12E.4.2b Old Series Trademark No. 3800

One key way that workers can push employers to agree to or at least negotiate about improved working conditions is for workers to leave work and go on strike. Striking has long been a method used to force a company to listen to workers’ demands. The challenges are many: convincing enough workers to leave the job and go without pay (and risk being fired); organizing people who speak different languages and have diverse family demands; facing intense pressure from management to get back to work; and, sometimes, facing pressure from government authorities to resume work or be replaced by other workers. What do you notice about this flyer? What are the instructions that workers are supposed to follow, according to the union? Given what you see here, can you think of reasons why unions may be popular among workers, and reasons why workers may not want to join a union?

This International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union Strike is just one example of many labor actions in US history. A famous massive labor action in the United States was the two-month-long Pullman Strike of 1894. When the Pullman Palace Car Company, which manufactured railroad cars, cut its workers’ wages and increased working hours in response to the recent economic downturn, workers at the company formed a delegation and requested a meeting with the head of the company. He refused to meet with them and ordered that these particular workers be fired. At that point, workers agreed to strike, and unionized workers throughout the railroad industry joined the Pullman workers in solidarity. Eventually, the number of railroad strikers reached 125,000 and rail traffic was severely affected for many days, prompting the federal government to intervene to ensure US mail deliveries and to stop the violent protests that destroyed railroad machinery. Eventually, 12,000 federal troops suppressed the strike. There is always the risk with labor strikes that workers will face physical harm, fail to achieve their goals, and perhaps even lose their jobs in the process.

TRADE MARK
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To the Hon.,
C.F. Curry,
Secretary of State of the State of California.
Sacramento, Cal.
I hereby offer for filling and file with the Secretary of State of the State of California the following trade mark exclusively owned by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union of which I am agent.

[image of pink trademark of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union] ISSUED BY AUTHORITY OF INTERNATIONAL LADIES' GARMENT WORKERS UNION
GENERAL EXECUTIVE BOARD UNION MADE
ORG. JUN. 30 1900
REGISTERED

Which trade mark is to be affixed to all garments made, cut, sewed, pressed and finished by members of duly charatered locals or branches of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union.
[illegible signature]
State of California
City and County of San Francisco
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SS.

Personally appeared before I. Jacoby who being first duly sworn says that he (as Secretary of the Cloak Makers Union Local No. 8 I. L. G. W. N.) is the agent of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union which is the exclusive owner of the above trade mark and he files the same for the uses and puposes above named. "