Focus on History in the Daily Gazette- Labor unions in the Mohawk Valley
Episode 281-Jim Richmond, coordinator of the Saratoga County History Roundtable, discusses the growth of interest in local history in that county. Saturday Podcast "Thirty One Minutes"
Unions in the Mohawk Valley
By Bob Cudmore
The Knights of Labor (KOL) was the first union to organize Amsterdam mill hands. A wage cut for Sanford carpet workers in 1884 led to a strike that brought union organizers to town.
The KOL was very active in the 1880s. There was an Amsterdam knitting mill strike and management lockout involving the Knights in 1886, marked by frequent physical clashes. The mill owners prevailed in ousting the KOL from the city, at least temporarily.
One of the local KOL leaders was a woman, Leonora Carney Barry. Barry worked in the Pioneer Street Knitting Mill to support her three children after her husband died.
A former teacher and eloquent speaker, Barry became a leader of the 1500-member Amsterdam local, which included many women. She left Amsterdam, leaving her children with relatives, and went on to head the women’s department in the national union.
She resigned in 1889 amid opposition to her idea that women should be full-fledged KOL members. She lived until 1930 and was popular on the lecture circuit as an advocate for temperance, suffrage and women’s rights.
1914 GLOVERS STRIKE
According to historian Barbara McMartin, some 1,500 glove cutters went on strike at most the glove firms in Fulton County in 1914. The strike began in Gloversville and spread quickly to Johnstown. Some 15,000 glove industry workers were idled.
McMartin said the glove cutters--primarily Russian Jews, Italians, English and native-born Americans--argued they had not received any significant pay increase since 1897. The manufacturers were united in their stand that current trade conditions prevented a pay raise.
The New York State Board of Mediation and Arbitration issued findings on the strike after holding hearings in Fulton County. The arbitrators said the strike was orderly and almost entirely without violence but in general ruled against the union.
The glovers returned to work, without their long sought pay raise. There were some raises after World War I. McMartin said the glove manufacturers won a hollow victory in that the industry now had begun its ultimate decline in Fulton County.
Some union members advocated socialism. One cutter, Herman Abbott, pointed to starving little children and miserable working conditions and said the quicker the state owns the glove industry, the better.
THE BIG STRIKE
What carpet workers called the big strike took place in 1952 when members of the Textile Workers Union of America were on the picket lines for twelve weeks at factories in northern states including Mohawk Carpets and Bigelow-Sanford in Amsterdam. That same year Herbert Shuttleworth II had become president of Mohawk Carpets.
“We got eleven cents (an hour raise),” said the late Amsterdam union leader Tony Murdico. “There were no ifs, ands or buts. We had to go back to work with 11 cents.”
When Bigelow-Sanford moved its Amsterdam operations to its plant in Thompsonville, Connecticut in 1955 some attributed the move to labor unrest. However, Amsterdam textile union leader Fred Krokenberger noted that while Amsterdam only had four union grievances in four years, workers in Thompsonville had participated in 17 work stoppages in two years. In any event, by 1971 Bigelow Sanford had closed its Thompsonville mills and moved all manufacturing to southern states.
William Duchessi of Amsterdam was a local then national officer of the Textile Workers Union of America in the 1960s and 1970s. He died in 1979. William Duchessi’s nephew, John Duchessi, Jr., was mayor of Amsterdam from 1996 to 2003.
Mohawk Carpets moved its Amsterdam rug production south in 1968 and relocated its Amsterdam office operations to Georgia in the late 1980s. Most carpet production has since been moved to other countries.
JOHNSTOWN Year of the Glove activities in Fulton County continue in 2019 with presentations, a podcast, and upcoming events such as a college dissertation and a “Design Your Own Glove” party.
By MICHAEL ANICH
The Leader-Herald
https://www.leaderherald.com/news/local-news/2019/08/year-of-the-glove-activities-continue/
Fulton County Historian Samantha Hall-Saladino discusses Year of the Glove activities with the Board of Supervisors' Economic Devlopment and Environment Committee Wednesday at the County Office Building in Johnstown. (The Leader-Herald/Michael Anich)
Sunday, September 1, 2019-NO TALK OF THE TOWN BECAUSE OF LABOR DAY WEEKEND
The September meeting of the Mohawk Valley Museums Consortium is scheduled for Tuesday, September 10, 2019 starting at 1 pm at the Charlton Historical Society, 2009 Maple Avenue, in Charlton, Saratoga County, NY. This meeting is for member organizations and the public that may be interested in the topics being presented.
Jerry Snyder from the Historic Amsterdam League will give a presentation on how to create successful cemetery tour programs. HAL has offered several programs throughout the city of Amsterdam to highlight the historic neighborhoods and prominent residents of the past. Snyder will discuss how the cemetery tours are planned and conducted using volunteers as interpreters playing the role of historic figures. More on The NYHB https://newyorkhistoryblog.org/2019/08/mohawk-valley-museums-meeting-slated/
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