International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union - The Uprising of 20,000 and The Great Revolt

The Uprising of 20,000 and The Great Revolt

The ILGWU had a sudden upsurge in membership that came as the result of two successful mass strikes in New York City.

The first, in 1909, was known as “the Uprising of 20,000” and lasted for fourteen weeks. It was largely spontaneous, sparked by a short walkout of workers of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, involving only about 20% of the workforce. That, however, only prompted the rest of the workers to seek help from the union. The firm locked out its employees when it learned what was happening.

The news of the strike spread quickly to all the New York garment workers. At a series of mass meetings, after the leading figures of the American labor movement spoke in general terms about the need for solidarity and preparedness, Clara Lemlich rose to speak about the conditions she and other women worked under and demanded an end to talk and the calling of a strike of the entire industry. The crowd responded enthusiastically and, after taking a traditional Yiddish oath, "If I turn traitor to the cause I now pledge, may this hand wither from the arm I now raise," voted for a general strike. Approximately 20,000 out of the 32,000 workers in the shirtwaist trade walked out in the next two days.

Those workers – primarily immigrants and mostly women – defied the preconceptions of more conservative labor leaders, who thought that immigrants and women could not be organized. Their slogan "We'd rather starve quick than starve slow" summed up the depth of their bitterness against the sweatshops in which they worked.

The strike was a violent one. Police routinely arrested picketers for trivial or imaginary offenses while employers hired local thugs to beat them as police looked the other way.

A group of wealthy women, among them Frances Perkins, Anne Morgan, and Alva Vanderbilt Belmont, supported the struggles of working class women with money and intervention with officials and often picketed with them. They earned the derisive label "the Mink Brigade".

The strike was only partially successful. The ILGWU accepted an arbitrated settlement in February 1910 that improved workers' wages, working conditions, and hours, but did not provide union recognition. A number of companies, including the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, refused to sign the agreement. But even so, the strike won a number of important gains. It encouraged workers in the industry to take action to improve their conditions, brought public attention to the sweatshop conditions.

Several months later, in 1910, the ILGWU led an even larger strike, later named "The Great Revolt", of 60,000 cloakmakers. After months of picketing, prominent members of the Jewish community, led by Louis Brandeis, mediated between the ILGWU and the Manufacturers Association. It led to the Agreement known as the "Protocol of Peace". In it, the ILGWU won union recognition and higher wages, as well as a rudimentary health benefits program. The employers won a promise that workers would settle their grievances through arbitration rather than strikes during the term of the Agreement (a common clause in Union contracts today).