Jewish Tailors, Guilds and What I Thought I Knew...Part I

My plan was to jump into a discussion of past labor movements and what spurred them. And how a labor movement might look different today. However, after writing about the union my mother belonged to and the statue that reminded me of her union membership, I kept wondering if I told the story right about the statue, even though it had little to do with my story other than how it jolted my memory. Usually I am fine with how I remember things which is with broad strokes and little detail, feelings and impressions rather than names and dates. I guess there is something about writing things down for someone else's reading that made me suddenly worried and self-conscious. So, I looked up the statue.

The statue was created in bronze by Judith Weller, a sculptor and Israeli immigrant, in 1984, so was newer than I thought it was. It was inspired by her father who worked in the New York City garment district which doesn't go against my original story about the father of some famous designer serving as the model for the statue since Weller might have had someone other than her father sit for her. The statue won a competition and the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), along with 42 other organizations purchased the statue and placed it in its current location. So, all was well as far as my original story was concerned. I was relieved and ready to move on except for one thing. I wondered how it happened that so many American garment workers were Jewish.


Growing up, it was understood that Jews ran the garment industry. That is, understood by me, as a child. All of my mother's managers, district managers, regional managers were Jewish and on Jewish holidays, she would become the de facto manager at her Robert Hall store because the bosses all the way back to the East Coast were on holiday. Even though, as a child, I attended the Baptist Church on the other side of our back fence...out of convenience, my mother gave me a dime for the collection plate and sent me there on Sundays, we had a Jewish heritage, My maternal grandfather was Jewish and my Grandmother converted and lived kosher for many years. Though my grandmother stopped being observant years before I was born, Jewish culture permeated my childhood, especially the food. I mention this because the Jews at my mother's work weren't different or mysterious to me. It was talked about openly that this was the arrangement...Jews ran the rag trade. End of discussion. I never wondered why.

Over the years, I became aware that there were a lot of Jewish tailors and professional sewers which didn't seem unusual because of the connection I knew existed with the clothing industry.  It made sense to me that when, historically, Jews hadn't been allowed to settle anywhere, they might pack light and no trade was easier to pack up than tailoring. Before the 1900's, scissors, needle and thread were all that was needed to be in business, later, a sewing machine might have been added. So, that was the explanation I had come up with...totally unresearched. After looking at the statue and thinking about the statue, I decided to ask the internet. I was about 99% sure my explanation would be validated. There was, of course, much more to the story.

Look for the Union Label 1978 ILGWU ad

Well Said

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

— U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, December 3, 1861

A Little Dignity

I was poking around on the internet in the way one does, looking up someone in the design field that I had just read about in the NY Times, though I don't remember who or what type of design he did. I ended up on his Wikipedia page and it said his parents had been in "the rag trade" which is another term for the clothing industry. This person's father was the model for a famous statue in New York City honoring the workers in the clothing industry and more importantly the labor unions that those workers belong to.  A few clicks later, I was reading about the Retail Workers Union and remembered that my mother belonged to that union in the late 50's through the 70's.  That memory has swirled around in my head, off and on, for a couple of weeks now. I kept thinking about how Labor Unions are being vilified and how many States are passing laws to weaken Unions in the hopes of eliminating them altogether.

In 1957, my mother went to work for Robert Hall Clothes, a long gone discount clothing chain that was the punchline of many jokes by TV comedians. She worked long hours standing on her feet on hard concrete floors and didn't make much money. Her income put our family of 3 well below the median income of the early 1960's. She made below minimum wage but made up for it with the commission she earned on her sales which was customary at the time. We were not living the supposed "high life" of the unionized factory workers that anti-union politicians like to skewer. Far from it. However, my mother's job and union membership afforded her dignity and I can't help wonder how much different life would be if more of our working class had the protections of labor unions.

If we lived a lower middle-class life in the 1960's and my mother paid union dues, what did the union do for her? Where was the dignity?

As a full-time employee, my mother's hours were protected as was her job to a point.  That means management could not mess with her hours, willy-nilly. The number of hours she worked did not fluctuate at the whim of her boss. This is a critically important concept.  It is common now for retailers and fast food establishments to increase and reduce an employees hours, even if an employee is considered "full time".  This leaves workers in a constant state of insecurity and robs them of the ability to plan ahead.  Just having the assurance of regular hours allowed my mother to make a house payment. Can you imagine a single mother working at Target, with a paycheck that fluctuates from week to week, making a house payment, let alone qualifying for a loan? How could a person even get a second job if their primary place of employment doesn't give them a reliable schedule?

As a union member, my mother had good health insurance, paid vacation, sick leave and a credit union. And the man that worked with my mother received the same compensation that she did.  It is hard to believe that, 40 years later, we find ourselves in the position of fighting these fights once again. My sister and I never missed our twice a year dental exams. If we got sick, we went to a doctor and always had the medicines that were prescribed. We got eyeglasses when needed.  My mother doesn't have any memory of animosity between management and the sales staff.  By the 1950's, a "no frills" benefits package was taken for granted by all, though fought for by labor unions just a few decades before.  In the late 60's, my younger sister ended up in the hospital for over a month, home in a body cast for a month and back in the hospital for a month after that.  My mother didn't go broke. She wasn't crushed by a devastating debt. We didn't loose our house. More importantly, she never had to compromise my sister's care based on what she could afford because she had good health insurance, guaranteed by her union contract. In 2016, a life event like this could financially break a family of much higher means.

So, my mother's union membership gave her job, at a discount clothing store, dignity. She supported my sister and me and paid for the 1200 square foot house she still lives in today, at the age of 90. She was able to leave a bad marriage because she had some job security. How many people today are powerless, stuck and hopeless because they have not been afforded some basic dignities?

We feel or exude dignity but where does a sense of dignity come from?  Could labor unions become relevant once again? We have seen some progress on increasing the minimum wage by way of strikes and demonstrations though that seems like the tip of the iceberg... Increasing the minimum wage alone, over a period of 6 or 7 years, won't make up for some of the current labor practices that are holding people back and separating the classes.

Idea Bank

11.     Intergenerational and Diverse Workplace

a.     Valuing each other rather than tolerating one another.

22.     Goodwill-Badwill

a.     New business model increases profits but makes low price goods less accessible to those in need.

33.    Health and wellness claims in the last 60+ years. Which ones have validity 60 years later.

44.    Are we looking for racism where there isn’t any and is it getting in the way of real discussions about racism?

55.     What do we do when the people we love are not the kind of people we like?

Idea Bank 1. Intergenerational and diverse workplaces. -Inspired by a job I recently left at College Housing, a residential complex in Goose Hollow that provides housing to college students, including a large percentage of international students. In the time I was on that job, my attitudes toward people in their 20's changed and I grew a new appreciation for them. I also developed relationships with people from all over the world and had a chance to know them separate from the politics of their countries. -What will it take to value one another rather than tolerate one another? Age groups. Cultures. Religion. Races. 2. Badwill of the Goodwill -Inspired by my experience over the last 25 years with the Goodwill and the changes I've seen in the business model -They used to provide reasonably priced goods to those who needed them and leveled the playing field for all buyers. Now the Goodwill builds stores in high rent areas and item are priced unreasonably, in a way that separate buyers into the "haves" and "have-nots" or the "can" and "can nots". -The emphasis has pivoted to helping individuals find jobs but isn't it possible to do both? 3. Health and wellness claims that have either been proven wrong or held up over the last 60 years. -fat in the diet -health benefits of vinegar -weight bearing exercise and bone density -effects of sitting on health -vitamin c as a preventative to airborne illness -carbohydrates and weight loss 4. Are people looking for racism where there isn't any? Is it getting in the way of real discussions about racism? -Cornbread. Sugar vs no sugar. White cornmeal vs yellow cornmeal. http://madamenoire.com/623911/whats-the-difference-between-white-people-and-black-peoples-cornbread/ -Can people be sorted into a group or can assumptions be made based on these choices? -Should I change my preference in order to be associated with a different group? -Is it contextual? Does choosing a type of cornbread in North Dakota mean something different than in Alabama? I grew up in California but lived in Texas for quite a while. Things I did in California had a different meaning in Texas. Or rather, things that had no meaning in California, had meaning in Texas. -How does it feel to find out the origin of a tradition when the origin is shady? unpleasant? hateful? -It's not just cornbread. In the last few weeks there have been articles online suggesting that excessive tanning and braiding hair in cornrows by white women might be racist. The Gap had to pull an advertisement featuring children in motion because a taller white girl posed with her elbow resting on the head of a smaller child of color. The children turned out to be related and it was quite innocent but some suggested the pose conveyed oppression. -Are we being punked or pranked by manufactured outrage and controversy? The post about cornbread brought a lot of traffic to the website Madam Noire. Are we victims of "click bait"? Is this damaging to the discussion about real issues.