5. Growth of the Needle-Trades Unions
Before 1910 the organization of all branches of the clothing trades was very weak. In that year the cloakmakers won their strike in New York, and the men's clothing workers won recognition of their shop committee in the shops of Hart, Schaffner and Marx in Chicago. After 1910 the various crafts making women's garments advanced rapidly, under the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. The progress of the men's clothing workers under the United Garment Workers was slow on account of the reactionary officials of the organization, but the formation of the progressive Amalgamated Clothing Workers in 1914 was the signal for their rapid advance also. Now these unions include a large majority of the workers in the clothing industry, having in a few years stepped to the forefront of the trade-union movement.
Their rapid growth is especially significant, since it was not due to the favorable circumstances of the war so much as to their energetic practice of many of the principles of industrial unionism. The formation of the Needle Trades Federation, to include not only these two unions but also the Journeymen Tailors, the Cloth Hat and Cap Makers, and the Furriers, will if successful be another big step in the direction of their goal.
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