Scope and Contents
The TWUA Executive Council Minutes contains minutes from the meetings of the Executive Council and the International Council of the Textile Workers Union of America, 1963-1964.
The Executive Council and the International Council met in New York City for regular and special sessions. William Pollack, President, 1956-1972, was chairman and John Chupka was secretary-treasurer of the Executive Council. J. William Belanger, New England Regional Director attended these meetings at which he presented resolutions and requested policy formulations by the Executive Council.
Subjects addressed at the regular meeting include unemployment in Lawrence, Massachusetts; the importation of foreign labor and issues of prevailing wages, and the organizing effort in the South, especially at plants owned by J.P. Stevens & Co., Inc. Also noted is discussion of the use of strike relief funds.
Topics discussed in the Special Meeting of the Executive Council include majority rule by the Executive Council; misuse of union funds; charges regarding the unconstitutional actions by the Executive Council; secrecy of records of these meetings; and the improvement of pensions. In addition, the local union's dissatisfaction with the Executive Council is discussed and charges of kangaroo courts, power grabbing, and denial of the local union's freedom of speech end in a call for a Special Convention. Violence in certain local unions is briefly discussed.
Included in the collection is a 29 page typescript headed, "Aberdeen, N.C. 3/24/77, Speech By Vivian Greene and Kenneth Burnett, Mini-captive audience," Greene and Burnett were presumably J.P. Stevens executives. The first 4 pages are Mr. Burnett's comments about the company's change to a computerized payroll system. The next 7 pages are mainly Ms. Greene's concerns about ACTWU's efforts to obtain employees' signatures on union authorization cards. She discusses "what a union is and why they are trying to organize" from the company's point of view. The remaining 18 pages are transcripts of the question and answer period that followed the speech.
Dates
- undated
Conditions Governing Access
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Conditions Governing Use
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Biographical / Historical
The Textile Workers Union of America (TWUA) began in 1937 as the Textile Workers' Organizing Committee (TWOC) of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). By 1939 the committee's success in organizing workers, especially in New England, led to its becoming an independent CIO affiliate. World War II revived a foundering U.S. textile industry and put textile workers in an advantageous bargaining position. One of their first major victories was a contract with the American Woolen Company in Lawrence, Massachusetts. By 1942, the mills in a number of other New England cities were unionized and although the War brought a respite to confrontation, organizing continued. The TWUA eventually organized most of New England's textile workers, as well as 70,000 southern workers by the end of WWII. In 1945, the TWUA was also instrumental in obtaining a War Labor Board directive eliminating North-South differentials in cotton textile wage rates. The union became international when Canadian textile workers organized in 1945 under the guidance of TWUA.
After the War, the TWUA faced serious problems; national anti-labor legislation which included the Taft-Hartley Act was passed and competition from southern mills and those abroad caused a decline in New England's textile industry.
By 1976, the continued decline of the textile industry especially in New England made it advantageous for the TWUA to join forces with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (ACWA) to form the Amalgamated Clothing & Textile Workers Union (ACTWU). .
In 1995, ACTWU merged with the ILGWU (International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union) to form Unite! (Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees) with headquarters in New York City.
Extent
0 cubic feet
Language of Materials
English
Abstract
Collection of minutes from the meetings of the Executive Council and the International Council of the Textile Workers Union of America,
Custodial History
American Textile History Museum Collection, gift of Rhode Island Historical Society.
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives Repository
227 Ives Hall
Ithaca NY 14853