Bread Upon The Waters

Chapter 34 : Labor and the Road Ahead
CHAPTER 34 Labor and the Road Ahead MANHATTAN SKYSCRAPER. From the shop where I am working, on the thirty-fifth floor, I can look down into the teeming canyons of the midtown garment industry. On the walks below the lunch-hour crowd moves to and fro in sweltering heat. Coatless workers, shoppers, members of the armed forces. And in the streets there is a constant flurry of motor traffic. Busses, trucks, and taxis÷yellow, white, red, orange, and green÷dart hither and thither like restless bugs. Eastward we can see Bryant Park, in the rear of the Central Public Library, where people of all ages seek coolness beneath its symmetrically laid-out rock-maple trees; the needle-pointed Chrysler tower, industrial smokestacks, the East River, and Long island. To the North, Radio City, Central Park, a shimmering lagoon, Essex House, and Columbus Circle. Westward, huge wa... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Chapter 33 : End of an Era
CHAPTER 33 End of an Era RETURNING FROM THE MORMON CAPITAL, I found that Jennie Matyas, our San Francisco organizer, had been brought to Los Angeles to direct the dress campaign. The Pacific Coast director had assigned four of my staff of six to assist her. America Iglesias Thatcher and Mary Donovan, however, had held aloof pending my return. Calling together the whole six, I urged all to cooperate fully with the dress drive, holding that it was entitled to every possible chance. Jennie wanted a line on the local dress situation, and we had dinner at the Brown Derby. I explained, taking the position that the only building to be organized÷719 South Los Angeles Street, which was dominated by the Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association ÷ought to be left alone while we concentrated on a bigger problem, sportswear. But the arrangements for the general dress strike went... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Chapter 32 : Dust-Bowlers Make Good Unionists
CHAPTER 32 Dust-Bowlers Make Good Unionists BUT OUR MAIN CONCERN was organizing the field. After the unsuccessful attempt the previous spring, I decided to let the few nonunion silk dress factories in Los Angeles alone, and reach out for the workers in the growing sportswear industry. When a sufficient number had delegated our organization as collective bargaining agent, we would approach their employers to confer and discuss union terms. The sportswear workers, mostly of American stock from all parts of the country, needed special treatment. Some had entered the garment industry as a temporary means of earning a living, hoping to resume their former professions and trades. Among them were teachers, librarians, saleswomen, musicians, and nurses, who thought factory work too degrading to remain in long. Watching them hurry in and out of the garment buildings, I realized how t... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Chapter 31 : Back in the American Federation of Labor
CHAPTER 31 Back in the American Federation of Labor IN THE FACE OF THIS octopus-like opposition, the ILGWU's local leadership had failed its members miserably. Apparently it had thought that a union "just grew," like Topsy, from fresh air, California sunshine, petty squabbles, and political bickerings. And little effort was made to win the confidence of the newcomers in the sportswear industry, which had become a threat to the diminishing dress trade. Like a household, a labor union office must have some one responsible on the job to take care of routine. If the house-keeper is long absent, dust and mold accumulate and disorder grows! There, if the general membership is neglected too long, it is in no mood to serve a union loyally. Of the several miscellaneous locals chartered in Los Angeles, all but one, Cotton Dress Local No. 266, had given up the ghost. This feeble... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Chapter 30 : Return Engagement in Los Angeles
CHAPTER 30 Return Engagement in Los Angeles BACK IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA land of sunshine and starvation wages, stronghold of the open shop! The sun was bright as I stepped from the Chief on a Saturday in January, 1940. To my gratification the little old smoke-begrimed Santa Fe depot was gone, in its place a modern station of Byzantine design. Soft music came from an invisible organ; out in front was a broad garden with trees and flowers. Los Angeles "a good place in which to live" ! But that picture was deceptive, as false a front as a Hollywood stage set. The ILGWU's Pacific Coast director had been in bed six weeks, and was in no condition to discuss union problems. He might be out in six months, if he didn't have a relapse, his wife had said. That evening, at a house party in the home of Fanny and Bayrach Yellin,... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

French-Canadian Girls Get Tough
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ACKNOWLEDGMENT WHEN I WENT BACK to work in a dress factory early in 1942 I set out to write a book on my years afield as a labor organizer. During that period I had accumulated a great mass of memoranda÷letters, articles written for the labor press, leaflets, pamphlets, copies of special publications used in organization drives, statistical reports, diaries. I had the material and the urge, but soon realized that I was not equal to the task before me. Fortunately, at that stage, my friend John Nicholas Beffel came to my aid. Though he has kept modestly in the background, claiming credit only as editor on the title page, it was largely his collaboration that made this book possible. Mere words cannot express my deep appreciation for h... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Police Guns Bring General Strike to 'Frisco
Rose Pesotta Bread upon the Waters CHAPTER 8 Police Guns Bring General Strike to 'Frisco AFTER PROLONGED NEGOTIATIONS our dress agreement, modified, was accepted by 15 of the 18 mid-town manufacturers. It provided for a union shop, 35-hour week, minimum wage scales in line with the NRA Dress Code, two weeks' trial period, workers to elect a shop chairman and shop committee to handle complaints and grievances, equal distribution of work during slack season, and impartial arbitration machinery in case the union and employer could not adjust differences amicably. It was understood that the workers might join the union without interference by the employers. One manufacturer explained that his employes were "conscientious objectors" who flatly r... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Early Champions of the Common Man
Rose Pesotta Bread upon the Waters CHAPTER 14 Early Champions of the Common Man TRADITION DOMINATED organized labor in Seattle, which was living largely on its past. The high point of its history seemed to be the great general strike in February, 1919, in which 60,000 men and women in 110 unions quit work. The city then had a population of 315,000. That strike was voted by the Central Labor Council, a unique body with a revolutionary background unknown in the rest of the States. The council was an open forum where any subject could get a hearing and a vote. Thus the general strike, as a class-war weapon, was discussed on the CLC floor as early as 1903, and the council had endorsed industrial unionism in 1909, its delegates being instructed ... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

I Go to Puerto Rico
Rose Pesotta Bread upon the Waters CHAPTER 10 I Go to Puerto Rico BACK IN NEW YORK after the Chicago convention, I explained to President Dubinsky that I had done everything in Los Angeles that I had promised, and now intended to go back to work in a dressmaking shop. "Anything to prevent it?" "No," he said, "I wish some of our other vise-presidents would do that. It would be good for them. But I think you'd be wasting your time. I can give you something better to do." "What ?" "You heard William Lopez's speech about Puerto Rico?" "Yes." "Would you like to go there?" Would I? . . . For me the Lopez speech had been one of the high lights of the convention. Here was a chance for vital missionary work. "Lopez is in town," D.D. said when I agre... (From : Anarchy Archives.)