Embedded Files
1933
The International Ladies' Garments Workers Union - AFL
Comes to Town
During the second week of August, 1933, in response to Roosevelt's National Recovery Act (which would eventually set standards of pay and working conditions for numerous industries), the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and the Needle Trades Workers Industrial Union both called industry-wide strikes in the NYC metro area, to set industry standard wages and to eliminate the Sweat Shop. Up to 60,000 workers were on strike, including according to numerous wire stories reports at the time, two (unknown) shops in South River.
Union City - 13 shops - 900 strikes
Passaic - 24 shops - 1600 strikes
Newark - 9 shops, 600 strikers
Plainfield - 4 shops, 700 strikers
Lakehurst - 2 shops, 100 strikers
Hammonton, Egg City Harbor & Vineland - 2000 strikers
Camden - 1000 strikes
Workers were also out in other NJ garment centers like Lodi, Garfield and Rutherford. An August 16 story in The Home News about the industry wide strike in the NYC-NJ metro region noted:
"Operations were maintained in the New Brunswick, Highland Park and South River, where the shops have never been unionized*. Workers showed no indications today of joining the union in a sympathy walkout."
Of course, some South River shops had been unionized the previous year with the independent Needle Trades Workers.
In nearby Perth Amboy, 1000 shirt workers would end a strike by the end of month under the leadership of both the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and the United Garment Workers, with an agreement mediated by John Moffett.
Unlike most strikes, and because of NRA, the New Jersey Dress Manufacturers and Contractors Association, representing 400 NJ and CT employers supported the strike.
As note in the newspaper announcements at the top, the Polish National Home would again act as a meeting place for the workers. The meetings would feature a number of NJ union officials, including Walter Chifoski of the Rubber Workers' Union, who spoke to the crowd in Polish.
The ILGWU organizer, Simon Baumrind (who would eventually head the 2 SR locals) according to The Home News noted that the AFL was "... a different group from that which sought to unionize labor in South River last September, at the time of the riots." Quoting Baumrind:
"The American Federation of Labor is in town. Your mayor and council know it. They also know that the American Federation of Labor has no connection with that organization which was in town last fall."
Baumrind would claim to have signed 600 "women and girls" to join the union by the 25th, predicting 900 members by the end of the week, with 10 employers agreeing to sign contracts.
It was hoped that the dress factories would re-open by Monday or Tuesday of the following week.
By September 1st, the local South River Spokesman newspaper, noted that "practically all" of dress factories were operating, with ILGWU members being paid double the previous wages. Hours were set at 8:30 am to 4:30, with a 1 hour lunch, for a 35 hour week.
A Spring '34 Home News article, claiming that the SR garment industry was entirely organized with payrolls at some plant doubled or tripled and noted new piece work rate of:
10¢ - 31¢
15¢ - 36¢
20¢ - 70¢
October 1935 - Brodsky Strike
JANUARY 1943 - WWII NYC regional wildcat strike of the Silk Dress segment of the industry spread to South River and Jamesburg where struck plants' owners also have factories, including Marian Dress Co., Samuel Dress Co., South River Waist and Dress Co., and Ideal Frock in Jamesburg.
Large banner on Main St. during a rally on Monday, October 16, 1944 as LOCAL 150 - 157 MEMBERS CAMPAIGN FOR the re-election of Franklin Roosevelt
1944 - Local Republican Party chairman, James Armstrong, claimed that employees of local factories were "compelled" to donate to the Democratic Party. Baumrind responded that all money collected voluntarily by the ILGWU was spent locally and all ads were so labeled.
1949 - Local 150 - 157 membership at 2,500.
1951 & 1958
[ABOVE] In what was an annual event with press coverage Baumrind handed out vacation members of Locals 150 and 157. Photo notable for the locals' banner in the background at what is probably the Main St. union headquarters.
LOCAL 150
DRESS-MAKERS
LOCAL 157
BLOUSE-MAKERS
&
MISCELLANEOUS
1958 Garment Strikers in South River wait to get into a union meeting.
Some of the South River shops employing ILGWU members in the early 1950s.
Simon Baumrind (in 1967) would be the long time business manager of the South River ILGWU Locals 150 and 157.
Born in Austria he became a Socialist in his early teens and campaigned for the presidential candidate Eugene Debs and Meyer London, Socialist representative for New York State. He joined the ILGWU in 1911 and would go on to get a law degree and also serve in the US Army during WWI.
He left the union movement in the 1920s during inter-union conflicts with the Communists, returning in the 1930s at the request of the then-new ILGWU President, David Dubinsky, who he'd known since the 1910s. He would also serve on the Executive Board of the New Brunswick Trades & Labor Federation A.F.L.
By 1967, the ILGWU locals would represent over 3000 workers at 42 garment shops in South River and other towns in eastern Middlesex County (New Brunswick, Perth Amboy and Jamesburg), working a 35 hour week.
Three decades after the founding of ILGWU Local 150, in South River, Selover's 1963 history of the town claimed the union had over 2,000 members (1,200 of them living in South River), representing workers in 14 shops producing "... a variety of women's apparel, including blouses, sportswear, children's dresses and regular garments for women".
Local area rep Burton Berinsky (who had been an organizer for ILGWU's Underwear Workers' Union Local 85 in Long Beach, New Jersey) served as the Local 150 - 157 assistant manager starting in 1959.
Baumrind retired in 1967 and died at 80 years old in California in 1971. Edward "Eddie" Hinz ILGWU District Manager for Monmouth and Ocean counties, took over as Local 150 - 157 manager, a position he also held for Local 85 in Long Branch with contracts at 30 factories employing 1,100 union members at the time.
ILGWU Shop Steward Jennie Kaczmarek at Brodsky's discusses piece rates with Baumrind in the 1960s.
Berinsky (seated) with local secretary Carol Thomas prepares picket signs in 1958 during the 1958 strike.
Within the labor movement of the period, there were at least 3 major unions representing garment workers, The Int'l Ladies Garment Workers Union (women's clothing), The Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (men's clothing) and the United Garment Workers (work clothes). Because of differences in the clothing market (including, according the ILR page "... matters of how piece rates were figured, and how seasonal changes in fashion affected women's apparel manufacturing more than it did the men's") the division made sense.
THE AMALGAMATED CLOTHING WORKERS OF AMERICA
ACWA Local 190 "Sheepskin and Leather Workers" in New Brunswick represented workers in the city's leather garment industry and claimed to be the first garment workers local established in the area in 1933.
The ACWA was active in nearby New Brunswick, with ACWA Local 192 representing workers at the Bond Company and the Aplo Company (1930s - 600 - 900 workers). The local, in the 1930s and 1940s was said to be 90% Italian-Americans, with some union meeting conducted in Italian.
Employees of at least two notable South River garment companies, The South River Coat Co. and Berman's were organized by the CIO's primary garment workers union.
One SRC employee's obituary in the 1970s mentions an Amalgamated Clothing & Textile Workers* Union Local 506. ACWA Local 506 represented workers at other military clothing suppliers in central Jersey, like Bee Bee Manufacturing (Army field jackets), Long Branch in the 1950s. It was part of the ACWA's JOINT BOARD OF SHIRT, LEISUREWEAR, ROBE, GLOVE AND RAINWEAR WORKERS UNION, NYC.
(* The ACWA and the United Textile Workers would merge in 1976, forming the ACTWU), so this seems most likely.
Composite of union labor and USA-made items advertised by Berman, sold at their on-site retail outlet in the ads in the 1960s.
Unknown at this point exactly which local*, one of the above or another area ACWA unit, represented the South River employees at A. Berman's or South River Coat Co.. The latter company had contracts with the US Government for "mackinaw" coats for the CCC, and during and after WWII, for military olive drab overcoats and field coats. Berman's garments in the post-War period appears to have included boy's and men's clothing - workwear (overalls) and denim coats, etc, so their workers being organized by ACWA would also make sense.
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