Read and reread the excerpt from We Shall Not Be Moved.The officers of Local 25 sent them on to the owners — along with one more demand, recognition of the union. This came to mean the "closed shop." Only union members can work in a closed shop, since the only way to set uniform wages and standards is to have the union do it; otherwise employers would always try to undercut one another. And the union can standardize the industry only when it controls the supply of labor through the union shop.
Read and reread the excerpt from We Shall Not Be Moved.A strike fund would have to be raised, an information bureau set up where strikers could register for relief, or for help with legal and personal problems. Publicity was another vital need — photos and eyewitness accounts of workers on the picket lines being harassed by gorillas and police. The picket lines themselves would have to be organized.
Read the excerpt from We Shall Not Be Moved.Esther Lobetkin, a recent immigrant, became chairman of her Yiddish-speaking group, marching with the strikers by day, then rushing to Clinton Hall to report and attend meetings until the small hours of the morning. A sandwich at midnight and an hour of sleep were all she seemed to need. Although she was arrested time and again, she never failed to yell from the back of the patrol wagon, "Do not lose courage! We'll win yet!"
Read the excerpt from We Shall Not Be Moved.Publicity was another vital need — photos and eyewitness accounts of workers on the picket lines being harassed by gorillas and police. The picket lines themselves would have to be organized.
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Read the excerpt from We Shall Not Be Moved.Everywhere in the garment district, by the front gates of little shops and big ones, picketers marched and sang. "O Dubinushka," they sang, and "Tortured and Enslaved," and other Russian folk and revolutionary airs. Icy rains poured down on them, some were in danger of frostbite — a winter of record-breaking cold had already begun — but there they were and there they stayed.The union men were amazed. "There never was anything like it," one ILGWU official declared. "An equal number of men never would hold together under what these girls are enduring.”
Read the excerpt from We Shall Not Be Moved.The League, like Local 25, had expected a turnout of four or five thousand. They were bowled over by this army, utterly unprepared for it. They had organized strikes in the garment trade, small ones, usually confined to a single shop, but never before had they undertaken something on so vast a scale. They might fail, might be laughed at by the whole of New York as well as John Dyche and the ILGWU men, and all the same they knew this was the challenge they'd been hoping for — their chance to show the world they were more than highbrow butters-in, just as the shirtwaist makers were more than irresponsible little girls.
Read the excerpt from We Shall Not Be Moved.Twenty-four halls were rented all over the Lower East Side. Each shop was to have its own meeting room, with separate rooms for Yiddish, Italian, and English groups wherever possible.
Read the excerpt from We Shall Not Be Moved.Pauline Newman recalled the feelings of the workers: "I can see the young people, mostly women, walking down and not caring what might happen. The spirit, I think the spirit of a conqueror, led them on. They didn't know what was in store for them, didn't really think of the hunger, cold, loneliness, and what could happen to them. They didn't care on that particular day; that was their day."
Read the excerpt from We Shall Not Be Moved.Delegates would be elected from each of the shops, to bring the workers' demands to a central strike committee. Speakers would have to be found to report the progress of the strike back to the workers, those speakers fluent in Yiddish, English, or Italian. A strike fund would have to be raised, an information bureau set up where strikers could register for relief, or for help with legal and personal problems. Publicity was another vital need — photos and eyewitness accounts of workers on the picket lines being harassed by gorillas and police. The picket lines themselves would have to be organized.
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