Enlightened Self-Interest

The extraordinary International Ladies Garment Workers Union made extraordinary news again last week: it approved a cut in its own bitterly won wage rates, if such a cut is necessary to get war work for its members.

Coming from I.L.G.W.U.,the suggestion was not as surprising as it would be from most other unions. The last time David Dubinsky's union made big news (TIME, Feb. 24, 1941), it was fighting to make its employers live up to I.L.G.W.U. efficiency standards, in the hope that more efficiency would bring more profits to the chaotic industry, and more security to its labor.

The same kind of enlightened self-interest lies behind last week's offer. I.L.G.W.U. has been relatively untouched by the war so far, but its leaders now see real trouble ahead from material shortages and clothes rationing. Where only a year ago Dubinsky was gleefully complaining that his industry was on the verge of a labor shortage, this year he is afraid of unemployment and working to head it off.

Right now only some 7,500 of the union's 300,000 are on war work, and he thinks they have had a raw deal. Washington buyers have on more than one occasion subsidized new plants and trained green workers to do jobs which I.L.G.W.U.'s skilled cutters and needleworkers and their machines were ready and waiting to take on.*

But the union admits that its high standards of wages and working conditions have sometimes made it difficult for its employers to bid low for war business. Hence last week's decision to take lower pay, if necessary, to get the work. And anyhow I.L.G.W.U. believes that its members are such good workers that, once they get the hang of war sewing, they will make as much money as ever at piecework rates, beating the spots off the production of less-skilled labor on the same goods.

* Sidney Hillman's Amalgamated Clothing Workers (men's clothing) are doing better, have landed the great bulk of all uniform orders. Last week WPB promised to give 20% of that work to I.L.G.W.U., and I.L.G.W.U. has little interest in fighting for much more against another union which is better trained for heavy uniform work anyway. What it is really after: cotton uniforms, nurses' wear, powder bags, field jackets, Mackinaws, cartridge belts, parachutes, etc.

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