An industrial organizing drive of everyone from butchers to maids in New York’s vast, highly fragmented, food industry.

‘Organizing New York Food Workers’ by Joseph Manley from Labor Herald. Vol. 2 No. 3. May, 1923.

The organization drive now being conducted by the Amalgamated Food Workers in the big hotels and restaurants of New York City is of great interest to all militant trade unionists. The Amalgamated Food Workers is an independent organization, not affiliated to the A.F. of L. It is a modern labor union in structure made up of branches based on the job as the unit of organization, and is therefore an industrial rather than a craft union,

The present drive for new members is being conducted by the Hotel and Restaurant Branch, the Secretary of which is M. Obermeier, a fine type of labor official. The drive is of interest because of the modern and up-to-date tactics being employed.

The work is meeting with success, the secret of which is, in large part, the untiring work of the Organization Committee. This body is rank and file in its make-up, and has rallied to its assistance the entire membership of the organization. It has mapped out a systematic plan of campaign, embracing the exclusive restaurants of Park and Fifth Avenues; the great hotels like the Commodore, Waldorf-Astoria, Ritz-Carlton, Biltmore, Belmont, Plaza, etc. Surely these are names to conjure with. The many down-town and Greek restaurants are also included in this well-planned drive. It has taken. hold in most of the large restaurants and hotels in New York, not alone amongst the cooks and waiters, but also among the entire working forces, butchers, bakers, maids, etc.

The life of the whole drive is the organization nucleus. This operates in a modern organized fashion. The personal contacts and acquaintances of the members are organized, and the entire membership of the union takes part in the organization drive. The second important feature in connection with the drive is, that the workers are being organized industrially. Thus the very name of the organization creates a psychology that causes the worker to think in terms of industry rather than of craft.

The food industry has passed through many stages of development. In years gone by the original industrial unionist was the housewife, who cooked, baked, prepared and served the food in all its stages. She had a complete monopoly of the processes of food and drink used by her family.

Then came primitive capitalism, with the corner bake-shop, restaurant, and other small beginnings of the modern food industry. That early stage required a small amount of skill, but the ever-increasing use of machinery, and the tremendous concentration of the industry, almost eliminating skill as a factor, has rendered the many craft unions in the industry impotent. Still, some of them are trying to organize the food workers on the basis of a skill that is to all intents and purposes gone out of existence, that is today, outside of the few remaining corner bakeries and butcher shops, relics of a by-gone time.

The Amalgamated Food Workers recognized this development in the industry, and is trying to meet it. While not affiliated to the A.F. of L., it is striving to attain solidarity with all workers in the industry, and it is in favor of the program of the General Committee for Amalgamation of all Unions in the Food Industry. This organization has the workers of the great cabarets of Broadway enrolled in its ranks. Its present drive to further enlarge its membership will go a long way to spread the gospel of industrial unionism in the monster hotels and food factories of New York City.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/laborherald/v2n03-may-1923.pdf