You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Wednesday December 30, 1914
New York, New York - Garment Workers Choose a Grand Industrial Organization
Delegates representing some 100,000 garment workers met at Webster Hall in New York City this past week. They are referred to, by the newspapers of New York (see below), as the "seceding" faction of the United Garment Workers of American. However, according to the "seceders," it is their "faction" which constituted the majority of that organization. In the two days of the convention, December 26th and 28th, these delegates voted for amalgamation with the tailors and renamed themselves the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America.
From the New York Tribune of December 27, 1914:
GARMENT WORKERS IN BIG CONVENTION
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Amalgamation with Tailors for Great Industrial Body
to Be Discussed
The seceding faction of the United Garment Workers of America began yesterday the largest convention of its kind held in this city for several years. Webster Hall, 119 East 11th st., was crowded with about 1,800 people, of whom 150 were delegates from Chicago, Boston, Cincinnati, Baltimore, Syracuse, Philadelphia, Rochester, Woodbine, N. J., and Montreal, Can.
After the secession suits were instituted to decide which faction had the right to the name and property of the organization. The courts decided in favor of the regular body.
The seceders have called the convention to outline a policy, to consider the question of amalgamating with the Tailors' Industrial Union and to adopt a name, which will probably be the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America.
The two bodies would have a combined membership of more than 100,000. The tailors' union has already voted in favor of amalgamation and the convention has been empowered to decide for or against the plan. The delegates from New York sections paraded to the hall from Rutgers Square, carrying wreaths of flowers.
Sidney Hillman, former chief clerk of the Clockmakers' Union and now the head of the seceding garment workers, presided at the convention. The first session was taken up in the hearing of reports and the appointment of committees.
From The New York Times of December 27, 1914:
TAILORS IN NEW UNION.
----------
Seceders from Garment Workers Hold Big Convention.
About 1,800 garment workers form the seceding faction of the United Garment Workers met in Webster Hall, 119 East Eleventh Street, yesterday to decide on the question of amalgamation with the Tailors' Industrial Union. Of those who attended yesterday's session 150 were delegates from the sections of the seceders in many cities outside of New York, including Chicago, Boston, Cincinnati, Syracuse, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Rochester, and Montreal, Canada. The New York delegated, numbering 500, paraded from Rutgers Square to the hall.
The Tailors' Industrial Union is composed of the tailors who make clothing to order, while most of the seceding faction of the United Garment Workers is composed of tailors who make ready-made garments. The union has a charter from the American Federation of Labor under the name of the Journeymen Tailors' Union of America and has been notified to resume that name. Sidney Hillman, former Chief Clerk of the Clockmakers' Union, who is President of the seceding faction of the garment workers and who presided at yesterday's session of the convention, said last evening that the Tailors' Industrial Union has voted for amalgamation.
[Hillman said:]
There is no doubt..that the amalgamation will take place, and the united bodies will apply to the American Federation for a charter as the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America.
Note: Amalgamation did indeed take place and the new organization of 100,000 garment workers was named as Hillman predicted. Whether or not the A. C. W. of A. will be recognized by the A. F. of L. remains to be seen.
DAY ONE, DECEMBER 26, 1914
GENERAL OFFICERS REPORT LAYS OUT REASONS FOR SPLIT
The General Officers report was a long one, and will be covered by Hellraisers in two parts, begun today and completed tomorrow. The reasons for the split within the United Garment Workers are put forth at the beginning of the report, with a look back at the controversial Nashville Convention which took place this past October.
The General Officers Report was authorized by the General Executive Board:
Sidney Hillman
Sidney Hillman, General President;
Joseph Schlossberg, General Secretary;
Tobias Lapan, General Treasurer;
Isidor Kantrowitz, General Auditor;
Morris J Elstien, Frank Rosenblum,
George Suder, A. D. Marimpietri,
Samuel Zorn, E. Rabkin
REPORT OF GENERAL OFFICERS
To the Special Convention of the United Garment Workers of America.
Greeting:
For the first time in its history our organization now meets in special convention. Extraordinary times call for extraordinary action.
We have been making history for the last few months, and in a most vigorous and decisive manner. But this, beyond doubt, the most important page in our history, is still being written. It is, therefore, impossible to present to you here an exhaustive statement and a complete analysis of what has recently transpired in our part of the Labor Movement. We must content ourselves with a more or less hasty sketch instead of a thorough study.
The superficial observer has probably noticed no change in the Labor Union Movement for the last quarter of a century, since the American Federation of Labor won the ascendency over the once powerful Knights of Labor. Our own organization, let it incidentally be mentioned, was at the beginning of that period formed in opposition to the clothing workers' organization of the K. of L.
But the external appearances are misleading. For internally, among the rank and file of our class, a change in spirit has been going on, slowly it is true, perhaps too slowly, but steadily nevertheless. The change, gradually striking its roots ever deeper and spreading ever wider, will be nothing short of a revolution, when it will have come to a head. The underground rumblings of this change are making themselves heard ever more forcibly. The warning is clearly being given to all that are in the Labor Movement to take the path that leads to industrial democracy. Pity those whose ears and eyes are closed to the actual situation in the Labor Movement. Before long they will find themselves caught in the burning lava of a most active volcano. They will only have themselves to blame.
The ultimate aim of the Labor Movement is to bring the working class into its own, transform it from a working CLASS within a capitalist SOCIETY into a free and democratic industrial republic. But that presupposes a Labor Movement that is itself a democratic Working Class Republic. Instinctively, the working class in this country, obeying the dictates of their class interests, hew their own path through the fossils of despotism, corruption, obsolete methods and ignorance to a Labor Movement that is such not only in name, but in fact.
The forces of brutal despotism in the former administration of our own Union were purblind to the true interests of the Membership. The change of spirit among the Membership from meek submission to the rule from above to an assertion of its rights, backed up by an ever growing sense of selfconsciousness, was either completely ignored by those who were entrusted with the destinies of hundreds of thousands of people, or cynically made light of.
The people were craving for an organization that should elevate its members in every sense; the officials made of it an emporium for the sale of supplies, the revenues of which were to be used not for the organization and education of the tailors, but for a padded pay roll and all sorts of useless expenses
To the people a strike was a means, sometimes undertaken at the risk of their own lives and liberty, to improve their conditions, and each strike won was considered a milestone on the road to a happier life; to the officers a strike was a nuisance to get rid of by hook or crook, by trying to force treacherous settlements upon the strikers, or by inducing the City Mayor to have the police club and arrest the pickets.
New York, Chicago, Cincinnati, Baltimore and other cities echoed the curses of the tailors betrayed by the former General Officers.
To the people the union label was supposed to be a mark of labor done by organized workingmen under conditions better than those of the unorganized; by the officials the union label was converted into a new means of enslaving the members both to the bosses in the factory and to the bosses in the union.
The tailors grumbled, protested, made attempts to stand up for their rights, but were ruthlessly crushed under the iron heel of brute force. Despotism of the officialdom was the very foundation of our organization. The international constitution, as it still stands, renders the General Officers all powerful and the Membership perfectly helpless.
But the Labor Movement, like a phoenix, rises from its own ashes. Though repeatedly thrust to the ground, the tailors drew new strength from the very ground and rose with renewed vigor.
In keeping with the policy of the former administration to keep itself within a most respectable and safe distance from the Membership, the last biennial convention was called to meet at Nashville, Tenn., many hundred of miles away from the nearest clothing center. But for the first time in their history the tailors were well organized, and they determined to undertake the long, tedious and most expensive trip to the hiding place for the convention.
Necessity was again the proverbial mother of invention.
A devilish conspiracy, which could be conceived only in moral degeneracy and executed in treason, was hatched out in order to keep the tailor and cutter locals—the overwhelming majority of the Membership—out from the convention, if they were able to pay their fares to Nashville: A conspiracy for wholesale disfranchisement!
The former administration's man Friday was ordered to manufacture bills against the undesirable locals, which included the largest in the organization. Armed with those fraudulent bills the former general officers undertook to bar admission of the tailor and cutter locals to the convention.
The carrying out of this infamous part of the criminal conspiracy was entrusted to a credential committee, of which at least one member was known not to have been elected by his local union as a delegate to the convention, and who also was guilty of the very offense for which he was under orders to convict our local unions.
The humor of the situation lay in the fact that our locals were charged with enormous indebtedness, because of which they were sentenced to disfranchisement, at a time that they paid into the international treasury more than they had ever paid before, when their rights to seats in the convention had not been questioned.
Drunk with power derived from a dishonestly made and still more dishonestly used and abused constitution, and blind to the changed spirit and growing self-consciousness of the tailors, the former general officers were confident of a successful execution of their conspiracy and of a victory over the ENEMY, i. e., the MEMBERSHIP.
But they reckoned without the hosts.
The tailor and cutter delegates knew their duties and responsibilities to their constituents. They knew that they were not sent on a junketing trip to Nashville. The pennies that went to pay their expenses were contribute out of the workingmen's pockets for the purpose of protecting and promoting the interests of the members. If that could not be done at the original convention place, at the State Capitol, they adjourned to Duncan Hotel, where they transacted such business as was possible under the circumstances.
That convention, representing the overwhelming majority of the membership, entrusted into our hands the conduct of the affairs of our organization
We feel sure that we have given to the organization the best that was in us, and have done all that was possible under the circumstances to conserve the interests of the Membership.
Our path, as you well know, was not strewn with roses when we returned from the convention to New York to take hold of the business of our union.
The former general administration announced in their reports the amount of $72,000 as among the assets of the organization. But the funds, as well as the headquarters and all other property, were in the hands of the usurpers, the former general officers, who re-elected themselves to office, without any legal authority and against the wishes of the members.
We had to enter upon our duties without a cent in the treasury, without even an office or stationery.
The first problem that presented itself for solution was that of protecting ourselves from interference in our work by the usurpers.
We consulted able legal talent, men who are themselves interested in and connected with the Labor Movement. The matter was considered from all angles. We did not wish to go to law. We wished to see all disputes within the labor movement disposed of by the Movement itself. We also had no desire to spend our energy and funds in litigation. But we were placed at a tremendous disadvantage by the fact that the usurpers were in possession of everything, outside of the Membership, and had been in office for a number of years before. These circumstances made it easy for them to present a plausible case to one not closely familiar with the actual facts. The necessity to protect ourselves from interference forced us to apply to the courts for a restraining order. Our application was denied, but our purpose was accomplished. We were enabled to proceed with our work for the organization undisturbed until near the convention, to wit, December 10th, when the usurpers secured an injunction against your General Officers.
The evident purpose of the injunction was to prevent the issuing of the call for the special convention, but in that the usurpers failed, as they came somewhat late. Litigation along the same lines in Chicago resulted in full protection for our locals in their rights to their property.
In Cincinnati the agent of the former general officers was enjoined from interfering with the rights of our locals and members. Likewise in Boston.
We repeat that we entered into all litigation most reluctantly, considering it as an unavoidable incident in our work, but we didn't look to it for a solution of our problem. A victory in court is but an empty shell if not supported by the Membership. A defeat in court is of no consequence at all if the organization enjoys the confidence of the Membership, and is sustained by it.
We are happy to state the Membership has in the most enthusiastic manner manifested its confidence in our present organization.
The action of the Nashville convention, ridding the organization of faithless officials and restoring the union to the Membership, electrified the rank and file with enthusiasm that is not only still being sustained, but is even growing in intensity, as the members realize that the work of the convention was not of temporary but of lasting force.
SOURCES
New York Tribune
(New York, New York)
-Dec 27, 1914
http://www.newspapers.com/...
The New York Times
(New York, New York)
-Dec 27, 1914
http://query.nytimes.com/...
Documentary History of the
Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, 1914-1916
"The New York Convention", pages 43-108
http://babel.hathitrust.org/...
IMAGES
Garment Workers, Webster Hall, New York City, ca 1914,
(Very possibly the founding convention of the
Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America)
http://keithyorkcity.wordpress.com/...
Sidney Hillman
http://darrow.law.umn.edu/...
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There Is Power In The Union - Utah Phillips
There is power, there is power,
In a band of working folks
When they stand hand in hand.
That's a power, that's a power
That must rule in every land,
One Industrial Union Grand!
-Joe Hill
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