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Dallas strikers attract spectators and international attention
On this day in 1935, striking garment workers entered the Morten-Davis
and Lorch Manufacturing companies in Dallas and stripped the clothing
from ten female employees. Not only did the action attract hundreds of
spectators, but accounts of the strikers' actions appeared in newspapers
in Italy, Australia, and New York. In 1934 the International Ladies'
Garment Workers Union began to organize in Dallas with the workers'
support because of low wages in comparison with other parts of the
country. The strike began in early February 1934 when Dallas dress
manufacturers began dismissing workers suspected of union activity.
Workers walked out of fifteen Dallas factories. Pickets clashed with
police attempting to keep strikebreakers from entering factories. At
least eighty-six women were arrested. Although the "strike stripping"
led local pastors to call for an arbitrated settlement, Dallas employers
would not negotiate. The strike ended in November 1935 when the
dressmakers voted to end their walkout. Despite the dressmakers' initial
defeat, the ILGWU maintained its two Dallas locals. By 1936 five local
dress plants operated as union shops.
- Links to Related Handbook of Texas Online Articles
- DALLAS GARMENT WORKERS' STRIKE
- INTERNATIONAL LADIES' GARMENT WORKERS' UNION
- DALLAS, TX
- UNION REGULATION
- LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
- Other Texas Day by Day Articles for This Date
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- Alexander Cockrell buys Dallas townsite (1852)
- Peripatetic pioneer elected first Bosque County judge (1854)
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