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The only unbridgeable thing is the will of the rich and powerful to divide their servants. The world needs more unions.

being in a workplace with people is the best way to learn who they are. thise friendships are strong.

This is exactly what today's ruling party is trying to avoid - working people realizing they have more in common whatever their backgrounds and uniting to demand more from their employers, hence the drive to exacerbate superficial divisions.

Reading the early census records here in Alberta, the local Grocer was sure to have a Catholic, a Protestant and as many ethnic groups represented on the railroad. This included Galicians, Americans, Norwegians, English, Scotch, Irish, and Germans.

two realities can coexist!

oh some of them surely are. Trump and Musk definitely. Others like Vance are just general sociopaths.

I think you're right. The elite are much much more segregated than the general population, with their private schools, country clubs, etc. The only reason they are able to fan these flames is that rural America is also very white, and scared of diversity because of the news.

Elites are committed racists. They also hate poor people, working people, people with chronic illness or disability ("useless eaters" the Nazi's called them), artists & intellectuals, women who won't mangle their faces for MAGA, and obviously children (fodder for rape & school shootings).

A shared workplace gave those differences a practical meeting point: the same boss, the same risks, and collective action that could win what individual workers couldn’t.

Funny how we’ve spent the last century building "collaborative tools" to replace the organic, high-bandwidth solidarity of people actually standing in the same room. We traded the picket line for a Slack channel and called it progress.

But they did. And I wonder if that is part of the reason Hawaii is the most integrated place I’ve ever lived, in terms of embracing ALL the cultures of ALL the people (it’s not paradise, but it’s so different from the continent).

Thx for sharing this

My grandfather and stepfather were railroad union men. Was it a perfect union? No. Very sexist & ableist. It was changing, though (thankfully). At least there was space for change. In nonunion workplaces, it's the HR department that "looks out for you" (does not) and everyone out for themselves.

Yep! Unions get a lot of stick precisely because they have been so important in fighting for social improvement for the working classes. Like you, I found equally important the wonderful humanity and comradeship to be found among the generously spirited people typical of the union family.

Did the garment unions proliferate after the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire in 1911 in New York?

Working side by side is the best way to build relationships.

What does Curlee Striker mean, was Curlee the name of the company?

I'm in AA, joined in 95, I'm active in the fellowship. It's not perfect - but for peaceful coexistence across ethnic, gender, and political lines - it's a big step closer to harmony than any place else I know. We do have that saving our own dang lives, one day at a time that keeps us in line, mostly

This is so important and necessary for the kind of change the majority of people want and need.

The only thing unbridgeable are racists and these people

AI fail for ”Finish” or a failure to proofread for ignorance?

I used to be in Local 10

The reality of laboring under an unjust system unites us a whole lot more than race, gender, religion separate us. It's in the interest of capital for us to forget that.

Oooo Thanks for this. Sounds like a dynamite book!

We’ve always been a nation of immigrants. If only people would read a history book or two.

😍

We used one of these stands without the machine on top as a TV stand. Spent a lot of time as a kid seeing how fast I could pump the pedal.

My mom was a dressmaker and a ILGWU member. I’d get proud when I would hear the jingle as a girl.

The great factory fire remember that

The far-right is threatened by inclusive behaviour. They want to divide and conquer, so let's include everyone and stay together: safety in numbers. As someone said to me earlier, it makes for more interesting music, food, art, towns and cities. How boring it would be if we were all the same

The Ancestors of modern Americans. Immigrants and the Original People. 🤟🤘🙌

Me, too!

And 100% cashmere! Brilliant find!

Those short sleeves with long gloves is such an elegant look!

I have been finding excuses to dress up so that it can have a new chance in the limelight. Insanely, it cost £5.

Wow, what a find!!

As a NYC area kid of the '70s, that song is embedded in my brain. I can instantly sing along. Right along with this absolute banger. youtu.be/zpn0QPC3QJs?...

That cracked me up as well. I remember those collars n ties as wide as a dinner napkin with tennis ball size knots. Right when I entered the workforce, this. ✌️

Rose to the surface just the other day in fact.

Mine too

Because you feel alone but you have *never* been alone.

I was a little younger, but same same.

It made me tear up too.

The rich republicans can never have enough money or power so they worked to destroy unions. I was a proud member of the AFL-CIO and made a good living.

I can still sing every word.

My youth!

Kinda dusty in here.

OMG that brought tears to my eyes. I remember the song and two of my aunts were in that union.

The came The Powell Memo.

I remember this ad well.

Ooh honey! The flashback I just had. ✊🏽

you keep saying that (word). i don't think that (word) 'right to work' means what you think it means...

I always loved this song.

Workers bridging divides to build power in unions still each day, per @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

My mom spent her entire life, from age 13, an immigrant from Ukraine, working in an ILGWU shop until she retired at age 65.

So left they didnt even bother with a right channel.

I remember being really surprised buying a suit in the US (albeit 20 years back) and finding a "UNITE HERE union made" label in it. Little reminders like that and the union print bug are important in showing a better way - and also highlighting to us just how much we are used NOT to seeing them.

I remember this song!

I remember that ad!

What's great is that they played this commercial during the Star Wars Holiday special and that's the reason why I remember it. It was nice to see this bit of wholesomeness after watching Chewbacca's dad get aroused by some very softcore porn given to him by Art Carney.

I think I still have some retirement points in the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workers of America from my days at Campbell's Soup.

I was only 6 but I remember this commercial.

And Dolly Madison snack cakes! Weird how I remember that.

I immediately thought of this commercial!

i remember that jingle. i used to sing it as a kid.

I can sing that song on pitch, word for word. Suffice to say: it made strong impression on young me. And yes, I seek out & purchase USA-made textiles. My fashion model-boutique owner-manager-regional director Mom didn’t raise no foo #QualityGarmentsLastForever Ya just gotta take care of stuff.

One of the original bootleg versions of the Star Wars Holiday Special available on YouTube features this as one of the commercials! Also parodied by South Park.

Does this union still exist?

A woman from my hometown was in that ad. And my grandmother was a proud member. Thanks for resurrecting this piece of history.

The singing commercial is a lost art.

Yes. Then, the powers that be destroyed unions, sold us out to foreign manufacturing, fast fashion & cheap crap, AS IF it saved us money when in fact it created the planned-obsolescence business model we suffer through today. American, Union-made items were once the gold standard products. 🪡🧵

I was a member of ILGWU as a much younger woman. That is until the 80s when Reagan drove unions out and jobs in NH in went overseas or down south. There are a few movies that show why it was formed. A lot of young women and kids died in fires.

The ad is from 1978. Where were we importing from? China had just barely started to open up and there wouldn’t have been much coming in. Mexico? Japan?

Still the same logic

That was an amazingly multi-cultural commercial for 1978.

Stipulating as to what Derek says about ILGWU, one an also say that many labor unions, thruout our history, were pretty racist iirc, Ford's sec of labor, Dunlop, had to go to Philadelphia in person and tell the constructions unions: you have to admit AfAms LOL

m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbRF...

My godmother was a member of the Ladies Garment Workers. She would talk about how things changed when the plant unionized. Not just salaries, but safety. All those jobs are gone now.

I strangely think if this song often. Like, really often.

"Stopped at the border" -> why should a foreign worker be less privileged than you, just because of their natinality?

What percentage of textiles, garments, "wear stuff," are made in the United States?

It’s a great reminder that people can find common ground despite their differences. When people stand together for fairness and dignity, those divisions aren’t as impossible to overcome as some make them seem.

Unions are one of the last remaining institutions that bring diverse people together. And in unions, people make decisions and take action together! Unions foster democratic norms and experiences. Expanding our unions (via legislation that makes organizing possible) needs to be a top priority.

"Curlee Strikers" sounds like a bowling team.

AND the quality of clothing and everything else has been declining ever since. The massively wealthy owners of these far-away sweat shops are never accountable for quality, for safety, for the communities their profit-grasping has destroyed.

Many lines I carried shifted to overseas. We didn’t see the changes in price point but all of a sudden lines I carried were in TJ Max. I had to shift to artisan designers at a higher price point. Political policies changed the business & helped create income inequality.

One of the best tricks the right pulled was working hard in the 70/80s to make it seem like race was a huge impediment to unions. It was a issue in multiple places but it was almost always overcame.

Often think about this speech from Sayles' Matewan. Yes it's fictional and an oversimplification, but goddamn if there isn't truth in it: "...you know there ain't but two sides in this world-them that work and them that don't. You work, they don't. That's all you got to know about the enemy"

I remember the ILGWU ads on TV in NY with their catchy jingle

"Someone in this room murdered the boss and in the next 90 minutes we may or may not decide to find the murderer."

Unions were often born from tragedies. How many know of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in NYC. The tragedy we have now is Trump, the GOP, and psycopathic oligarchs.

That's some impressive hairstyle on the right!

I’m gonna be real and say that anyone who thinks that people of different cultural backgrounds can’t come together, are either manipulative or bigoted. I’ve never seen any examples in my life of different people not uniting on common ground if they have the compassion and empathy to do so.

Also, very early textile worker unions were responsible for many of the labor gains that were falsely credited to Ford.

My grandmother worked as a factory seamstress. Her father immigrated from Poland, but they were brown people who kept their ethnicity a secret.

When people realize they are not alone in their struggles and that those very struggles are created by a common cause they realize two things: they do not have to accept the narrative that they have somehow created their own misery, and that their strength when combined, can overcome might.

my grandmother worked in a sweat shop in NYC, when she was about 14. That would have been around 1910.

Im afraid, capitalist propaganda made us all loose our class consciousness. Often, when people are talking about conflicts regarding class, it gets framed as communism. As if the simple fact, that people have different financial backgrounds and that causes some problems alone was unspeakable.