Labor Looks Forward To Great Things
Miller, Abraham
By Abraham Miller Labor Looks Forward To Great Things Amalgamated Official Sees Great Opportunities Only If Workers Are Alert to Their Own Interests. AGAIN the American workers are celebrating...
...time seemed impossible of approach...
...Working conditions were brought down to the lowest possible level...
...Very few organizations had enough V ality left to .ilage a comeback <r challenge the persistent onslaught on the part of he employers on wages and conditions...
...One year ago the labor movement was dominated by a spirit of defeatism and in a good number of cases by a feeling of despair...
...In my own organization, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, we, in the last few months, havs succeeded in organising over 20,000 shirt workers in several states in addition to thousands of clothing workers in snd outside of New York City...
...But What I am interested in is the new spirit in the movement, the spirit of hope, the spirit of conscious self-assertion with which the movement seems to be imbued...
...These few remarks would be incomplete if—as a clothing worker —I did not say a few words about tVo nfconoTMpna...
...I do not mean to say that conditions now are so much better...
...May 1st is thetr Labor Day and it has been aince 1889...
...Louis and a number of other places we .iave gained control of shops and plants that for a long Amalgamated Clothing Workers Strike in Two New Fields The Amalgamated Clothing Workers have called on strike some 4,000 workers in the bias binding industry and in the white duck clothing trade...
...With the miners definitely on the up-grade, there is hope, therefore, that the others will ->lso And a way for organization...
...In Pennsylvania alone we have organised over 2,000 clothing »orkers within the last ten months...
...The International Ladies' Garment Workers, the mllHrry workers, the csp mskers and others havs likewise mad* tremendous organization progress...
...No, that is not the case...
...The organisation work is in the hands of I. Hollander and Gertrude Weil Klein of the New York Joint Board...
...Let us, therefor*, on this Labor Day, dedicate ourselves to organisation of the un-organiced and for the improvement of their conditions...
...By Abraham Miller Labor Looks Forward To Great Things Amalgamated Official Sees Great Opportunities Only If Workers Are Alert to Their Own Interests...
...In Rochester, Buffalo, Troy, Syracuse, Milwaukee, St...
...AGAIN the American workers are celebrating Labor Day— a day dedicated to the dignity and sovereignty of the Man of Toil...
...Resigning oneself to fate became ..'e predominant policy of whatever was still -eft of the labor movement...
...Unemployment had reached its peak...
...While *e are still in the dark as to the future of the steel and automobile workers all of us are happy to note the wonderful progress if the miners and their successful organization of tens of thousands -f hitherto unorganized workers...
...About fifty shops are tied up in both industries and more workers are being called out every day...
...Since tha first Monday in September has been our Labor Day for a long time, let ua look retrospectively *o the Labor Day of one year ago and see whether or not w* have made any progress...
...The majority of workers In the white duck industry are girls and in the bias binding division the girls number about fifty per cent...
...The immediate future seemed bleak and hopeles-p'to most of us, without any visible sign of improvement Oi< the horizon...
...Let each organisation in it* particular industry do ita share, aid we can look into the future with mors hop* and for a brighter day for the tolling masse* of America...
...success of the unions in the needle trade...
...At enthusiastic meetings of both divisions, addressed by Louis Hollander, general manager of the Joint Board, Abraham Hershkowitz and the organizers, the strikers organized into committees to bring out every unorganized worker...
...Labor Day is a purely American product, for the labor movement of the rest of the world knows nothing about our Labor Day...
...In my opinion the organised labor movement has made tremendo i galas, both material and spiritual within the last twelve months...
...that unemployment has vanished from our midst or that the employers hve suddenly begun t > worry through sleepless nights about the welfare of their workers...
...For a long time we in the trade union, as well as in the political movement, were very much worried over the fact that our basic industry, like the steel, automo lie workers and others were not in the ranks or organized labor, n the case of the miners we witnessed the pitiable spectacle >f continual disintegration of one of mr erstwhile most powerful unions in the country, the United line Workers of America...
Vol. 16 • September 1933 • No. 10
