Guide to the ILGWU. Local 89. Luigi Antonini Correspondence,
1919-1968

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.

Local 89 of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU), also known as the Italian Dressmakers' Union, was chartered in 1919 and based in New York, New York. Luigi Antonini, garment worker, labor and political leader, and official of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union.

Luigi Antonini was born in Vallata Irpina, Italy, in 1883. After serving in the Italian army, he emigrated to the United States in 1908. He joined the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU) in 1913, and was elected to the executive board of Local 25 the following year. A skilled organizer and leader, he was voted a vice president of the ILGWU in 1925, and became First Vice-President in 1934, a position he held for over thirty years.

Antonini was a founding member of the Anti-Fascist Alliance and president of the Italian-American Labor Council. He was also chairman of the American Labor Party and was one of the founders of the Liberal Party of New York. He served on a number of boards and advisory commissions, public and private, during World War II. Antonini remained active in union and political matters until his death in 1968.

Correspondence, speeches, and subject files covering Luigi Antonini's activities, both within and outside of the ILGWU, from the 1920s to the 1960s.

Individuals and organizations represented in the collection include: August Bellanca; David Dubinsky; Fania Cohn; Giuseppe Faravelli; John F. Kennedy; Fiorello LaGuardia; Jay Lovestone; Guiseppe Modigliani; Franklin Roosevelt; Giuseppe Saragat; Norman Thomas; Harry S. Truman; Gus Tyler; Robert F. Wagner, Jr.; locals and joint boards of the ILGWU; the AFL-CIO; the Confederazione italiana sindacati lavoratori; the Italian-American Labor Council; the Textile Workers' Union of America; Unity House (the ILGWU workers' resort); and the Women's Trade Union League.

The correspondence documents many of Antonini's most significant contributions to the ILGWU, the post-war Italian labor movement, and politics in New York State and the U.S. Included in the collection are materials relating to Antonini's role in the ILGWU, especially in union administrative matters; documentation of his involvement in building a free labor movement in post-war Italy; items dealing with his activities in the American Labor Party and the Liberal Party of New York; and items that highlight his role in anti-fascist organizations before and during the Second World War.

5780. ILGWU Records

5780/024. Local 89 records

5780/064. Local 89 minutes

5780/213. Local 89-22-1 records

"Permanent deposit"