Coming on the heals of the historic fur-workers victory earlier that year, Applebaum reports on the wins made by the Cloth Hat, Cap and Millinery Workers in a decade known for its defeats.

‘The Cap Makers’ Striking Victory’ by Cicely Applebaum from Labor Age. Vol. 15 No. 11. November, 1926.

Forty-Hour Week and Industrial Responsibility

Employers of labor know all there is to know about industrial organization. “No one can tell them how to run their businesses.” Their success is obviously complete—we see workers employed all the year round producing high grade goods to sell at low prices. The complaints of workers that employment is not steady or of consumers that quality and prices do not come up to the representation of them, are only the cries of malcontents who don’t understand.

But the workers can’t always be convinced that “all is for the best in the best of possible business worlds.” One group, at any rate, seeing their trade slide merrily down into chaos decided to take matters into their own hands. And the Cloth Hat, Cap and Millinery Workers’ International Union has succeeded in bringing about a reorganization of their industry. Their victory was particularly notable in that it was gained from the merchants who, in this trade, are not directly engaged in manufacture. Until now, these merchants have refused to admit that they are employers of labor or to have any dealings with the union.

Within the past few years, the needle trades have undergone a transformation. The shops manufacturing garments have declined in size and the manufacturers no longer sell the garments they produce to retail stores. Merchandising has passed into the hands of a small number of wholesalers who buy up the output of a great number of manufacturers. These wholesalers frequently buy their own materials and furnish these to the manufacturers producing goods for them. The wholesalers determine the styles, the sizes, the material patterns. They determine, too, the extent of the manufacturer’s business for they possess the only outlet for manufactured goods.

Yet the wholesalers have been unwilling to assume responsibility for employment conditions. They have encouraged the establishment of numerous small shops so that they could pit these against each other and thus force down prices. They have distributed contracts among sub-manufacturers in an arbitrary way so that no manufacturer could know what his future production would be. They have bought goods from non-union manufacturers whenever possible.

Union Opposes Waste

The industry has been brought by their activities into a chaotic condition. The union statement drawn up by J.M. Budish, Secretary of the committee managing the strike describes the situation thus: “There is the greatest waste for all concerned in the outside system of production. Of still greater importance are the numerous trade abuses resulting from this system, such as unfair and cut-throat competition, faulty and shoddy workmanship, skimping in materials, disregard of sizes and other specifications which not merely undermine the confidence of the general public in the produce of the trade, but also leads to a shrinkage of the market. Last but not least, it causes great distress among the workers through substandard conditions of employment and a tendency to still further shorten the busy season. The checking of these evils has become the most urgent problem for all the interests concerned and for the entire community.”

It was to remedy these conditions that 6,000 headgear workers went on strike on July 6 against the jobbers. At the same time they struck against the manufacturers who were demanding the abolition of the unemployment insurance system, the right to discharge 20 per cent of their employees at stated periods of reorganization, and the abolition of pay for legal holidays.

The strike against the manufacturers was settled in short order. In the very first week of the strike, independent firms acceded to the union’s terms. By July 29, an agreement had been reached with the Wholesale Hat and Cap Manufacturers’ Association which refused all the employers demands and granted some additional demands of the union. Foremost among these was the establishment of the forty-hour week to begin on July I, 1927. This puts the cap makers among those progressive unions which have secured this latest decrease in hours. In addition, salary increases were granted, raising the minimum wage from $40 to $44 for cutters, blockers and operators, $35 to $38 for packers, and $27 to $30 for lining makers and trimmers. All workers were also given an increase of $2 weekly now with $1 to be added on February 1, 1927.

Unemployment Insurance Held

The workers count it a great victory, too, to have kept their unemployment insurance system in its present most progressive form. The manufacturers continue to contribute 3 per cent of their weekly wage bill to an Unemployment Fund which the workers administer. The agreement provides for the establishment of an Advisory’ Board to the Fund to be composed of two representatives of the Union, two of the Association and an impartial chairman. This Board may in no way interfere with the management of the Fund but it may investigate any complaints that the Fund is being used for purposes: other than the payment of unemployment benefits and call these to the attention of the unions.

The agreement provides, further, that every manufacturer must register with the Union the jobbers for whom he is working. He may not sell directly or indirectly any goods to a jobber not under contract to the unions.

It took some time longer for the jobbers to come to terms with the union. They had insisted when the strike began that they were not employers of labor and had no intentions of entering into a contract with the union.

But the season arrived, orders began to come in the ranks of the workers remained unbroken and no work on the orders was being done or seemed about to be done. The situation was a difficult one for the jobbers.

The union continued to maintain, as their statement said: “that by whatever name he may call himself the Wholesaler controls working conditions, he controls employment and that element of control imposes upon him the responsibility that he shall so conduct’ his business that proper working standards may be upheld instead of undermined, and that employment may be stabilized instead of demoralized.”

Union Persuades Wholesalers

The union pointed out that the wholesaler would be benefited by such a change. They insisted that the considerable public demand for hats and caps, with union labels indicating a recognized standard of quality, indicates that any reduction in these standards could only injure the whole headgear industry, the wholesalers along with everyone else. They insisted that both wholesalers and workers would profit from a higher standard of sanitation and quality which could be best maintained by collective relations between them.

And the wholesalers were finally persuaded that the industry was in a sorry state, that they hadn’t known everything about industrial organization and could learn much from their workers. “The wholesaler is well satisfied,” they admitted, “and in fact, anxious, to see all the manufacturers or contractors unionize so that there will be complete stability and uniformity of working conditions and production in the trade. The association, as such, concedes that there are benefits to be gained from unionism and is willing to cooperate with the union for the betterment, not only of the lot of the workingman, but also that of the business man who is today harassed by a number of trade abuses which could readily be eliminated through cooperation between the wholesaler and the workers.”

So on August 11, an agreement was reached between the workers and the merchants. For the first time in the needle trades, the wholesalers who have come to be the most important element in the industry agreed to a regulation of their activities by the union.

It took some time to work out the concrete details of the industry’s reorganization. But with workers fully conscious of the necessity of such a reorganization and wholesalers tardily but at last aware that there “is interrelation between these two major elements in the trade” (workers and wholesalers) that “even such conflicting interest as there may be can be best promoted by the collective relationships on the basis of mutual respect and consideration, rather than by the absurd attempt of ignoring one another,” a settlement was inevitable.

There were two problems to solve—the complete unionization of the industry which would mean a maintenance of standards of sanitation and quality and a reduction of the insane, cut-throat competition which the jobbers had brought into the trade. To meet the first, the jobbers agreed to deal only with manufacturers employing union headgear workers. The second problem required a cutting down of the number of manufacturers to which each jobber might give out goods. The jobbers agreed that each would limit himself in each season to a specified number of manufacturers whose names he would register with the union at the beginning of the season. Each jobber will be able to give out work only to these manufacturers except when no one of them is equipped to produce a certain grade of work. In that case, the wholesaler must notify the union of the name and address of any additional manufacturer he may have to employ.

Practical measures for the enforcement of the agreement were taken. A Board of Adjustment composed of three representatives of the Union, three representatives of the Association and an Impartial Chairman was set up to consider any disputes arising between members of the Association and the Union. This Board has the power to compel the party against whom the complaint is made to furnish its investigator with all the necessary facilities for establishing the justice of the complaint.

Power of the Board

The Board is given an even more important power—the power to fine in case of an infraction of the agreement. Any wholesaler found giving work to a nonunion manufacturer may be fined a sum large enough to outweigh the advantage he gained by breaking the agreement, plus a penalty payment. To ensure the payment of these fines, the Wholesalers’ Association promises to collect a money security from each of its members out of which any fine incurred may be paid.

The wholesalers have been made to realize that the industry will be more profitable to every one engaged in it if it is so organized as to afford the workers a decent living and the opportunity to produce high grade garments. The manufacturers have been saved from cutthroat competition with each other. The consumer may expect standards of quality to be maintained. And all this has been done by a group who are always told that they needn’t meddle in the affairs of the business.

Any union might count a strike a success which had won them wage increases and a forty-hour week. The increased leisure which hard-fought strikes bring the workers is something well worth a fight. No longer need the workers wear themselves out in bitter toil while life slips by outside. And the maintenance of the progressive form of unemployment insurance the industry possesses in which the idleness of the worker is a charge on the industry and not on him is also highly to be commended.

But this strike was a strike not only for these material gains. The workers in the hat, cap and millinery trades recognized the fact that their industry was slipping down into chaos. They have a stake in that industry—they have invested in it their lives, their training, their skill. Their investment is too large for them to accept the dictum of the wholesalers “None can tell us how to run our business.” Since the wholesalers wouldn’t run the business so that the public secured garments of a high quality at a reasonable price, so that the workers could gain a decent livelihood from their occupation, the workers had to reorganize the industry so that it would be run that way. Not wages, hours and working conditions alone are the province of the workers—more and more they must occupy themselves with the organization of industry, more and more they must poke their fingers in the affairs of management.

Labor Age was a left-labor monthly magazine with origins in Socialist Review, journal of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society. Published by the Labor Publication Society from 1921-1933 aligned with the League for Industrial Democracy of left-wing trade unionists across industries. During 1929-33 the magazine was affiliated with the Conference for Progressive Labor Action (CPLA) led by A. J. Muste. James Maurer, Harry W. Laidler, and Louis Budenz were also writers. The orientation of the magazine was industrial unionism, planning, nationalization, and was illustrated with photos and cartoons. With its stress on worker education, social unionism and rank and file activism, it is one of the essential journals of the radical US labor socialist movement of its time.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/laborage/v15n11-nov-1926-LA.pdf