Guide to the ILGWU. Organizing Department records

Founded in 1900 by local union delegates representing about 2,000 members in cities in the northeastern United States, the ILGWU grew in geographical scope, membership size, political influence to become one of the most powerful forces in American organized labor by mid-century. Representing workers in the women's garment industry, the ILGWU worked to improve working and living conditions of its members through collective bargaining agreements, training programs, health care facilities, cooperative housing, educational opportunities, and other efforts. In 1995, the ILGWU merged with the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU) to form the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE).

The ILGWU established the Department of Organization and Field Services in 1980. The department was responsible for, among other things, the coordination and survey of organizing activities, coordination and administration of information services including computer utilization, and the administration of all OSHA-related matters. It also coordinated the identification and implementation of new services.

As the ILGWU’s central office for organizing, the Department of Organization and Field Services worked with affiliates of the international (e.g., local unions, district councils, and regional departments) in dealing with issues in their locations. In addition to working with union affiliates, the department also worked on legal and legislative fronts to ensure safe conditions for garment workers. Insofar as the department conducted surveys and gathered information, its work resembled that of the Research Department, and insofar as it supported pro-labor legislative efforts. To make clear the primary purpose of the Department of Organization and Field Services, the Report and Proceedings from the 1983 ILGWU Convention noted that, “The central concern is organization, and from this has stemmed the other broad activities which require skills, knowledge and information to be successful.”

Taken together, the two collections comprising the records of the Department of Organization and Field Services provide a general sense of the work of the department, though they are not physically extensive. Organizing efforts by affiliate organizations of the ILGWU, and on which department staff assisted, may be documented in that affiliate's records or elsewhere in the ILGWU records.

Arranged alphabetically, these records (5780/144) include correspondence, memoranda, reports, printed material created or collected by the Organizing and Field Services Department, and other material relating to its activities dating from between 1961 and 1989. In addition to documenting routine operations of the department, these records also include documentation of efforts to roll back imports, including reports on congressional visits on a resolution on the subject. Also included are monthly reports on organizing activities from joint boards and regional departments, as well as periodic reports submitted by local unions', joint boards', and regional departments' organizing departments to the central organizing department; these reports include names of organizers and shops organized, and descriptions of current, future, and abandoned campaigns that were to be included in the Organizing Department's reports to the General Executive Board.

The ILGWU's company files (5780/205) contain Dun and Bradstreet Report on companies, reports on the companies' activities with non-ILGWU firms, memoranda on companies and efforts to organize workers therein, as well as some authorization cards.