ILGWU Governor Smith's Hearings and Arbitration with Various Associations Records, 1924
Collection Number: 5780/165

The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union was once one of the largest labor unions in the United States founded in 1900 by local union delegates representing about 2,000 members in cities in the northeastern United States. It was one of the first U.S. Unions to have a membership consisting of mostly females, and it played a key role in the labor history of the 1920s and 1930s. The union is generally referred to as the "ILGWU" or the "ILG". The ILGWU grew in geographical scope, membership size, and 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. The ILGWU merged with the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union in 1995 to form the Union of Needle trades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE). UNITE merged with the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union (HERE) in 2004 to create a new union known as UNITE HERE. The two unions that formed UNITE in 1995 represented only 250,000 workers between them, down from the ILGWU's peak membership of 450,000 in 1969.

Beginning in March 1924, the ILGWU and the Joint Board of Cloak and Dressmakers' Union began negotiations with the Merchants' Ladies' Garment Association (jobbers), the Cloak, Suit and Skirt Manufacturers' Protective Association (manufacturers), and the American Cloak and Suit Manufacturers' Association (sub-manufacturers). When no agreement could be reached by June 1924, New York Governor Alfred E. Smith appointed a Special Advisory Commission consisting of George Gordon Battle (Chairman), Herbert Lehman, Arthur Wolf, Lindsay Rogers, and Bernard Schientag (State Industrial Commissioner). Representing the union and associations were Morris Hillquit (ILGWU), Samuel Blumberg (Merchants' Ladies' Garment Association) and William Klein (Cloak and Suit Manufacturers' Protective Association). Public hearings took place between June 17 and June 25, and on June 27, recommendations were submitted. Accepted by the union, sub-manufacturers, and manufacturers, the jobbers refused until July 7, 1924 when the Merchants' Association agreed to the terms of the Governors' Commission.

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ILGWU Governor Smith's Hearings and Arbitration with Various Associations Records #5780/165. Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Cornell University Library.

Related Collections: 5780: ILGWU records 5780/161: ILGWU New York Cloak Joint Board's Advisory Commission on the Cloak, Suit, and Skirt Industry in New York Records 6036/009: Governor's Advisory Commission on the Cloak, Suit and Skirt Industry