Labor History News

On May 1, 2011 at 3 pm, 6^th and 8^th grade students from Katherine Brennan and Worthington Hooker Schools of New Haven, CT will convene at the May Day Festival on the New Haven Green to celebrate labor history with a reading and musical performance.  The performance marks the culmination of the “Family Work History Project,” a collaboration between the Greater New Haven Labor History Association and New Haven Public Schools which began in February.  The performance is free and open to the public.

Students will read excerpts from essays they have written about mentors in the labor force, based on material they have gathered through oral history interviews about their mentors’ work experiences.  Following the reading, music educator and song-writer Mike Kachuba will lead the students in song with “They Did Their Part,” an original composition he has written based on the students’ collective stories. 

Kachuba is known for his curriculum-based work with children across Connecticut.  When writing the song, he sought to incorporate common themes from the students’ essays, including immigration, struggle, perseverance and lessons learned from those who came before us.  He says: “I think the music has a bit of a ‘cool’ factor to it, and I think it's also easy for people to sing.”  For more information about Mike Kachuba, visit http://web.mac.com/mikekachuba.

GNHLHA is in the process of raising funds to repeat and expand the scope of the project for the 2011-2012 school year. Contact us at (203) 777-2756 ext. 2 or info@laborhistory.org if you would like to contribute.

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By Jim Shelton, Register Staff
NEW HAVEN — They’ve got their shoulders to the grindstone at the Greater New Haven Labor History Association these days.


Not that it’s ever been a walk in the park, generating buzz about the story of organized labor in the city, but lately it’s taken on something of a crisis management vibe.

Labor history is shifting by the minute. In Wisconsin, state officials recently sought to shut down certain collective bargaining rights for state workers. Legislators in other states are considering similar measures. Here in New Haven, there have been rallies, protests and an appearance by the Rev. Al Sharpton in response to the city’s negotiations with local labor unions.

Meanwhile, a surging chorus of politicians and taxpayers contends that labor unions are breaking the backs of state and local budgets.

What better time, then, to revisit the 1902 trolley workers’ strike, or the teachers’ strike of 1975?

“Younger people, even people in my generation, don’t understand how hard the struggle was in days gone by,” says Joan Cavanagh, archivist and director of the labor history organization. “Where did the five-day workweek come from? Where did the weekend come from? They didn’t just happen. People lost their lives to get them.”

Actually, Cavanagh’s group would be making its presence known anyway, even if the labor movement weren’t already at Threat-Level-Midnight.

Its traveling exhibit, “New Haven’s Garment Workers: An Elm City Story,” is currently on display at the New Haven Free Public Library; a second exhibit, focusing on workers at New Haven’s Winchester plant, is being readied for later this year. Self-guided tours of labor history landmarks in the city are available for download at the group’s website, www.laborhistory.org.

In addition, the group launched a pilot program in which nearly 100 local students conducted oral interviews with adults in the labor force. There’s also a push to make labor history part of the history curriculum in Connecticut public schools.

“If we don’t watch out, kids will never know any of this,” says Nick Aiello, 86, president of the association and former business agent for Amalgamated Clothing Workers Local 125.

Aiello says he can’t recall a tougher time for putting out the word about labor history. Part of the problem, he speculates, is that organized labor has lost some of its punch and American workers are no longer united.

“It’s a bigger struggle today,” he says.

Of course, local labor history is full of struggles.

You had the printers strike of 1871, which included a 500-person rally on the Green; the Candee Rubber Co. walkouts of 1884, when an employer refused to open factory windows during a sweltering heat wave; and the Franklin Street fire of 1957, when dozens of workers were killed or injured in a blaze at a former carriage factory.

“Moments in New Haven Labor History,” a 2004 book written by Neil Hogan and published by the Greater New Haven Labor History Association, details those incidents and many others. For example, it notes the working conditions of garment workers in 1927:

“You went to work at seven, you got out at six, even on Saturday,” said 14-year-old Beatrice Bonafacio, who worked at Lerner’s Dress Shop. “And if you didn’t finish the work, you’d go in on Sunday, or you didn’t have a job on Monday. Sometimes you made $4 a week. Sometimes you made $5. There was no air conditioning, no fans, nothing of the sort. Filth. But you had to work.”

More recently, there was a six-month strike at the Olin Winchester Sporting Arms factory in 1979, and striking Yale University workers in 1984 drew national attention.

Aiello and several others founded the local labor history association in 1988, sensing that a vital link to labor’s past was fading from memory. The group’s first project was to organize a reunion of 300 garment industry workers and gather oral histories from them.

Since then, the group has created a labor almanac, organized a bus tour of labor history sites, gathered and inventoried nearly two dozen collections of labor history memorabilia and commissioned a labor history mural by Susan Bowen at Augusta Lewis Troup School.

“People seem to forget labor built this country,” says Lula White, a retired New Haven teacher who is a board member of the labor history group. She and her sister (and fellow board member), Dorothy Johnson of Hamden, have been collecting oral histories of former Winchester workers.

By GNHLHA Member Joelle Fishman

Today, as public workers are under attack, we salute and stand in solidarity with the leadership of women struggling for union rights, equal pay, social justice and peace.

International Women's Day was adopted by the Second International Women’s Conference, held in Copenhagen in 1910. The date was chosen to commemorate a huge demonstration of New York women garment workers held on March 8, 1908 to demand the vote and to urge the building of a powerful garment trades' union.

The success of the 1908 demonstration became known internationally among socialist women.  Clara Zetkin proposed that March 8 become an International Women’s Day each year dedicated to fighting for equal rights for all women in all countries.

In March, 1911 the Triangle Shirtwaist fire took the lives of 140 working women and children in New York City. That same year women textile workers of Lawrence, Massachusetts went on strike for "Bread and Roses"  The cause of working women of all races and nationalities and their struggle for equality remains at the center of International Women's Day.

In 1975 International Women's Day was adopted by the United Nations. The UN is now celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of the first celebration.

The important role women are playing not only in Wisconsin but around the country and the world, and in Connecticut, inspires us and gives us confidence that we can succeed in the struggle for women's rights, workers' rights and a more just and equal world.

Joelle Fishman, Chair, Connecticut CPUSA

The UConn Waterbury Library Celebrates Women’s History Month ….

All in a Day's Work:
Photographs of Women in Connecticut Industry from the collections
of the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center

View Images of the American Brass Company, Waterbury; Cheney Brothers Silk Manufacturing
Company; Manchester, Farrel Company, Ansonia; New Brtiain Machine Company, New Britain;
New Haven Railroad, Wauregan-Quinebaug Company, Wauregan

http://doddcenter.uconn.edu/exhibits/days_work/index.htm

Women in Connecticut have a long and rich history as workers. Their traditional place
was in their own homes, where nearly all household goods and services produced were
done so through women's labor. The Industrial Revolution ushered in a new role, that of
paid worker, and women entered the workforce in significant numbers. Economically
disadvantaged women augmented their household income by working in the textile
mills and industrial factories that proliferated across Connecticut. By 1900, 1 in 5 females
over age 10 were paid workers, and 25% of them worked in manufacturing.

About the Photographs

The photographs in this exhibit are from the Business History Collections in Archives &
Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center of the University of
Connecticut in Storrs. Many of the companies had their start as family-owned and
operated small businesses and evolved into nationally known producers of such
products as brass, hardware, machine tools, cutlery, clocks and watches, silk and other
textiles, and toiletries. The collections are composed of a wide variety of materials
including administrative and financial records, maps and facilities drawings, and
advertising samples, as well as thousands of photographs depicting the diversity of
workers and their work.

Save the Date! Panel Discussion on March 31, 2011, at 4:00 p.m. in the MPR
Co-sponsored by the OLLI program at UConn and the Library.

For more info, contact:

In December 2010, the Greater New Haven Labor History Association (GNHLHA) began gathering support for a legislative initiative, called Labor History in the Schools, with endorsement by the Connecticut AFL-CIO Executive Board.  On February 1, the GNHLHA officially began work on a new pilot program called “Family Work History Project” in collaboration with two New Haven public schools teaching labor history as part of  this initiative. 

The Family Work History Project is a school-based residency in which students will learn to conduct oral history interviews with a mentor in the labor force and develop these interviews into essays.  The collaboration continues with the development a commissioned musical composition inspired by the student stories, as well as the development of a spoken-word piece to be read publicly by students, based on their collective stories.  The student piece and the musical composition will be performed on May 1, 2011 as part of the May Day Festival on the New Haven Green.

The GNHLHA will collaborate with teachers of 8^th grade students from the Katherine Brennan School and 6^th and 8^th grade students from Worthington Hooker School, both in New Haven, CT.  Sheryl Hershonik, Principal at Worthington Hooker, jumped at the chance to collaborate on the project: “We're so glad to have the Greater New Haven Labor History Association work with our students. New Haven has a rich history of labor organizing from factory workers and dress shop seamstresses to teachers and other professionals. It is important for students to understand that working together for a common goal demands commitment and perseverance which can then lead to an improvement in the lives of individuals and families.”  Adds Principal Karen Lott of Brennan School, the collaboration will “connect students’ learning to the larger community in which they live.”

8^th grade writing teacher Sandra Sprague of the Brennan School, a turn-around school struggling to improve student writing skills, feels that the program will help students to master key writing concepts required by state standards, but more importantly, the public performance aspect will instill much-needed pride.   Dianna Carter, 6^th grade teacher at Worthington Hooker, said that the project dovetails perfectly with her curriculum on local history and collective bargaining, while inspiring students to explore possible career paths by interviewing mentors who have real work experiences to share.

The study of labor history in the schools not only ties in with already-mandated educational standards, it is an important component in preparing students for the work force. The CT AFL-CIO has endorsed the Labor History in the Schools legislative initiative and has aided in beginning to gather popular support.  "Labor education at a grassroots level is critical to strengthening the labor movement. The CT AFL-CIO supports the Greater New Haven Labor History Association in its goal of providing each child with the tools they need to think critically about their society as they enter the work force," said CT AFL-CIO President John Olsen, who recently spoke to 6^th grade students about the integrity of work and the role of unions in creating good jobs and working conditions at a GNHLHA event at the Augusta Lewis Troup School.

Local professional musician Mike Kachuba, known for his curriculum-based work with children across Connecticut, will develop a song based on the student stories.  He will perform the song to accompany the student readings on May 1, 2011 as part of the May Day (International Workers’ Day) Celebration on the New Haven Green. 

For more information about Mike Kachuba’s work with children, visit http://web.mac.com/mikekachuba.

For information about the May Day celebration, visit www.maydaynewhaven.org. 

About the Greater New Haven Labor History Association

The Greater New Haven Labor History Association (GNHLHA), the only labor history organization in Connecticut, tells the story of working class people in our region which otherwise would go untold.  Through research and preservation of stories, interviews, artifacts and documents, GNHLHA produces exhibits and events which illuminate our lives as workers.  The “New Haven’s Garment Workers: An Elm City Story” exhibit has toured throughout Connecticut since 2006. GNHLHA is currently preparing a new exhibit about workers at New Haven’s Winchester (U.S. Repeating Arms Company) plant, which had a major impact on the culture and political economy of the greater New Haven community.  GNHLHA is also seeking individual oral history interviews from retired workers through its “History Among Us” program. 

For more information about GNHLHA programs, visit www.laborhistory.org.

January 25, 2011

Dear Friends of the Greater New Haven Labor History Association,

The 100^th anniversary of the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City which killed 146 people, many of them young women between 13 and 23 years old, is coming up on March 25, 2011.  

To commemorate this terrible event ConnectiCOSH and its Injured Workers Unite Coalition are planning a week long exhibit from March 21 - 25 at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford which will feature not only the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory tragedy, but also workplace tragedies of the last 100 years here in Connecticut and the workers who have been affected by them.  A ceremony beginning at 4:30pm on Friday, March 25, will include a dramatic performance piece and awards for winners of an essay contest for high school students to raise awareness of labor history and workplace health and safety issues.  

In order to help remember those who have died from workplace hazards we need your help now.  We are seeking information on workers who have died on the job.  We would like names, dates and location (workplace name and town) of anyone you know of, friends, family, union brothers or sisters who have died on the job. If you have any photos of that person or their workplace or the circumstances of their deaths, we would be pleased to honor them in our exhibit.

Please send names, dates, locations and photos to Pamela Puchalski, ConnectiCOSH, 683 N. Mountain Rd, Newington, CT  06111, phone 860-953-2674.  Or, email or scan and email to pamela.ctcosh@snet.net.  So please go back to your files, wrack your memories and send what you can to Pamela.  Time is short.  I’ve attached a very incomplete list to jog your memories.

And, we look forward to seeing you on the afternoon of March 25, the very day, and almost the very time, when, one hundred years ago, 146 people died in less than 20 minutes.  Please put this event on your calendar now.

Honor the dead and fight like H… for the living.

In solidarity,

Pamela Puchalski

Congratulations to this year's Augusta Lewis Troup Award Winners, Paula Friedland Panzarella and Frank Panzarella, long time peace and justice activists and organizers of the annual May Day celebration on the New Haven Green, which has its 25th anniversary this year.  Stay tuned for photos and more info!

By Joan Cavanagh

Ernst Rosenzweig, brother of long time GNHLHA member Irmgard R. Wessel and uncle of life member Paul Wessel, passed away on January 4^th. From the obituary in the New Haven REGISTER, January 5, 2011: “Known as ‘Rosie’ to his co-workers, he worked on the Yale University grounds crew for many years and was an active member of Local 35, UNITE HERE. A horticulturalist, he had a long standing affection for trees, flowers and the beauty of nature. Ernst was born in Kassel, Germany, on October 4, 1922 to the late Louis and Grete Rosenzweig. He left Germany for England at age 16, and joined his parents and his sister in the U.S. in Eureka, Il. in 1947 and later moved to New Haven.”

Irm Wessel remembers her brother as a committed union member who “never missed a picket line” and was buoyed up in his later years by the health pension support he received as a retiree.  One of his duties as a grounds crew worker was to rise at 4 o’clock in the morning in the event of snow to shovel the walkway at Kline Tower - by hand. In his last hours of life, he knew it was snowing hard outside, and he asked for two shovels so that he might begin to clean off the sidewalk, Irm said.