Skip to main content

ILGWU. Independents. Out-of-Business Contracts

 Collection
Identifier: 5780/147

Scope and Contents

This collection consists of agreements and contracts between the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and defunct independent garment manufacturers.

Dates

  • Majority of material found within 1943-1995.

Creator

Language of Materials

Collection material in English

Conditions Governing Access

The ILGWU Records, except for publications and materials produced for publication, are restricted. Materials created prior to twenty years from the current date are open to researchers only with prior written permission from the Director of the Kheel Center; materials created during the past twenty-years are closed; the minutes of the General Executive Board are closed. For more information contact the Kheel Center.

Conditions Governing Use

This collection must be used in keeping with the Kheel Center Information Sheet and Procedures for Document Use.

Biographical / Historical

The International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union was founded in New York City in 1900 by mostly Socialist immigrant workers who sought to unite the various crafts in the growing women’s garment industry. The union soon reflected changes in the sector and rapidly organized thousands of unskilled and semi-skilled women, mostly Jewish and Italian young immigrants. Exemplifying the “new unionism,” the ILGWU led two of the most widespread and best-known industrial strikes of the early Twentieth Century: the shirtwaist makers’ strike of 1909 in New York City and the cloak makers’ strike of 1910 in Chicago. The union also tried to adapt to the fragmented and unstable nature of the industry. It adopted the “protocol of peace,” a system of industrial relations that attempted to ensure stability and limit strikes and production disruption by providing for an arbitration system to resolve disputes.

The ILGWU exemplified the European-style social unionism of its founding members. They pursued bread and butter issues but provided educational opportunities, benefits, and social programs to union members as well. In 1919, the ILGWU became the first American union to negotiate an unemployment compensation fund that was contributed to by its employers. The ILGWU also pioneered in the establishment of an extremely progressive health care program for its members which included not only regional Union Health Centers but also a resort for union workers, known as Unity House. The Union also had an imaginative and pioneering Education Department which not only trained workers in traditional union techniques, but provided courses in citizenship and the English language.

David Dubinsky, an immigrant from Belarus who came to the US in 1911, provided strong leadership that led to unprecedented growth in the union during his presidency from 1932 to 1966. He led the union through successful internal anti-communist struggles, built on the ascendancy of industrial unionism by encouraging the formation of the Committee for Industrial Organization, and helped the union become an important political force in New York City and state politics, and in the national Democratic Party and Liberal Party as well.

In the period following the Second World War, the union suffered a decline in membership as manufacturers avoided unionization and took advantage of less expensive labor by moving shops from the urban centers in the northeast to the south, and later abroad. The ethnic and racial character of the ILGWU also changed as European immigrants were supplanted by Asians, Latin Americans, African- Americans, and immigrants from the Caribbean.

In July 1995 the ILGWU merged with the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU) at a joint convention, forming UNITE (Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees). At the time the new union had a membership of about 250,000 in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico.

Extent

5 cubic feet

Additional Description

Abstract

This collection consists of agreements and contracts between the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and defunct independent garment manufacturers.

Arrangement

This collection is in order by company, as it was received.

Related Materials

5780. ILGWU records

5780/075. ILGWU. Collective Bargaining Agreements

5780/075 mf. ILGWU. Collective Bargaining Agreements. Microfilm

5780/085. ILGWU. National War Labor Board case files

5780/145. ILGWU. Association Agreements. Out-of-Business Contracts

5780/146. ILGWU. Master Agreements. Out-of-Business Contracts

5780/158. ILGWU. Out-of-Business Contracts

5780/191. ILGWU. Association Contracts

5780/202. ILGWU. Operations Department. Collective Bargaining Agreements

Quantity:

5 linear feet

Forms of Material:

Contracts

General

Contact Information:
Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives 227 Ives Hall Tower Road Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853 (607) 255-3183 kheelref@cornell.edu https://catherwood.library.cornell.edu/kheel/
Compiled by:
Kheel Staff
EAD encoding:
Cheryl Beredo, July 2011

Subjects

Finding Aid & Administrative Information

Title
ILGWU. Independents. Out-of-Business Contracts,
Status
Completed
Author
Compiled by Kheel Staff
Date
July 2011
Language of description
Undetermined
Script of description
Code for undetermined script

Revision Statements

  • 02/23/2024: This resource was modified by the ArchivesSpace Preprocessor developed by the Harvard Library (https://github.com/harvard-library/archivesspace-preprocessor)

Repository Details

Repository Details

Part of the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives Repository

https://catherwood.library.cornell.edu/kheel/
Contact:
227 Ives Hall Tower Road
Ithaca NY 14853
607-255-3183

Staff Interface | Visit ArchivesSpace.org | v3.3.1 | Send Feedback or Report a Problem