high hopes of liberty and
prosperity in the new land blighted, finding himself in America, but
not of America.
By the end of November the manufacturers were beginning to tire of
watching their idle machinery, and the tale of unfilled orders grew
monotonous. There began to be grumbles from the public against the
disastrous effects upon business of the long-continued struggle.
Alderman Merriam succeeded in having the City Council bring about a
conference of the parties to the strike "to the end that a just and
lasting settlement of the points in controversy may be made."
Messrs Hart, Schaffner and Marx, a firm employing in forty-eight shops
between eight and nine thousand workers, agreed to meet with the
committee and the labor leaders. After long hours of conferring
a tentative agreement was at length arrived at, signed by the
representatives of all parties, approved by the Chicago Federation
of Labor, and, when referred to the army of strikers for their
confirmation, was by them _rejected_. Indeed the great majority
refused even to vote upon it at all. This was indeed a body blow to
the hopes of peace. For the unfavorable attitude of the strikers there
were, however, several reasons. The agreement, such as it was, did not
affect quite a fourth of the whole number of workers who were out, and
a regular stampede back to work of the rest, with no guarantee at all,
was greatly to be dreaded. Again, a clause discriminating against
all who it should be decided had been guilty of violence during the
strike, gave deep offense. It was felt to be adding insult to injury,
to allude to violence during a struggle conducted so quietly and with
such dignity and self-restraint. But a further explanation lay in the
attitude of mind of the strikers themselves. The idea of compromise
was new to them, and the acceptance of any compromise was a way out of
the difficulty, that was not for one moment to be considered. Thus it
came about that a settlement that many an old experienced organization
would have accepted was ruled quite out of court by these new and
ardent converts to trade unionism, who were prepared to go on, facing
destitution, rather than yield a jot of what seemed to them an
essential principle.
Organized labor, indeed, realized fully the seriousness of the
situation. The leaders had used their utmost influence to have the
agreement accepted, and their advice had been set aside.
What view, then, was taken of this development of these central
bodies and by the affiliated trades of the city, who were all taxing
themselves severely both in time and money for the support of the
strike?
The democracy of labor was on this occasion indeed justified of its
children, and the supreme right of the strikers to make the final
decision on their own affairs and abide by the consequences was
maintained. Plans were laid for continuing the commissary stores, and
just at this stage there was received from the United Garment Workers
the sum of $4,000 for the support of the stores. The strikers were
also encouraged to hold out when on January 9 the firm of Sturm-Mayer
signed up and took back about five hundred workers. Also, a committee
of the state Senate began an inquiry into the strike, thus further
educating the public into an understanding of the causes lying back of
all the discontent, and accounting for much of the determination not
to give in.
All the same, the prospects seemed very dark, and the strikers and
their leaders had settled down to a steady, dogged resistance. It was
like nothing in the world so much as holding a besieged city, and
the outcome was as uncertain, and depended upon the possibility
of obtaining for the beleaguered ones supplies of the primitive
necessaries of life, food and fuel. And the fort was held until about
the middle of January came the news that Hart, Schaffner and Marx had
opened up negotiations, and presently an agreement was signed, and
their thousands of employés were back at work.
They were back at work under an agreement, which, while it did not,
strictly speaking, recognize the union, did not discriminate against
members of the union. Nay, as the workers had to have representation
and representatives, it was soon found that in practice it was only
through their organization that the workers could express themselves
at all.
This is not the place in which to enlarge upon the remarkable success
which has attended the working out of this memorable agreement. It is
enough to say that ever since all dealings between the firm and
their employés have been conducted upon the principle of collective
bargaining.
The agreement with Messrs. Hart, Schaffner and Marx was signed on
January 14, 1911, and the Joint Conference Board then bent all
its efforts towards some settlement with houses of the Wholesale
Clothiers' Association and the National Tailors' Association for the
twenty or thirty thousand strikers still out.