Labor Day 2003

By Don Rittner

May 1^st is International May Day, a time to celebrate workers around the world. It’s always fitting to remind everyone that fighting for worker’s rights in this country had early beginnings right here in Troy.

In 1903, 100 years ago, there were 26 unions in Troy: the Albany & Troy Printing Pressmen’s Union, Ale Brewer’s, Amalgamated Association of Street Railway Employees, Architectural Iron Worker’s, Barbers’, Bartenders’, Carpenters’, Central Federation of Labor, Cigarmakers’, Horseshoers’, International Bakers’, Ironmoulders’ Journeymen Tailors’, Lager Beer Brewery Workers’, Lathers’, Livery Employees’, Machinery Moulders’, Malsters’, Musical Mutual Protective, Pioneer Building Loan and Savings Association, Plumbers’, Stove Mounters’, Teamsters’, Tin and Sheet Iron Workers’, Troy Association No. 13, Stationary Engineers, and the Troy Typographical Union.

In 1905, another union began, and Troy once again became national news when women starchers organized. Cluett, Peabody & Co., one of largest Troy collar factories, introduced new starching machines that were expected to double the number of collars each "collar girl" could starch in a given length of time. The starchers tried the machine for nine months. In the end the machine did not lighten the work, and the collars required almost as much hand labor to make them acceptable as they did under the old system.

Wages were also reduced and the increased labor in the use of the machines, compounded by the fact that they were forced on the girls didn’t help. Finally, old employees were laid off and new ones hired without cause. At times up to thirty-five girls would be laid off for a week, even when the amount of work on hand was so great that Cluett was sending some of it to be done outside his own laundries. The girls finally asked management to share the work so that everyone could work, avoiding layoffs, but were refused.

Cluett sent his collars to the laundries of other factories but the starchers there refused to handle them, so by May 17^th, there wasn’t a laundry in Troy, outside the companies own laundries, that would touch them. More than 1000 women organized and they decided to strike in June 1905, a strike that lasted until March 1906. At the time it was the largest women led strike in U.S. history.

A letter from a sympathizer to the Troy Times (now Record) sums it up:

There was disorder however and some newspapers accused Troy police of siding with the strikers for keeping non-union girls from entering and working. The union collected nearly $25,000 from supporters, however, the strike eventually collapsed and the firms introduced more machinery.

This all brings us to this year’s Fifth Annual Hudson Mohawk May Day Celebration. The evening of May 1st, will host a panel of expert speakers focusing on the subject of Labor issues. Scheduled speakers include:

* Joe McCartin, Associate Professor, Department of History, Georgetown University and author of "Labor's Great War: The Struggle for Industrial Democracy and the Origins of Modern American Labor Relations, 1912-21";

* Johnny and Sally Van Schaick, retired Schenectady school teachers with a vast knowledge of local history and labor history of the area; and

* Jo Ann Wypijewski, a journalist, member of the National Writers Union/ UAW 1981, and a representative of NYC Labor Against the War.

Complimentary refreshments and musical entertainment will be available starting at 6 P.M. This forum will be held at First Unitarian Society of Schenectady, which is located at 1221 Wendell Avenue.

As in the past, these activities are presented by the May Day Committee and sponsored by the Troy Area Labor Council, in conjunction with the New York Labor History Association, Solidarity Committee of the Capital District, and The Eighth Step Coffee House.