Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: Fighting Garment Workers of Chicago by Robert Dvorak, Part I

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Rose Schneiderman Quote, Stand Together to Resist Mar 20, NY Independent p938, Apr 1905———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday January 3, 1911
Chicago, Illinois – Garment Workers Strike Continues, Part I

From the International Socialist Review of January 1911:

Chg Garment Workers Strike by Dvorak, Title Fighting, ISR p385, Jan 1911

[Part I of II.]

MAULED by city police, assaulted and beaten by armed, hired sluggers, shot by strike breakers and now being faced with a winter full of the horrors of cold and starvation, the striking garment workers of Chicago still remain undaunted.

Not even the best efforts of the mayor, the city council, the Chicago Federation of Labor and very influential persons, such as Raymond Robins and other “Good Samaritans” can force the “ignorant strikers” to accept meaningless but well worded terms of peace from the hard pressed renegades, Hart, Schaffner and Marx.

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Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: The Chicago Garment Workers Strike by Robert Dvorak, Part II

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Rose Schneiderman Quote, Stand Together to Resist Mar 20, NY Independent p938, Apr 1905———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday December 3, 1910
Chicago, Illinois – Report on Strike of 41,000 Garment Workers, Part II

From the International Socialist Review of December 1910:

Chg Garment Workers Strike, by Dvorak, Alberta Anna, ISR p353, Dec 1910

[Part II.]

Not satisfied with cutting the rates and wages of the tailors, the firm instituted a system whereby the employes were charged from five to fifteen dollars for the least damage done to a garment. Lost spools, bobbins and other implements were charged up to the workers and taken out of their wages.

During the slack months, the piece workers were forced to report for work. They sat around in the shops, work or no work, earning no money, but stifling in the close, dust laden atmosphere of the fabric smelling shops.

When the pre-season months, those that constitute the busy time in the clothing industry, arrived, things changed as if by magic. Every employe was driven at top speed. Girls who had worked late into the night at home, threading needles or doing other work in order to make more money and sidestep the ten-hour law, came down to work next morning almost ill. None, however, were ever allowed to go home when sick.

Girls who asked permission to go home when sick were given some powders—good for every ailment from an earache to a sick stomach. If these powders failed to cure and the girl fainted, as happened several times each day, a doctor was summoned. But never, under any circumstances, was a girl or boy given permission to go home when sick, at least not until more substantial evidence than a sickly appearance or a mere statement was given.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: The Chicago Garment Workers Strike by Robert Dvorak, Part II”