One of the major strikes in labor history in the United States, the Shirtwaist Makers strike of 1909-10 brought together various elements of labor conflict in the period— immigrant socialism, militant trade unionism, the role of new workers in mass-production industries, sympathetic community support, and the resistance of employers. The strike began in September 1909 when workers from the Leiserson Shirtwaist Company walked out. A few weeks later, the Triangle Shirtwaist Company locked out its workers, as the employer sought to halt the union organizing drive. During these strikes, women faced violence on the picket line from company thugs. Police also arrested women strikers for streetwalking and inciting violence. Wealthy women, who had come out in support of the strike, also were present, and their accusations of police brutality made headlines. On November 22, at Cooper Union, garment worker Clara Lemlich took the stage to call for a general strike. With her call to action, the massive walkout began. The next morning, more than 30,000 shirtwaist makers were on strike from over 300 shops in the industry. Within a few days, a hundred of the smaller shops settled with the union and reopened their doors, and 10,000 strikers returned to work.
The International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) Local 25, which had been organizing workers in the trade, assumed leadership of the strike. Supported by the Socialist Party in New York, various community, political, and ethnic associations, and the recently organized National Women’s Trade Union League (NWTUL), a cross-class organization of women, the strike captured the imagination of the public and the support of many of New York’s elite. The resistance of large clothing employers, however, remained the most significant obstacle to union success. Major garment firms counted on the police to guard replacement workers and to intimidate and arrest strikers. Even public outrage at the treatment of the “girl strikers” did not break through employer hostility.
By January, most of the small garment shops already had signed agreements with the ILGWU, but the larger factories still refused to bargain with the union. Attempts to negotiate a return to work through American Federation of Labor (AFL) president Samuel Gompers led only to accusations that the AFL had sold the workers out. Others, notably labor publicist Eva McDonald Valesh, accused the socialist leadership of running roughshod over the needs of women workers. Her red-baiting comments brought fire from the NWTUL, which saw her as an opportunist. With the progressive failure of the strike, thousands of women garment workers returned to work. The strike officially came to an end in February 1910. It was, however, only the first of a long series of strikes that built the ILGWU and unionized a significant part of the clothing industry in New York City and other major garment centers. In 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, another landmark, called attention to dangerous working conditions in the trade and brought with it the will to completely organize the industry. By 1920, the ILGWU was the third largest union in the AFL, and it remained an influential force in union politics in the 20th century.
Further reading: Nancy Schrom Dye, As Equals and as Sisters: Feminism and the Labor Movement in the Wo-men’s Trade Union League of New York (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1980); Annelise Orleck, Common Sense and a Little Fire: Women and Working-Class Politics in the United States, 1900-1965 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995).
World History
