ILGWU. San Francisco Joint Board records
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Scope and Contents
Much of the correspondence for the San Francisco Joint Board is arranged chronologically by year. There is correspondence with numerous local and national organizations that the Joint Board contributed both funds and support. One organization in particular was City of Hope, in the northwest region of San Francisco. The Board sponsored a yearly Bay Area Fair in which the proceeds benefited City of Hope, and the records include meeting minutes and documents from the ILGWU City of Hope Auxiliary. There is also industry information including correspondence with contractors and manufacturers, as well as agreements with Bay Area firms. Manufacturer associations like the Associated Cloak and Suit Manufacturers, Silk and Wool Dress Manufacturers' Association, San Francisco Coat and Suit Association are represented in the records.
The collection focuses on the administrative responsibilities of the Joint Board, such as the Health and Welfare and national retirement fund, with material such as benefits and claims. The minutes of the San Francisco Joint Board meetings include roll call lists, and the later meeting minutes are inserted into forms. There are also minutes of locals that comprised the Joint Board; Local 8 Cloakmakers including both executive board and membership meetings; Local 101 Dressmakers both executive board and membership meetings, roll call, officer nominations; Local 213 Cutters; and Local 352 General Garment Workers.
A second component of the collection consists of labeled subject files. These contain member information sheets of the union health and welfare funds with individual, local, when they joined the union, listing of shops worked at with years, and are arranged alphabetically.
Dates
- 1930-1969
Language of Materials
Collection material in English
Conditions Governing Access
Access to the collections in the Kheel Center is restricted. Please contact a reference archivist for access to these materials.
Conditions Governing Use
This collection must be used in keeping with the Kheel Center Information Sheet and Procedures for Document Use.
Biographical / Historical
Founded in 1900 by local union delegates representing about 2,000 members in cities in the northeastern United States, the ILGWU grew in geographical scope, membership size, political influence to become one of the most powerful forces in American organized labor by mid-century. Representing workers in the women's garment industry, the ILGWU worked to improve working and living conditions of its members through collective bargaining agreements, training programs, health care facilities, cooperative housing, educational opportunities, and other efforts. In 1995, the ILGWU merged with the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU) to form the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE).
Biographical / Historical
A local of cloakmakers in San Francisco was around in the first decade of the ILGWU, but was disbanded in 1913. In May 1915, members of the former local joined with an independent union of ladies' tailors to revive Local 8. The thirteen week strike of San Francisco cloakmakers in 1923 basically decimated Local 8. Brother L. Gold of Los Angeles was placed in charge of the San Francisco market and new members were organized during the next few years, but by 1928, Local 8 Cloakmakers were practically out of existence again as Communists had "captured" the organization. In 1929, those that had remained loyal to the ILGWU kept the struggling Local 8 alive. The San Francisco cloak trade at that time was small, with a few hundred cloakmakers. Local 8 was soon joined in the 1930s by new charters Dressmakers Local 101, Knitgood Workers Local 191, and Cutters Local 213. With the creation of Local 101 in 1933, Jennie Matyas came to San Francisco to help organize the dressmakers and would later serve as the education director of the San Francisco Joint Board. In the 1940s, San Francisco had a sizable dress market with two locals, 101 and 352 (General Garment Workers' Union). During this time, Henry Zacharin served as manager of the Joint Board. While smaller in scale than Los Angeles, the San Francisco garment industry was 100 percent unionized, and by 1947, the Joint Board was composed of Locals 8, 101, 213, and 352.
Garment workers in San Francisco received a 35 hour work week with the new sportswear agreement in 1953. By the mid-1950s (1956), the Joint Board was now managed by Ralph King, and the locals were signing contracts with Chinatown contractors. King served as manager until the 1960s (1962), when Cornelius Wall took over leadership of the San Francisco Joint Board. In 1967, the ILGWU and the labor movement in San Francisco joined efforts to unionize Chinatown. The 1970s (1971), saw the name of Pacific Coast Region change to Western States Region, and Mattie Jackson became manager of the Joint Board. Jackson was previously a business agent at the Koret of California shop. Complicated conditions continued to thwart organizing efforts in Chinatown, though by the mid- 1970s, in roads were being made in the shops. By 1977, Asian immigrants constituted the bulk of the non-union workforce in San Francisco. In 1980, the San Francisco Joint Board was merged into the Pacific Northwest District Council that was managed by Mattie Jackson.
Extent
9 cubic feet
Abstract
The records of the San Francisco Joint Board contain three parts: general correspondence, arranged in reverse chronological order (boxes 1-2); alphabetical files (boxes 2-10); and meeting minutes of the San Francisco Joint Board, and several local unions (boxes 11-18). Records documenting the Health and Welfare Fund found in box 6 contain extensive information on members of local unions, including length of membership to the ILGWU and employment history. [Note: SSNs are throughout these and other records documenting the Health and Welfare Fund.] The local unions with minutes contained in this subseries are: 8, 101, 191, 213, and 352. Minutes for locals 8, 101, 213, 214, 215 are also found in the records of the Pacific Northwest District Council.
Quantity:
9 linear ft.
Forms of Material:
Correspondence, agreements.
General
- Contact Information:
- Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives Martin P. Catherwood Library 227 Ives Hall Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853 (607) 255-3183> kheel_center@cornell.edu http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/library/kheel
- Compiled by:
- Kheel Staff, October 14, 2008
- EAD encoding:
- Kathryn Dowgiewicz, January 16, 2014
- Clothing workers -- California
- Clothing workers -- United States
- Industrial relations -- California
- Industrial relations -- United States
- Labor unions -- Clothing workers -- California
- Labor unions -- Clothing workers -- United States
- Women's clothing industry -- California
- Women's clothing industry -- United States
- Title
- ILGWU. San Francisco Joint Board records
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Compiled by Kheel Staff
- Date
- January 16, 2014
- Language of description
- Undetermined
- Script of description
- Code for undetermined script
Revision Statements
- 02/23/2024: This resource was modified by the ArchivesSpace Preprocessor developed by the Harvard Library (https://github.com/harvard-library/archivesspace-preprocessor)
Repository Details
Part of the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives Repository
227 Ives Hall
Ithaca NY 14853