- Person
- Sidney Hillman
- Lived
- 1887–1946
- Field
- Labour movement
- From
- Lithuanian-American
The story
By the 1930s the American Federation of Labor was dominated by craft unions that represented skilled workers such as carpenters and printers. In mass-production industries such as automobiles, steel and rubber, where most workers had no traditional craft, unions had almost no presence. The Great Depression made the problem urgent, shrinking union membership and leaving millions of factory workers without a voice.
Sidney Hillman, president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, had served on the Labor Advisory Board of the National Recovery Administration from 1933 and on the National Industrial Recovery Board in 1934. That experience convinced him that the AFL's focus on skilled workers was harming the labour movement. Within the federation he became one of the strongest advocates for organising mass-production industries, as well as the only partly organised textile industry. Hillman and other rebels forced a vote at the AFL's 1935 convention on widening its membership along industrial lines, and the vote failed.
Shortly afterwards John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers called together Hillman and other union heads, including David Dubinsky of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and Charles Howard of the International Typographical Union. The creation of the Committee for Industrial Organization was announced on November 9, 1935, with Hillman among its original founders. The AFL suspended the committee's unions in 1936, and in 1938 they formed the Congress of Industrial Organizations as a rival federation, with Hillman as a vice-president.
Hillman took part in nearly every major CIO initiative. He oversaw and helped fund the drive that created the Textile Workers Union of America, mediated disputes that nearly destroyed the young United Auto Workers, and helped found a union of retail and department store workers. The CIO was open to African American members and organised workers whom craft unions had long ignored. After Lewis broke with Roosevelt and withdrew his mine workers in 1942, Hillman remained, the most visible leader after Philip Murray.
In 1955 the CIO reunited with the AFL to form the AFL-CIO, which remains the largest federation of unions in the United States. The industrial unions Hillman helped build brought collective bargaining to the auto plants, steel mills and textile factories at the heart of the American economy.
Why it matters
The CIO brought unions into America's great mass-production industries, giving millions of factory workers a collective voice.
About Sidney Hillman
Yeshiva student turned garment cutter who built the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, co-founded the CIO and helped write the New Deal’s labour laws.
More about Sidney Hillman
- Sidney Hillman built a union for 100,000 textile workersSidney Hillman oversaw and helped fund the CIO drive that created the Textile Workers Union of America, with more than 100,000 members, in 1939.
- Sidney Hillman led the Amalgamated Clothing WorkersIn 1914 Sidney Hillman became the first president of the new Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, saying "The tailors made me. They can have me."
- Sidney Hillman helped write the Wagner ActSidney Hillman gave key help to Senator Robert Wagner in drafting the National Labor Relations Act and to Frances Perkins in winning the Fair Labor Standards Act.
- Sidney Hillman rose to lead in the great 1910 Chicago strikeWhen a few women walked out of a Chicago clothing factory in 1910, the strike grew to some 45,000 garment workers, and the young cutter Sidney Hillman emerged as a leader.
- Sidney Hillman's union founded a bank for working peopleIn the 1920s Sidney Hillman's Amalgamated pioneered "social unionism", offering members unemployment insurance and cooperative housing and founding the Amalgamated Bank.
- Sidney Hillman won clothing workers a 44-hour weekAfter surviving a four-month lockout in 1919, Sidney Hillman's union had contracts with 85 percent of New York's men's clothing makers by 1920 and a 44-hour working week.
- Sidney Hillman inspired a foundation for a better AmericaAfter Sidney Hillman died in 1946, his union created the Sidney Hillman Foundation, which has given Hillman Prizes for journalism in the public interest since 1950.
- Sidney Hillman backed the first limited-equity co-opThe Amalgamated Housing Cooperative in the Bronx, funded and inspired by Sidney Hillman and Abraham Kazan, was the first limited-equity housing cooperative in the United States.
Sources
- Sidney Hillman Wikipedia
- Sidney Hillman (1887-1946) Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project, George Washington University
- Congress of Industrial Organizations Wikipedia
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.