ILGWU Operations Department Industrial Homework Records
Collection Number: 5780/196
Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Cornell University Library
Title:
ILGWU Operations Department
Industrial Homework Records, 1986-1989
Collection Number:
5780/196
Creator:
International Ladies' Garment
Workers' Union (ILGWU)
Quantity:
1 linear ft.
Forms of Material:
Records (documents).
Repository:
Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and
Archives, Cornell University Library
Abstract:
Contains reports, comments, testimonies, and statements
submitted by the ILGWU and other interested organizations and individuals concerning
revisions to the federal regulation of employment of homeworkers in certain
industries, proposed between 1986 and 1989.
Language:
Collection material in English
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.
Little documentation exists in the ILGWU records about the work of the Operations
Department in the union's international offices, and the materials that comprise the
Operations Department records do not explicitly show that they were created by the
department per se. While typically an operations department is known to deal with
the everyday business of an organization and to have responsibility for the
organization's facilities, the records suggest that the department either
complemented the work of the Research Department, the Master Agreements Department,
and the former Management Engineering Department, or maintained records useful to
those departments.
The Operations Department records consist materials relating to the ILGWU's efforts
to maintain a ban on industrial homework, manuals for operations standards in the
manufacturing of women's blouses and women's skirts, and collective bargaining
agreements. The records relating to homework and operations standards date from the
1980s, and the collective bargaining agreements are from the years just before the
ILGWU merged with ACTWU in 1995.
Researchers interested in ILGWU statements on homework and related issues should
consult the Research Department records, 5780/209. Likewise, researchers looking for
additional collective bargaining agreements should consult collections in Series VI,
Contracts and Case Files (5780/075, 5780/075 mf, 5780/145, 5780/146, 5780/147,
5780/158, 5780/191). These records, and others throughout the ILGWU records,
complement the records of the Operations Department.
In 1942, federal regulators prohibited homework in five industries--gloves and
mittens, embroideries, buttons and buckles, handkerchiefs and jewelry production, as
it was difficult to enforce federal wage and hour laws for work done in the home.
After forty-five years, the ban was lifted, and this collection documents the ILGWU
efforts to block the new homework rules. The collection contains reports, comments,
testimonies, and statements submitted by the ILGWU and other interested
organizations and individuals concerning revisions to the federal regulation of
employment of homeworkers in certain industries, proposed between 1986 and 1989.
Names:
Abrams, Robert
Bencosme, Ana
Beyer, Dorianne
Bradley, Bill
Briggs, Vernon M.
Chew, Fay
Cleary, Edward J.(Edward John), 1906-
Davie, Fred
Elias, Eli
Guggenheimer, Elinor
Harris, James, 1948-
Herbert, Robin
Landrigan, Philip J.
Mazur, Jay
McDaid, Hugh
Muravchik, Miriam
Owens, R.
Snow, James F.
Snyder, Michelle
Wang, Charles P.
International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union.
United States. Dept. of Labor
Subjects:
Home labor
Women's clothing industry
Form and Genre Terms:
Records (documents)
Access Restrictions:
Access to the collections in the Kheel Center is restricted. Please contact a
reference archivist for access to these materials.
Restrictions on Use:
This collection must be used in keeping with the Kheel Center Information Sheet
and Procedures for Document Use.
Cite As:
ILGWU Operations Department Industrial Homework Records #5780/196. Kheel Center
for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Cornell University Library.
|
Container
|
Description
|
Date
|
|
| Box 1 | Folder 1 | 1986 | |
| Box 1 | Folder 2 | 1986 | |
| Box 1 | Folder 3 | 1986 | |
| Box 1 | Folder 4 | 1988 | |
| Box 1 | Folder 5 | 1988 | |
| Box 1 | Folder 6 | 1989 | |
| Box 1 | Folder 7 | 1989 | |
| Box 1 | Folder 8 | 1989 | |
| Box 1 | Folder 9 | 1989 | |
| Box 1 | Folder 10 | 1989 | |
| Box 1 | Folder 11 | 1989 | |
| Box 1 | Folder 12 | 1989 | |
| Box 1 | Folder 13 | 1989 | |
| Box 1 | Folder 14 | 1989 | |
| Box 1 | Folder 15 | 1989 | |
| Box 1 | Folder 16 | 1989 | |
| Box 1 | Folder 17 | 1989 | |
| Box 1 | Folder 18 | 1989 | |
| Box 1 | Folder 19 | 1989 | |
| Box 1 | Folder 20 | 1989 | |
| Box 1 | Folder 21 | 1989 | |
| Box 1 | Folder 22 | 1989 | |
| Box 1 | Folder 23 | 1989 | |
| Box 1 | Folder 24 | 1989 | |
| Box 1 | Folder 25 | 1989 | |
| Box 1 | Folder 26 | 1989 | |
| Box 1 | Folder 27 | 1989 | |
| Box 1 | Folder 28 | 1989 | |
| Box 1 | Folder 29 | 1989 | |
| Box 1 | Folder 30 | 1989 | |
| Box 1 | Folder 31 | 1989 | |
| Box 1 | Folder 32 | 1989 | |