Women labor union members; Women labor union members -- United States
Boot and Shoe Workers' Union. 1889
Hotel and Restaurant Employés Union. 1890
Retail Clerks' International Protective Association. 1890
United Garment Workers of America. 1891
International Brotherhood of Bookbinders. 1892
Tobacco Workers' International Union. 1895
International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. 1900
Shirt, Waist and Laundry Workers International U'n. 1900
United Textile Workers' Union. 1901
International Glove Workers' Union of N. America. 1902
One group of unions, older than any of these, dating back to 1885, are
the locals of the hat trimmers. These workers belong to no national
organization, and it is only recently that they have been affiliated
with the American Federation of Labor. They are not, as might be
judged from the title, milliners; they trim and bind men's hats. They
coöperate with the Panama and Straw Hat Trimmers and Operators. In New
York the hat trimmers and the workers in straw are combined into one
organization, under the name of the United Felt, Panama and Straw Hat
Trimmers' and Operators' Union of Greater New York. The Hat Trimmers
are almost wholly a women's organization, and their affairs are
controlled almost entirely by women. The various locals coöperate with
and support one another. But in their stage of organization this group
of unions closely resembles the local unions, whether of men or
women, which existed in so many trades before the day of nation-wide
organizations set in. Eventually it must come about that they join the
national organization. Outside of New York there are locals in New
Jersey, Massachusetts and Connecticut. The parent union is that of
Danbury, Connecticut.
The girl hat-trimmers, under the leadership of Melinda Scott, of
Newark and New York, have during the last ten years improved both
wages and conditions and have besides increased their numbers and
aided in forming new locals in other centers. They are known in the
annals of organized labor chiefly for the loyalty and devotion they
showed during the strike of the Danbury hatters in 1909. They not only
refused, to a girl, to go back to work, when that would have broken
the strike, but time after time, when money was collected and sent to
them, even as large a sum as one thousand dollars, they handed it
over to the men's organizations, feeling that the men, with wives
and children dependent upon them, were in even greater need than
themselves. "Seeing the larger vision and recognizing the greater
need, these young women gave to the mother and the child of their
working brothers. Although a small group, there is none whose members
have shown a more complete understanding of the inner meaning of trade
unionism, or a finer spirit of self-sacrifice in the service of their
fellows."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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