Trade unions in the United States played an important role in improving working conditions, increasing worker wages, and maintaining safety in industries. Unions recruited employees to organize and fight the injustices of the business owners by urging employees to strike or walkout of factories until a satisfactory agreement could be reached. Some employees were reluctant to join unions because they feared reprisals from the company owners. In addition, some strikes broke out in violence and people were arrested, injured or killed. However, because union enrollment continued to increase the unions were able to flourish and bring about many changes.
In the textile industry, the ILGWU (International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union) was founded in 1900 as a result of the desperate need to change the working conditions of the garment workers. The ILGWU is credited with forcing the government to enact legislation for factory safety regulations in the 1920’s. The Union also led the way for creation of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 that eliminated sweatshops, outlawed child labor and guaranteed a 40 hour work week. The ILGWU created a union health center in 1914, a summer resort for union members in the Poconos in 1920, a 35 hour work week in 1933, an industry wide pension fund in 1943, an employee employer financed health insurance plan in 1944, and a major television advertising campaign called “Look for the Union Label” in 1975, which emphasized that consumers should buy clothing made only by Union textile workers in the United States. The ILGWU still exists today.
2
The Clothing Workers Union was founded in 1914. It too, helped with the creation of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, but in addition is credited with signing a historic agreement of a 44 hour work week as early as 1919. The Clothing Workers Union established an unemployment insurance plan in 1923, cooperative apartments in 1926 and an employer paid health and life insurance program in 1941. In 1976, the Clothing Workers Union merged with the Textile Workers Union and became known as the ACTWU (American Clothing and Textile Workers Union). The ACTWU also exists today and works together with the ILGWU to ensure workers are humanely treated.
3
Unions in the 1990’s still expose textile companies who are inhumanely treating their workers. Many large clothing retailers use illegal foreign labor in the United States for clothes manufacture or they contract work out to foreign countries. The reason for this is that the cost of foreign labor is inexpensive and that United States companies do not have to adhere to American laws while in foreign countries.
In August 1995, an apartment complex surrounded by barbed wire was raided by state and federal law enforcers who freed 67 Thai female and 5 Thai male immigrants from sweatshop working conditions. Immigrants had been working for U.S. clothing manufacturers and retailers like Montgomery Ward and Nieman Marcus for $1.60 an hour sewing clothes. Workers were forced to work from 7:00 A.M. until midnight, six days a week. Some workers had been at this sweatshop for seven years and were afraid to leave for fear of rape, death, and retribution against family members at home in Thailand. The Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE) helped these Thai immigrants gain their freedom and offered legal advise about their rights as workers. Unions once again proved to be a vital instrument in prevention of worker exploitation.
4
Exploitation is not only in the United States. In Central America, there are approximately half a million garment workers many of whom are as young as 13 working for U.S. clothing manufacturers and retailers. In August 1995, the GAP, a U.S. clothing manufacturer who contracts out work to Central America, was found to have girls working 13 to 18 hours a day with only two 5 minute bathroom breaks throughout the day. In addition, girls were abused by supervisors who threw things at them if they did not work faster. To keep their jobs, girls were forced to take birth control pills or take pills that caused miscarriage if they got pregnant.
5
Clothing companies like the Gap profit from the exploitation of inexpensive foreign labor and are not held liable for the inhumane treatment of workers. American companies close their eyes to what is really going on in these countries. When abuses are exposed, the American companies solve the problem by cancelling their work contract with the abusing contractor, which only causes many workers to become unemployed. The American companies never assume full responsibility for abuses but simply move on to new contractors in other countries while Unions continue to watch and be ready to expose the next exploitation of workers.