11/11/2023 0 Comments Workers strike definition![]() In response to the strike, the city government pledged “sufficient protection” for shirtwaist manufacturers and began rounding up hundreds of picketing strikers per day. To alleviate these conditions, strikers demanded a ten percent increase in wages on all piece and contract work, regular and consistent payment, an end to punitive firings, a cap of fifty hours work per week, sanitary working conditions, union recognition, and a free supply of work materials (thread, for example). The manufacturers were not liable for any injury or illness workers suffered on the job, and workers were often responsible for purchasing their own equipment and supplies. The shirtwaist industry operated under a subcontracting system, wherein manufacturers distributed work to contractors who, in turn, hired operators to make the garments. However, many newly arrived immigrant workers agitated for better working conditions against the call for “unity and harmony” among the community’s intellectual and business leaders. Members of this elite welcomed new immigrants hesitantly, devoting considerable resources to forge a pliant, assimilated working class. Most Jewish workers worked for Jewish employers, who often paid low wages and were generally first- or second-generation Jewish elites from Western Europe, who had settled in Philadelphia decades earlier. Overall, 40 percent of workers in Philadelphia’s garment trades were Jewish, and young women and girls from Russia had high rates of employment. It was fashionable, had a collar, and could be of simple or embellished design, making it versatile.Īpproximately 85 percent of the shirtwaist strikers were Jewish women and girls from Russia, demonstrating the ethnic and gender segregation of Philadelphia’s labor market. The shirtwaist blouse was a type of blouse common in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, modeled after a man’s shirt, that was the model blouse for the independent, working woman. Shirtwaist blouses, such as this one sewn in 1896 by an unknown American maker, became symbolic of modern, working young women of the early twentieth century. Occurring in an era of increased unemployment, labor market instability, and worker militancy, the shirtwaist strike revealed tensions between Philadelphia’s Republican machine government and organized labor, as well as among elite members of the Jewish community, club women, and the young shirtwaist workers. The strike lasted until February 6, 1910, when manufacturers agreed to comply with workers’ demands (though ultimately refused union recognition). On December 20, 1909, more than 7,000 of Philadelphia’s 12,000 shirtwaist workers walked out on their jobs, one month after the “ uprising of 20,000” commenced in New York City’s shirtwaist industry. ![]() ![]() Philadelphia, the Place that Loves You Back. ![]()
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