Log in

Labor History News

  • 17 May 2010 4:48 PM | Posted by GNHLHA

    Report on This Year’s Annual Meeting

    By Jim Hoffecker and Joan Cavanagh

    The excitement was high at the New Haven Federation of Teachers/ Greater New Haven Central Labor Council Building on the afternoon of Sunday May 16, 2010 for the Greater New Haven Labor History Association’s Annual Meeting. Those attending included many who have been GNHLHA members for years as well as several who joined for the first time.  Highlights of the afternoon included presentation of the Augusta Lewis Troup awards and a dramatic reading of “Voices of Working People’s History,” a performance piece by Western Massachusetts Jobs with Justice, followed by remarks from Professor Troy Rondinone. 

     Guests were greeted at the door by GNHLHA’s new Outreach Coordinator, Christine Saari, and welcomed from the podium by President Nicholas Aiello. Archivist/ Director Joan Cavanagh gave a brief report and an overview of the afternoon.  Vice President Mary Johnson was mistress of ceremonies.

    The first of the two Augusta Lewis Troup awards was given to Mary Altieri for her work as a union organizer in the early garment industry. It was presented by Anthony Riccio, author of The Italian American Experience in New Haven, Cooking with Chef Silvio, and the soon to be published  Farms, Factories and Families: Italian-American Women of Connecticut.  The second award, presented by former AFSCME Local 1939 President and long-time community activist Irmgard Wessel, was given to Joe Dimow for his life time contributions to progressive work in New Haven and beyond.

     GNHLHA members and Executive Board members joined in reading the parts of Big Bill Haywood, Mother Jones, W.E.B DuBois, Peter McGuire, Albert and Lucy Parsons and other key figures in the fight for the eight hour day, whose words are used to evoke the history of labor organizing in the United States in the Western Massachusetts Jobs With Justice production, “Voices in Working People’s History”.  The performance included classic labor songs performed   by Frank Panzarella, GNHLHA’s official troubadour, sometimes accompanied by new GNHLHA member George Anthony (“Tony”) Rosso, a professor of English at Southern Connecticut State University, whose singing ability is a previously undiscovered resource. The performance ended with a rousing rendition of “Solidarity Forever,” joined by all.

    Following the reading was a talk by Southern Connecticut State University History Professor and GNHLHA Recording Secretary Troy Rondinone about the history depicted in the reading.  The talk is being written up as an article tentatively entitled, “The Bomb that Started Labor History” and will be published in the next newsletter. Stay tuned!

  • 13 Apr 2010 4:35 PM | Posted by GNHLHA

    From Newsletter Volume 6, Number 1

    By Anthony Riccio

    Come this July, I anticipate the publication of Cooking with Chef Silvio: Stories, Social History and Authentic Recipes from Campania, by SUNY Press, which looks at the fascinating social history of Italy’s Campania region through food and oral history stories.  The book highlights the cuisine our ancestors brought from the farmlands of Campania to the city of New Haven – those hearty and delicious meals our grandparents made from simple, earth-based ingredients.  Highlighted in this book is the unknown history and unheralded role of the Italian woman whose resourcefulness and ingenuity in “la cucina della povera gente” the kitchen of the poor, often meant survival for large peasant families with few resources in the poverty-stricken south.  

    A second book in progress, also by SUNY Press (Spring ’11), is Farms, Factories and Families: Italian American Women of Connecticut, a woman’s history woven together by oral histories from elderly Italian American women storytellers from many cities throughout Connecticut.  The book begins with recollections of small village life in Italy through the eyes of young women who reconstruct the social history of the south through their experiences at home, in schools, at work and during their arduous journeys to America.  This Italian woman’s history documents the sewing tradition beginning with the ancient Samnites of Campania and how the centuries-old craft was absorbed by New Haven’s garment industry when the city was an epicenter in the 20s and 30s, employing thousands of Italian immigrant women and their daughters who were eager to support their families at the cost of foregoing their dreams for professional careers.   The book chronicles the union movement of the Amalgamated in New Haven, tracing its origins as a woman’s movement whose outspoken leaders – Jennie Aiello, Jill Iannone, Carol Paolillo and others profiled in the book – broke the traditional role of the subservient southern Italian woman and stood up to male factory owners and the barbaric sweatshop conditions they imposed to form their own union.  Through their organizing efforts and willingness to risk their own livelihood, these gallant women turned the tide in favor of the common working person, gaining better working conditions and fair pay, setting in motion a union movement that reverberated through the city for generations. 

    Several of Anthony Riccio’s photographs of Italian American Garment Workers are featured in the GNHLHA exhibit, “New Haven’s Garment Workers,” on display now at Fairfield University.

  • 13 Apr 2010 4:33 PM | Posted by GNHLHA

    From Newsletter Volume 6, Number 1

    “Lincoln Speaks to New Haven” was a commemorative celebration of the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s visit to New Haven during his presidential campaign in 1860. The event was the first in the New Haven Student Seminar Series, which included three stages where New Haven high school students engaged in historical research, became involved in a collaborative demonstration to recognize an historical event or place and then developed and delivered presentations to New Haven elementary studentsundefinedsparking their early interest in the history of their city.

    “Lincoln Speaks to New Haven” was a re-enactment of the actual speech given by Lincoln, including a brass band and period costumes, and took place at Union Station downtown. The event, spearheaded by attorney Frank Cochran, was sponsored by the New Haven Public Schools, the New Haven Museum and Historical Society, Partner 4 Peace, the Greater New Haven Labor History Association, and the Office of Cultural Affairs of the City of New Haven.

    Readers of Moments in New Haven Labor History, written by Neil Hogan and published by the Greater New Haven Labor History Association in 2004, remembered the significance of Lincoln’s speech for the labor movement.

    In describing the speech, Neil wrote: “[Lincoln’s] comments were prompted by a strike that was going on at that very moment in New England. When workers’ demands for increases were denied, shoemakers walked off the job in Lynn and Natick, Mass. in February 1860. They were joined by workers in other Bay State and New Hampshire towns until almost  20,000 employees were on strike in one of the nation’s largest labor disputes until that time. The strikers argued that better pay for employees was also in the interest of employers, ‘inasmuch as the wealth of the masses…increases the demand for manufactured goods.’

    “It was that theme that Lincoln took up in his comments before a huge crowdundefinedso great was the enthusiasm that nearly 1,000 had to be turned awayundefinedat Union Hall on Union Street near Chapel Street, on March 6, 1860. His remarks on labor were made within a definitely partisan context and comprised only a few sentences in a speech devoted almost entirely to the burning issue of slavery. He also linked his support for workers’ rights with the slavery question. Yet, what he said that night about the shoe strike was a clear-cut defense of employees’ rights, going further…than any other politician of national stature had done.”

    “’I am glad to see that a system of labor prevails in New England under which laborers can strike when they want to,” Lincoln said to cheers, “’where they are not obliged to work under all circumstances, and are not obliged to labor whether you pay them or not.’( cheers)” The future President also said, “’I am not ashamed to confess that 25 years ago I was a hired laborer, nailing rails, at work on a flat boat, just what might happen to any poor man’s son’ (applause.)”

    For further details about the “Lincoln Speaks to New Haven” program on March 6th, please contact Frank Cochran, 203-865-7380, fbcochran@comcast.net or ben@newhavenmuseum.org.

       

  • 13 Apr 2010 4:32 PM | Posted by GNHLHA

    From Newsletter Volume 6, Number 1

    By Ai’fe Murray

    www.maidasmuse.com

    When American poet Emily Dickinson wrote the lines "I'm Nobody! Who are you? Are you - Nobody - too? Then there's a pair of us!" she might've been writing about the women and men who tended her kitchen hearth and household grounds in the quiet country town of 19th-century Amherst, Massachusetts. Except that Emily Dickinson, who yearned for privacy, became a famous "Somebody" while her many maids and stablemen, gardeners and laundry workers slid from the public's sight. But that's about to change. Those "nobodies" long lost to history are about to get their public due with the publication of Maid as Muse: How Servants Changed Emily Dickinson's Life and Language.

    This new book, by Elm City native Aí’fe Murrayundefineddaughter of trade unionists Betty Murray and the late Henry Murray-- squarely places the renowned American poet downstairs in her kitchen, a warm and lively place which was a veritable United Nations of helping hands from English immigrant stablemen and African American gardeners to Protestant Yankee seamstresses and Irish immigrant laundry workers and maids-of-all-work. According to Aí’fe (pronounced ee-fah), the poet apparently rubbed elbows with these men and women because she was the family baker. Emily Dickinson won baking prizes at local fairs and, even after the family hired a live-in maid, her father insisted that Emily make all of the bread. As a baker herself, the author understood how much time the poet would have spent in the kitchen working alongside of her servants. That explains why, according to Ai’fe, that Emily Dickinson’s letters frequently refer to her servants Ai’fe didn't set out to write a book about the servants and their relationship with one of the world's most famous poets. It came about because Murray, now of San Francisco, found herself coming up short when comparing her own writing productivity with that of the very prolific Emily Dickinson.  Wondering who helped make Dickinson’s writing possible, the author stumbled upon a photograph of three servants in a Dickinson biography. Staring at those three Irish faces she thought to herself, “my great-grandmother could’ve been scrubbing Emily Dickinson’s stairs!” But there’s more: Dickinson was influenced by the servantsundefinedand maid Margaret Maher, with whom Dickinson was especially close, saved poems that the poet stored in the maid’s trunk from their planned destruction.

    Ai’fe  Murray is the daughter of Betty Murray, the former treasurer of the Greater New Haven Labor History Association and a recipient of the Association’s Augusta Lewis Troup Award. Ms. Murray begins the book tour in her home town. Maid as Muse was launched at the New Haven Free Public Library on Tuesday, March 16 at 6 p.m. Following a reading and a question and answer session, books were available for purchase and signing. For more information about her writing and the book, please visit www.maidasmuse.com. 

  • 13 Apr 2010 4:31 PM | Posted by GNHLHA

    From Newsletter Volume 6, Number 1

    By Dorothy Johnson, GNHLHA Executive Board Member

    I can’t count the number of people I have met who lived in the Newhallville area or worked at the former Winchester plant. My father was living in Birmingham, Alabama when plant managers headed to the South in hopes of recruiting potential workers to locate to New Haven, CT. Great numbers of people headed north for a better future for themselves and their families. Some of the workers who migrated to the North stayed at the former YMCA which was then located on Howe Street in walking distance to the plant.

    Winchester has such a rich history. I can remember when my family lived on Bassett Street and I would walk down to the plant, which at that time had factories on both sides of Winchester Avenue. This historic facility was a city inside a larger city. At 12 noon you could hear the whistle blowing all over New Haven. Those were the good days.

    Many positive changes did occur throughout the decades. The Greater New Haven Labor History Association is launching an oral history project for former Winchester workers to share their experiences while employed there. Victory Lodge 609 members stood up and fought back against the company numerous times. It certainly was an active journey the workers experienced. Now is the time you can share your untold story with others. The Winchester Plant may be gone, but the history is alive!

    Interviews will kick off in the middle of March 2010. The committee has already contacted some former workers who are eager to tell the story. Please join us in this history event.

    For more information about this project, please contact Dorothy Johnson or Lula White, (203) 281-0665, Mary Johnson (203) 387-7858, or email info@laborhistory.org.

  • 01 Sep 2009 9:30 PM | Posted by GNHLHA

    From Newsletter Volume 5, Number 2

    By Kevin Lynch

    Editor’s note: We hope that this article by Kevin Lynch about his parents and his son will inaugurate a series of articles about “family labor traditions.” Please either send your stories in by mail or email, or contact us and we’ll talk with you and write them from the information that you provide.

    In May 1998, Austin B. Lynch graduated from Yale University and continued a long family tradition of union involvement.

    Austin’s grandparents, Charles and Catherine Lynch, were Irish immigrants. Charles, even in the face of thundering pulpit admonishments not to, became a founding member of “Red Mike” Quill’s Transport Workers Union. In September, 1949, while inspecting elevated track, Charles fell, breaking his back and all four limbs; he remained in hospitals and rest homes for over six years. To support herself and her three children, Catherine went to work as a seamstress and joined the International Ladies Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU), where she stayed until 1964. So thirty-four years later, given this family tradition, Austin surprised no one when upon his Yale graduation he became an organizer for the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union (HERE). But in the interim, the ILGWU had transformed and renamed itself as UNITE, and then combined with HERE to form UNITE-HERE. At that point, Austin, after two generations and one Yale education, was back in the same union of which his grandmother had been a member.

    Austin’s older brother, Brendan P. Lynch, went to Harvard Law, graduating the same year as Austin (1998), and has for the past six years been the treasurer of his amalgamated union local of public interest lawyers in Philadelphia.

    Their father, Kevin Lynch, learning union activism from his sons, was the founding President of the Connecticut Alliance for Retired Americans (Ct. ARA), a chapter of the AFL-CIO sponsored ARA. During his working life he, like his wife Denise Lynch, was an active member of the faculty union of the Ct. State University System, AAUP.

  • 01 Sep 2009 9:28 PM | Posted by GNHLHA

    From Newsletter Volume 5, Number 2

     (The following excerpts are from an article in the New Haven Independent On-Line about George M. Fishman, a long time member of the Greater New Haven Labor History Association, reprinted with permission. For the full article, see July 7, 2009.)

    George M. Fishman passed away peacefully at his Wooster Street home on Wednesday, June 30th, 2009.  During the 13 years that he and his wife Edie lived in New Haven, he became well known for his scholarship and his activism on behalf of democratic rights, human rights and peace. Fishman, born in Philadelphia on January 6, 1917 to immigrant parents, was a high school social science and history teacher. He held a PhD in History from Temple University.

    Since 1938 he was actively involved in African American and labor studies, as researcher, writer and teacher. A selection of his work, “For a Better WorldundefinedA Miscellany: Writings 1952undefined2002 on the African American People’s Freedom/Equality                                                                 Struggles in New Jersey History” was completed in 2002. He was a member of the American Federation of Teachers Retirees Chapter 933R in New Haven.

    From 1938 to 1941 Fishman was a staff member of a Works Project Administration (WPA) teaching unit which pioneered in staff development in African American life, history and culture and in conducting classes in labor unions and community organizations. During World War II he was a radio man aboard a Landing Ship Medium (#361) in the Pacific. His service included teaching English. He was awarded four medals: American Theatre, Asian-Pacific, Philippine Liberation and Victory.

    Following the war, he taught social studies, history and mathematics mainly in the public secondary schools of Philadelphia but also in New Jersey until his retirement in August, 1984. In 1952 during the McCarthy period he was forced to leave his teaching position as part of the general purge of progressives, including Communists, labor activists and civil rights advocates from public life. He went to work at Campbell’s Soup in Camden, New Jersey where he lived with his family. He was a union shop steward and leader of Local 804 United Packinghouse Workers of America, CIO, for eight years, returning to teach in Philadelphia in 1968, when the school system repudiated past discriminatory practices and all teachers were invited back.

    Fishman, who said he lived “a life with a purpose,” participated in community, civil rights, labor and world affairs throughout his life. He is survived by wife Edie, daughter

    Joelle and son-in-law Art Perlo of New Haven, and several nieces and nephews.

  • 01 Sep 2009 9:27 PM | Posted by GNHLHA

    From Newsletter Volume 5, Number 2

    Submitted by Stephen Kass


    Paul Cole, the executive director of the American Labor Studies Center, will present a power point presentation about the ALSC website for teachers on Tuesday, October 27, 2009 from 4-5:30 at the Labor Center, 267 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT 06513. The event is co-sponsored by the New Haven Federation of Teachers and the Greater New Haven Labor History Association.

    Integrating Labor Studies into the K-12 Curriculum

    Paul F. Cole, Executive Director, American Labor Studies Center   

     

    This workshop will provide participants with standards-based resources and strategies for integrating labor history and the economic, cultural, social and political contributions of the American labor movement into the K-12 curriculum.  Materials from the ALSC web site include a bibliography, biographies, information on child labor, documents, a filmography, a glossary, labor songs, labor quotes, photos, policy issues, primary sources, simulations on organizing and collective  bargaining and  a timeline.  Complete course descriptions and lessons will also be reviewed.  Elementary, social studies, English, music and arts teachers will discover relevant curriculum materials.

    The following article appeared in American Teacher, the official publication of the American Federation of Teachers [AFT]) in September 2003.

    You can call it one of our nation’s untold tales. It’s the story of the American labor movement and the role workers and their unions have played – and continue to play – in our country’s political, economic and cultural life. And even though teachers are among the most unionized sectors of the American workforce, our public schools have not done a very good job of sharing that history with school children. As a result, this rich history is a mystery for many Americans.

    The American Labor Studies Center (ALSC) is determined to change that. In 2003, AFT leaders, members and staff gathered in Washington, D.C., for a National Labor in the Schools Symposium organized by the ALSC. The focus of the conference was how labor education can be infused into the nation’s schools. Workshops and the general session covered topics such as labor and the arts, the National Labor College and California’s acclaimed labor curriculum “Golden Lands, Working Hands.”

    “The goal of the American Labor Studies Center is not to indoctrinate or proselytize but provide students with an opportunity to explore the many facets of a very complex and important part of our nation’s history and contemporary life,” said ALSC executive director Paul Cole, who is a former AFT vice president. One of the principal aims of the ALSC is to collect, create and disseminate labor history curricula and related materials to K-12 teachers nationwide.

    With the help of the AFL-CIO, the AFT is in a good position to bring a solid labor education curriculum into many of the nation’s schools. Denise Mitchell, assistant to AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, outlined results of a new public opinion poll on the labor movement that highlights the critical need to educate the public and the next generation on the role of unions. Only half of those surveyed say they know a fair amount about unions; and minorities, women and younger people are the least knowledgeable. A majority of the public also believes that unions work more for their members than for the public good.

    Mitchell sees labor education in the schools as a great way to clarify misperceptions and empower young workers – especially because the poll shows the lowest negative union ratings in a decade. “If we would all do the every day work of telling the union story, touching people’s lives and reaching a new generation, we could really get the story out to the public,” said Mitchell.

    The American Labor Studies Center is dedicated to disseminating labor history and curricula. Visit their web site, www.labor-studies.org.

  • 01 Sep 2009 9:26 PM | Posted by GNHLHA

    From Newsletter Volume 5, Number 2

    By Jim Hoffecker

    On the morning of July 16, 1969, the 3,000 members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Local Lodge 609 employed at the Olin Mathieson Winchester Firearms plant in New Haven, CT began a strike over a section of the union-company agreement about work quotas. The strike was described by a New Haven Register reporter as “one of the most serious work stoppages in Connecticut.” 

    Section 33.8 of the union-company agreement, also referred to as the “Incentive Plan” by union members, was a provision in the agreement requiring the company to negotiate with the union if it wanted to set work quotas or any standards which might be considered an “abnormal” work pace.  The company wanted to remove this hard-fought protection to maintain its market “competitiveness,” but the union was concerned that arbitrarily imposed work quotas would unfairly target disabled or elderly workers.  During the early summer months of 1969 the company and union were engaged in intense negotiations, but no agreement could be reached.

    The community response was mixed. The American Independence Movement (AIM) prepared a statement signed by more than 240 clergymen, merchants and other community leaders which condemned the company’s final offer as “inadequate,” but articles in local New Haven newspapers complained that the strike was costly to the city of New Haven and, at the end, claimed that it was “all too clear that nobody won.”

    But in 2004, Joan Cavanagh, Greater New Haven Labor History Association archivist, asked Local 609 president John Reynolds the same question that she asks every union officer when she inventories their records: what was the union's greatest success?  In addition, of course, to its hard-won victory in 1956 (hence the name “Victory Lodge”) in organizing workers at this very difficult plant, Reynolds stated that the Local’s best success was the agreement resulting from the long strike of 1969undefineda contract that included language that protected older and disabled workers from speed-ups. 

    The archives of Victory Lodge 609 contain a vast amount of information ranging from arbitrations that dealt with strike issues, minutes of union meetings about the strike, to entire during the strike and document how the company attempted to mislead the public in its newspaper ads. They also document the community’s aid to the striking workers, which was greatly needed due to their significant loss of income. 

    The Winchester strike of 1969 as documented by the materials in the Local 609 collection was an event not only of significance to the union, but an important part of New Haven history which should be learned, shared and discussed for generations to come.

    Article in the New Haven Register dated September 12, 1969 located in Box 25A

    Article, “Strike Swallows Government Funds” October 26, 1970, New Haven Register, Box 25A

  • 02 May 2009 9:18 PM | Posted by GNHLHA

    From Newsletter Volume 5, Number 1

    Some of the sayings of Danny Perez, union organizer.

    Principles that signify the fundamental true nature of the organizing world.


    “I like the little guy beating up the big guy.”

    “The Tao of heaven is to take from those who have too much and give to those who do not have enough. Man’s way is different. He takes from those who do not have enough to give to those who already have too much.” (verse 77. Tr. Gia Fu Feng)

    “There are lucky organizers and there are lazy organizers, but there are no lucky lazy organizers.”

    Danny was a successful union organizer.  During the time I knew him, he organized more shops in Connecticut than the rest of the national ILGWU combined.  His success could be accounted for in a number of ways:  he built networks throughout Connecticut cities, among Hispanic individuals and groups, with other labor folks.  When there was a need to organize a new shop, Danny was the first person everyone thought of.  That’s good luck, but it came through a lot of work. 

    “A good organizer always has a pen.”

    Danny meant this quite literally.  Thanks to this teaching, I am always the person in the group who has the writing implement when someone wants to take down a name or phone number. I also think there is a much deeper meaning here. Danny was telling me that an organizer has to have the tools of his trade ready at all times: did I get that license plate of the scab?  Do I have cash on hand for the coffee and donuts before the picket line starts in the morning? Do I know the Mayor and City Manager so I can get permission to put our strike trailer on the boss’s property?

    “Senior officers are made by junior officers who take initiative.”

    This came from Danny’s experience in the Army.  A lot of veterans have told me that what they learned from their time in uniform was “never volunteer for anything.”  Danny learned a completely different lesson.  He always encouraged me to take initiative, to take chances even though I might get in trouble.  It is certainly a rule he lived by.  The only exception to this is when I wanted to organize prisoners in a state correctional facility who were making baseball caps for a private company.  They were receiving pennies a day for their work and the boss was making the profit. Danny’s wisdom was profound and precise: “Go into a prison voluntarily?  Are you crazy?”

    “Tao is subtle and quiet.”

    Danny Perez did not say this, and he was anything but subtle or quiet.  But here are two examples of his method:

    The night before a strike (it was my first, I was terrified), we went to visit a worker’s home.  Danny suspected the worker was going to scab.  The worker was surprised but let us in.  Danny sat down and watched television. After a while, we left.  No one had said a word. Nothing.  The worker joined us on the picket line.

    Danny hired me after I left my previous job and had no prospects.  The regional director of the ILGWU came down from Boston to meet me.  I went on and on about how we could set up a storefront workers’ center to provide on the job assistance at local non-union shops and to build future contacts.  The guy clearly hated me.  He left with nothing said about when I would start, and here was no word about me actually being put on payroll. Danny assured me everything would be okay.  A few weeks passed but Danny told me to be patient (I guess the director was waiting me out).  After about two months, I got my first paycheck.

    “I am Spartacus!”

    No, Danny didn’t say this either, but he actually once said “I am gay.”  He was not gay; in fact he was muy macho. But he was making a point to some group of politicos who were discrediting Hartford’s gay activist John Bonelli.  The details escape me now, but the group was challenging John’s ability to do something because of his sexual orientation.  Danny, who knew John’s abilities and character well, was indignant and announced to them that he, too, was gay.  Would they have the nerve to try to disparage Danny as they did John? Thus ended the lesson.

    “El que no habla, Dios no lo escucha.”

    Danny’s friend Juan Figueroa used this saying in an op-ed article to describe Danny’s approach to organizing and to life in general:  If you don’t speak up, God will not hear you.

Powered by Wild Apricot Membership Software