Documenting Labor Inside and Out
Union Members
Member Meetings and Gatherings
Like board minutes, minutes of membership meetings can come in either
handwritten or typed form, and can provide a wealth of information, including the names of
those active in the union and a summary of the union's activities. They may also record
information that was verbally reported
to a meeting, such as the status of contract negotiations and of grievances filed against
management, but not recorded in print elsewhere such as in a newsletter or bulletin
distributed to members.
Photographs of social events such as holiday parties and installation dinners can also
provide some clues about the membership of a local. The photograph below on the left
was taken at the installation dinner of Local 163 of the Shirt, Collar and Uniform Workers
of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, in January 1965. It suggests a
predominately female membership for that local. In contrast, the membership of Local 169
of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America appears to be predominately male, as
suggested by a photograph taken at an installation banquet around 1955, shown below on
the right.
Also of interest in these photographs is that the two gentlemen
on the left of the back row in the Local 169 installation banquet photograph also appear
in the photograph of the Local 163 installation dinner, suggesting that they may have been
representatives of
the Capital District Joint Board which had jurisdiction over locals of clothing workers
in Albany, Schenectady, and Rensselaer counties, or held some other leadership positions.
If that was their position, it would suggest that, at least at the time these photographs
were taken, the leadership hierarchy of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, or at
least the Capital District Joint Board, was male-dominated. While this particular
"discovery" may not be unexpected given traditional male/female roles in work and
industry, it does suggest just one of the many clues photographs from labor organizations
may contain about their members.
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