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.
Formed in 1979, the Pacific Northwest District Council included local unions that had previously been part of the San Francisco Joint Board, and Local 184 of Seattle, Washington.
Mattie Jackson, former Manager of the San Francisco Joint Board, served as the first Manager of the Pacific Northwest District Council. Upon Jackson's retirement in 1990, Katie Quan was appointed manager. Quan managed the district through the ILGWU's merger with ACTWU in 1995, and headed the new UNITE district until 1998.
The collection contains discrete material from the various locals that merged to create the Pacific Northwest District Council. The overwhelming majority of the material consists of meeting minutes from the locals. While there are some hand written notes, most of the minutes are final versions which have been typed up into forms with sections for agendas, approval of previous meeting minutes, communications, and committee reports. Minutes of the San Francisco Joint Board (composed of Locals 101, 213, 8) are mixed in with the meeting minutes for the several locals represented in the collection and there are also minutes of the Board of Directors meetings.
Records of the Pacific Northwest District Council include minutes of meetings for the Finance and Steering Committee and the Shop Steward Council and Executive Committee, along with general correspondence with other unions and organizations. There is also material of the Bay Area ILGWU Health, Welfare and Vacation Fund Board of Trustees Meetings, financial and asset statements, correspondence, and benefit summaries.
Another component of the collection includes correspondence files. Kate Quan was the manager of the Pacific Northwest District Council and an administrator of the Bay Area ILGWU Health, Welfare and Vacation Fund, and her files contain correspondence, meeting information, and reports regarding the General Advisory Council, as well as meeting material and correspondence regarding the General Executive Board (GEB) meetings she attended (1991). Steve Nutter was the vice-president and Regional Director of the Western States Region and present are his reports to the GEB. Mattie Jackson was the first manager Pacific Northwest District Council, and her files contain correspondence, notes and administrative material during her time as manager. Also available are the correspondence files of Myrtle Banks, the Business Representative of the Pacific Northwest District Council.
Within the collection is agreements, reports from commissions and other organizations such as the Asian Immigrant Women Advocates, as well as articles and clippings of local interest. There are files on various garment companies and lists of shops in cities and areas from the Organizing Department as they tried to organize non-union shops in the Pacific Northwest. Much information is present on Kong Enterprises, a company that operated 10 garment shops in the San Francisco area when the owners declared bankruptcy, closed the shops, and left town. Many of the workers not only lost back pay, but also life savings that were lent to the owners, recounted through correspondence, clippings of articles, as well as information on claims and the case from 1991.
Much of the collection is composed of the locals that form the Pacific Northwest District. Locals represented in the records include: Local 8, Local 101, Local 213, Local 214 and Local 215. Records from Local 8 are comprised of correspondence; letters and memos from the San Francisco Labor Council of the AFL-CIO and California Labor Federation (regarding political action, strike sanctions, other labor unions, conventions and proceedings); union business such as minutes from the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Joint Board meetings; monthly meeting minutes from the Executive Board of Local 8; the general monthly meeting of the membership of Local 8 minutes; and special meetings. Records from Local 101 (Oakland section 101-A) are comprised of correspondence; minutes of the regular monthly meeting of the membership; minutes from the Executive Board meetings; and San Francisco Joint Board minutes. Records from Local 213 (Cutters) contain by-laws, correspondence, committee reports, election results, and memos; minutes of the general membership meeting and the Executive Board meeting; and minutes and material from the San Francisco Joint Board. And finally the records of Local 214 feature minutes from the general membership meetings and the Executive Board meetings.
Access to the collections in the Kheel Center is restricted. Please contact a reference archivist for access to these materials.
This collection must be used in keeping with the Kheel Center Information Sheet and Procedures for Document Use.
ILGWU Pacific Northwest District Council Records #5780/207. Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Cornell University Library.
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