| Reviews / Comptes Rendus | Labour/Le Travail, 52

Reviews / Comptes Rendus

Kenneth Wolensky, Nicole Wolensky, and Robert Wolensky, Fighting for the Union Label: The Women's Garment Industry and the ILGWU in Pennsylvania (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press 2002)

WITH MINING EMPLOYMENT in steep decline in the Pennsylvania anthracite region, garment contracting factories left New York City in droves in the 1920s and 1930s in search of cheap labour and in an effort to avoid unions. Fighting for the Union Label documents the story of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union's (ILGWU) efforts to organize "runaway" shops in the Pennsylvania-Wyoming Valley during the post-World War II era. In particular the book focuses on the role Min Matheson played in building the union and its infrastructure. From its peak in the early 1960s, the union rapidly lost power as a result of deindustrialization. The authors argue that the flight of garment manufacturers overseas in the last few decades was rooted in the earlier exodus from New York City. They suggest that lessons for today's union organizers can be drawn from the ILGWU's post-World War II successes.

The ILGWU's organizing success depended upon cultivating relationships outside of the shop floor and in the larger community. The ILGWU depended upon building inter-union solidarity with the United Mine Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. The Teamsters were able to put significant pressure on intransigent factory owners by refusing to transport raw and finished materials to and from their facilities. The ILGWU also sought to gain support from community élites through participation in Community Chest and Red Cross blood drives. Furthermore, union leaders cultivated relationships with progressive employers. The union developed close ties with democratic politicians at the local, state, and national levels through concerted work on political campaigns. Active ILGWU participation in electoral politics played a major role in the political realignment of the anthracite region toward the Democratic Party. Developing these partnerships signified both for Min Matheson personally and the union at large a turning away from a more radical worldview toward a belief in the possibility of reform.

While coalitions helped build a union-friendly environment in the Wyoming Valley District, the ILGWU's success ultimately rested upon determination in the face of the violence. A significant number of garment factories in the region were owned by prominent figures in organized crime. These staunchly anti-union employers engaged in intimidation, threats, and physical violence to undermine union efforts to organize workers in their factories. Making things even more difficult for the union, these gangsters often had the protection of corrupt police departments. Some of the most interesting passages of the book document Min Matheson and other rank-and-file women's tactics for confronting mob violence as well as their own fear.

The ILGWU and Matheson, the authors argue, were deeply committed to "social unionism," a belief that the union meant more than organizing for higher wages and better working conditions. The goal of "social unionism" was to build camaraderie and a union "way of life." This commitment required the establishment of a union infrastructure in Wyoming Valley. The components of this infrastructure consisted of a union newsletter, a garment workers' health care center, and a district chorus. Perhaps one of the most significant accomplishments of the union was the establishment of the Wyoming Valley District's Union Health Center in Wilkes-Barre. In its first 10 years the center provided health care services to over 20,000 district members. Given the health center's achievements, greater attention could have been paid to its development. While the chorus undoubtedly played an important role in the union "way of life," the authors' decision to publish the lyrics of so many songs without discussing their importance is a bit tedious for the reader.

The local and the national union also drew strength from a comprehensive educational program. The program largely emanated from Unity House, an elaborate workers' center and summer resort for union members. While significant attention is deservedly devoted to the educational aspects of Unity House, in discussing the resort's importance more attention could have been given to the role of leisure in the union "way of life."

A significant component of the educational programs and organizing efforts of the ILGWU consisted of transforming the place of women not only in the workplace but also in the home and the community. The authors document Matheson's successful efforts in the late 1940s to return the vote to women in Pittston, Pennsylvania. Before this campaign, women signed for their ballots and at the insistence of polling officials turned them over to their husbands. In spite of this intriguing story, the authors fail to convincingly document how the union changed the home lives of rank-and-file women. This weakness stems from the fact that they have written an organizational history rather than a social history. But the problem also stems from a general indifference to gender analysis. While issues related to gender seem constantly present in the book, the authors rarely address the matter directly. Even with a focus on organizers and union leaders, the issue of gender could have been addressed more adeptly.

Fighting for the Union Label leaves the reader with the distinct impression that the ILGWU's greatest success in the Wyoming Valley — the 1958 General Dress Strike — contained the seeds for the ultimate demise of the union. With the unions entrenched in garment manufacturing in the Northeast US, contractors and jobbers, often with pressure from retailers, began to move production to the South and ultimately out of the country altogether. While there is no question that these forces were outside of the control of the union, the authors fail to look critically at the ILGWU and examine how the union's strategies may have hindered its capacity to adapt to this challenge. The absence of critique undercuts the authors' efforts to learn from the past. By failing to criticize the ILGWU, the authors ironically leave the readers with a sense of hopelessness. In spite of all the efforts of the workers, the reader is left wondering if capitalists will always win out.

Areas that seem prime candidates for critical analysis include the nationalistic strategies of the union and the ILGWU's over-reliance on the Democratic Party. The authors' insistence that the union was anti-racist, while potentially true, is far from compelling. A more sophisticated analysis of race, as it pertains to both the union hierarchy and the rank-and-file, would be illuminating. A more critical approach would have helped provide the reader with a greater understanding of the difficulties the union had in redefining itself in the 1990s. The book's cover has a photograph of an older white woman holding a photograph of a union advertisement urging consumers to "Buy American." Did this strategy forestall union efforts to organize workers in Central America, the Carribean, and Asia? While the book acknowledges the Democratic Party's support of NAFTA, it fails to mention that the erosion of the Cotton Textile Agreement occurred with little opposition from the party in the 1960s and 1970s. More attention by the authors to the mistakes made by the union and its members would have provided the reader some room for hope in the future.

In spite of its shortcomings, Fighting for the Union Label introduces us to a little known chapter of labour history — women garment workers' struggle to organize in rural Pennsylvania. The authors successfully make the case that Min Matheson deserves a place in the canon of labor heroes. And most importantly, the book makes us rethink the history of deindustrialization by turning back the clock 50 years.


Daniel Kerr Case Western Reserve University

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