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88 | 8 The Birth of the Knee-Pants Makers’ Union (memoir; 1924) Bernard Vaynshteyn Bernard Vaynshteyn (1866–1946) immigrated to New York City from Odessa in 1882. He worked as a cigar maker during his early years in New York and helped to build the institutional foundation of the Jewish labor movement. As secretary of the United Hebrew Trades, established in 1888, Vaynshteyn earned a reputation as a tireless and effective organizer. The following recollection of the knee-pants makers’ strike of 1890, a year of nearly constant unrest among Jewish workers, comes from his Yiddish memoir published thirty-four years later. Of all the most important and exciting strikes by Jewish workers in 1890, the most interesting and characteristic one was the knee-pants makers’ strike. Nine hundred knee-pants makers went on a general strike with the demand that bosses and contractors provide sewing machines for their work. Until then, every knee-pants maker had to bring, in addition to their own feet and hands, their own “katerinke” [sewing machine], needles, thread, and so on to work. You used to work in sweatshops for small contractors who would get work from large clothing manufacturers. The knee-pants operators had to change bosses all the time, and then the operators had to take their “katerinkes” and carry it on their shoulders from one boss to the next. This was terribly taxing on the workers. So, to put an end to it, they went out on strike. The most capable members of the union organized a strike committee . The United Hebrew Trades selected an aid committee, made up of Morris Hillquit, his brother, Louis Miller, Michael Zametkin,1 and the writer of these lines. The headquarters of the strike was in a cellar on 165 East Broadway. A large demonstration was immediately organized in the middle of the day, in which 900 knee-pants makers, in addition to workers from other trades The Birth of the Knee-Pants Makers’ Union | 89 then on strike, marched through the streets of the Lower East Side. The slogans were very strong and effective. Everyone greeted the marching workers warmly. The knee-pants contractors, who themselves were no great rich men, began to settle after the first week. Tragicomic scenes took place at the settlements . There was a total of over a hundred bosses against whom the workers struck. The bosses arrived all at once. They were brought to the strike committee , one by one, and when the boss consented to sign the union agreement , the poor bosses, being illiterate ignoramuses, sweated profusely until they figured out how to sign the paper. At one point, the following incident happened: The strike committee was in the middle of negotiating with a boss, when a girl operator came in and turned to the strike committee with these words: “Please brothers of the strike committee, do not allow my boss to sign the agreement until he also agrees in writing to stop his wife from beating me with a broom.” There were many similar such demands that showed what a sad situation the workers from that trade, and all trades, found themselves in back then. The bosses were forced, one by one, to concede to the demands of their workers . Only a small number of the knee-pants shops remained scab2 shops. It is important to note that the rich clothing manufacturers gave out all the work for children’s short pants to contractors in sweatshops. Inside, in the warehouses, only cloth was cut. Sweatshops were also places where small-time bosses and their families lived. Some of the operators also used to board there, and they ate and slept in the same place where britches were made day and night. By the time the strike came to an end, the knee-pants union had become strong. The workers were revived. They didn’t have to haul the sewing machines on their shoulders every time they went to work. But it didn’t take long, and the knee-pants workers looked around and saw that although the bosses had given machines to the workers, the wages for making a dozen pairs of shorts were still very small, and one could earn only 6–7 dollars per week doing piecework. The result was that, four months later, in July 1890, a second general strike broke out among the knee-pants workers. That strike was for higher wages. Over a thousand workers went out on strike. This time the...

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