In children’s clothing we have another complete organization:
In women’s wear, there are unions organized around every garment known to the wardrobe, some of which are:
These unions comprise the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union.
The reader will have an idea, after reading these lists, that the employes represented in these unions are women. The majority are men. It may require something of an effort to remember that, but it is essential. These organizations control an essential business which before the war produced over One Billion Dollars’ worth of goods a year, and since the war has probably received for its products each year the amount of a big fat Liberty Loan; and these unions have received 30 to 40 per cent of that for wages and propaganda funds.
Now, let it be said at once that these Jewish unions are not to be confused with the regular Labor Union Movement, as we know it in the United States.
They are not Jews who have gone into the American trades unions. They have started unions of their own which are Jewish in membership, control and purpose. It is true, of course, that the regular trades union movement which heads up in the American Federation of Labor is under the presidency of a Jew, Samuel Gompers, but the membership is mixed, the large majority being non-Jews, and the purpose is not racial.
These Jewish unions comprise a body by themselves and are to be reckoned with, not only as labor union groups, but as racial and political groups whose purposes can be determined by the character and utterances of their leaders, as well as by the actions authorized and approved by the unions themselves.