[Footnote A: In May, 1915, the Protocol was set aside by the cloak and suit manufacturers. A strike impended. Mayor Mitchel called a Council of Conciliation, Dr. Felix Adler as chairman. Their report was accepted by the union and finally by the employers, and industrial peace was restored.]
Just as sound and important work is being done all the time with many smaller groups. For instance, the straw-and panama-hat-makers of New York tried to organize and were met by a number of the manufacturers with a black list. A general strike was declared on February 14, 1913. The League members were able to give very valuable aid to the strikers by assisting in picketing and by attending the courts when the pickets were arrested. This strike had to be called off, and was apparently lost, but the union remains and is far stronger than before the strike took place.
But better results even than this were gained in the strike in the potteries in Trenton, New Jersey. The Central Labor Union of Trenton and all the trade-union men in the city gave splendid coöperation to the strikers. They handed over the girls to the care of Miss Melinda Scott, the League organizer, and under her directions the inexperienced unionists did fine work and helped to bring about a satisfactory settlement. This success gave heart of grace to the girls in certain woolen and silk mills of Trenton. Wages there were appalling. They varied from two dollars and fifty cents to eleven dollars. Many children, nominally fourteen, but looking very young, were employed. The owner of the factory at length consented to meet the workers with the League organizer in conference at the New York headquarters, and after several weeks the strike was settled on the workers' terms.
The New York organizer also helped the Boston League in the strike of the paper factories of Holyoke, Massachusetts. The cause of the strike here was an arrangement under which eight girls could be got to do the work of twelve. Here the workers actually stood up for a share of the profits under the new arrangement, or else that the discharged girls should be reinstated. The manufacturers chose the latter alternative.
The Candy Workers' Union in Boston was also formed through the Women's Trade Union League. The girls had walked all over Boston for two days asking policemen, carmen and anyone else who would listen to them how to form a union. They had no umbrellas, and their shoes were dripping with the wet. They were Jewish, Italian and American girls. As a result of the organization formed they obtained a very material raise in wages, the better allotment of work in the slack season and the taking up of all disputed questions between the manufacturers and the union.
From experience gained during these gigantic industrial wars, the National League has laid down definite conditions under which its locals may coöperate with unions in time of strike. These take part only in strikes in which women are involved, and then only after having been formally invited to assist, and on the understanding that two League representatives may attend all executive meetings of the strikers' union. It has been found that the lines in which the aid of the Women's Trade Union League is of most value to any exploited group are these: (1) organization and direction of public opinion; (2) patrolling the streets; (3) fair play in the courts; (4) help in the raising of funds through unions and allies; (5) where workers are unorganized, help in the formation of trade-union organization.
The League workers thus make it their business to open up channels of publicity, at least giving the papers something to talk about, and reaching with the strikers' side of the story, churches, clubs, and other associations of well-meaning citizens, who are not at all in touch with organized labor. Allies, in particular, can do much to preserve traditions of fair play, in regard to the use of the streets for peaceful picketing. By providing bonds for girls arrested, lawfully or unlawfully, and by attending in person such cases when these come up in court, they are standing for the principles of democracy.
In addition, the local leagues are willing to take charge of the arrangements under which girls are sent to other unions, asking for moral and financial aid. Men trade unionists long ago discovered how irresistible a pleader the young girl can be, but they are not always equally impressed with the need of safeguarding the girls, often little more than children, chosen for these trying expeditions, and sent off alone, or at best, two together, to distant industrial centers. The working-girl needs no chaperon, but equally with her wealthier sister, she does require and ought to receive motherly care and oversight. She is perhaps leaving home for the first time, and there should be someone to see to it that when she arrives in a strange city a comfortable and convenient lodging-place has been found for her. She should be shown how to conserve her strength in finding her way from one locality to another in following up the evening meetings of unions, and she should have some woman to turn to if she should become sick. Points, all of these, the busy secretaries of central labor bodies may very easily overlook, accustomed as they are to deal with mature men, in the habit of traveling about the country, who may surely be left to take care of themselves.
The activities of the local leagues vary in detail in the different cities. In all there are monthly business meetings, the business run by the girls, with perhaps a speaker to follow, and sometimes a program of entertainment. Lectures on week evenings, classes and amusements are provided as far as workers and funds permit. The first important work among newly arrived women immigrants in the Middle West was done by the Chicago League, and this laid the groundwork for the present Immigrants' Protective League. Headquarters are a center for organizing, open all the time to receive word of struggling unions, helping out in difficulties, counseling the impulsive, and encouraging the timid. When a group of workers see for themselves the need of organization, a body of experienced women standing ready to mother a new little union, the hospitable room standing open, literally night and day, can afford the most powerful aid in extending organization among timid girls. If courage and daring are needed in this work, courage to stand by the weak, daring to go out and picket in freezing weather with unfriendly policemen around, patience is if possible more essential in the organizer's make-up. It often takes months of gentle persistence before the girls, be they human-hair-workers or cracker-packers, or domestic workers or stenographers, see how greatly it is to their own interest to join or to form a labor organization. Many locals formed with so much thought and after so much pains, drop to pieces after a few months or a year or two. That is a universal experience in the labor movement everywhere. But it does not therefore follow that nothing has been gained. Even a group so loosely held together that it melts away after the first impulse of indignation has died out is often successful in procuring shorter hours or better wages or improved conditions for the trade or shops of their city. Besides each individual girl has had a little bit of education in what coöperation means, and what collective bargaining can do. The League itself is a reminder, too, that all working-girls have many interests in common, whatever their trade.
But besides aiding in the forming of new locals, the Women's Trade Union League can be a force strengthening the unions already established. Each of the leagues has an organization committee, whose meetings are attended by delegates from the different women's trades. These begin mostly as experience meetings, but end generally in either massing the effort of all on one particular union's struggle, or in planning legislative action by which all women workers can be benefited.