It’s Not Yet Spring, Unless All Flowers Blossom: the 1982 Chinatown Garment Workers’ Strike

New York City garment factories—and more broadly, garment factories worldwide—have often been sites where gender, class, race, and citizenship collide.^¹ To fully understand the labor sphere that Chinese New Yorker immigrant women began entering in the 1960s, it is essential to root their experiences within a broader lineage of immigrant, working-class women’s struggle.

Inside the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union 

On June 3rd, 1900, the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (often referred to as the ILGWU) was founded by a coalition of representatives from local textile unions across New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Newark. Most of the union's initial membership were Jewish immigrant women from Eastern Europe, some of whom had been socialists, active unionists, or otherwise politically active in their home countries.^¹ The union rose to be one of the largest and most influential unions in American labor history. If you are interested in learning more about the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union’s activism, you can visit Cornell University’s Kheel Center website, which has extensive digitized materials, as well a timeline of the union's history, found here: https://ilgwu.ilr.cornell.edu/timeline/

Historically, the ILGWU was a union largely comprised of immigrant women, and it fought for the labor rights of immigrant minority women. In the 1990s, it merged with the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union to form the new Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE), now UNITE HERE. The ILGWU also encouraged education, civic engagement, and activism among its members.^¹ A year before ILGWU Local 23-25 helped organize the 1982 garment workers' strike in Chinatown, they sent “busloads of members, including many Chinese garment workers,” to a massive rally in Washington D.C. after former President Ronald Reagan fired 11,000 air traffic controllers.^¹ Years before, they had sent busloads of members to the March on Washington to hear Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speak on racial equality and fair wages. 

Broadly speaking, the union was committed to serving its core constituency of immigrant, working-class women. While garment work had evolved from its largely Jewish base of the early 1900s, the ILGWU remained committed to serving their (by 1982) majority Chinese and Hispanic membership. Ms. May Ying Chen explains how the ILGWU actively celebrated and created community among their workers. 

“Well, the union, the ILGWU, was really a union of immigrants, and Local 23-25 had a huge Hispanic population. So, the Hispanic workers, in 1982, their employers had already signed a contract, so they had already gotten the wage increases, work benefits. But they were mobilized to come to the park to support the Chinese workers. And in 1982 and after, there were a lot of programs, cultural exchanges, and activities that brought the two groups of workers together. Whenever we had a party in the Local [23-25], we would have Chinese food, and we would have Spanish food. And there was a lot of that kind of exchange even though they couldn’t speak the same language. But there was a lot of mutual support.” 

“There were roles throughout ILGWU’s history, so for example, union materials, flyers, so on were translated into different languages so that the immigrants whose first language was not English could understand, read the newsletter, we would put notices in the Chinese newspapers and other Spanish ethnic newspapers and so on. Another thing is that we would lobby in local and federal level for reforms to help immigrants. Actually, the first job I ever had in the ILGWU was in the mid-90’s, they were the first, and I guess almost union, to set up a department to actually help immigrants with their papers. So we helped workers apply for citizenship, to sponsor their families, and in some cases to fight raids in the factories when they wanted to deport undocumented workers. 

And then after, in 1986, there is what was the last congressional law, that had a legalization program for the undocumented, and we set up a big program to legalize thousands of union members who were undocumented. And so between 1986-1987, and the 1990’s, we filed a lot of applications, got people their green card, and really helped a lot of workers of all backgrounds—not just Chinese, but Spanish, and Haitian, and Caribbean: whoever needed it, we would help them.” 

Historian Xiaolan Bao writes that, although there “is no convincing historical evidence to determine the exact year the ILGWU began organizing Chinese workers in New York’s Chinatown,” we can trace back these initial organizing efforts to the 1950s.^¹ Bao spotlights Wing Fong Chin, one of the first Chinese ILGWU members, who believes that these initial steps towards unionization were “met with resistance.”^¹ Ms. Chin gave examples of Chinatown employers who would hide garments in factory basements, or compel workers to go home early if union organizers were to visit on a given day during this time. 

The Garment Factory

By the late 1970s, four out of ten Chinese families in New York had at least one family member working in the Chinatown garment shops. Approximately 85% of the Chinese adult female population working in the “ethnic economic sector,” a term which refers to an immigrant or minority business which exists within a general economy, were garment workers.^¹ And by the year 1982, there were 500 garment factories employing 20,000 workers. Most of these laborers were immigrant women from the Fujian and Guangdong provinces of China, in addition to Hong Kong and Taiwan. This was a drastic change from the early 1960s, where there were a mere 50 garment factories that employed 2000 workers.^¹ Garment jobs were readily available and were considered stable work for newly immigrated Chinese women, as they were plentiful and did not require English fluency. It is reported that in 1992, considered the peak year of the Chinatown garment industry, Chinese-American garment contractors had opened nearly 600 garment factories, of which nearly 28,000 ethnically Chinese union laborers worked.^¹

In conversation with River 瑩瑩 Dandelion, Alice Ip, a former garment worker and labor organizer, shares that, “We did it for our livelihoods. The garment shops were in such a high demand for workers that they gave us the opportunity to learn. So even if your hands shook and you were scared, you had to do it.”^¹ While not all garment jobs were unionized, those that were held had particular significance. Such jobs would allow families to reap benefits that were not available to members working in other industries, such as the restaurant industry.^¹ For example, resources like healthcare, English classes, citizenship classes, retirement savings funds, and social events were common for unionized workers.^¹ 

Reflecting on these secondary benefits of union membership, Dr. Xiaolan Bao poignantly notes: 

“Since the garment industry was the only unionized industry in the Chinese community, and the ILGWU was the only institution in New York’s Chinatown that could afford to offer its members family health insurance, joining the union became indispensible for workers and their families. Workers who had benefited from special union programs and those who had received the timely support of union officials in their fight against unscrupulous employers also had positive memories.”^¹

From the testimonials of workers and from scholars' accounts of their time organizing with the ILGWU, we can see how the union supported its members in myriad ways, both within the workplace and outside of it. They not only backed their fight for workers’ rights, but also actively empowered garment workers as immigrant women of color to challenge existing power structures and to build new forms of community with each other. 

Many Chinese-American families had ties to the garment factories. As such, they became an intimate extension of the community itself. Garment factories were typically owned and run by local Chinese male community members. Female workers were more often than not subordinate to their male counterparts, and it was not unheard of to be employed by a husband or brother-in-law. In this way, the garment factories exemplified the idea of the workplace as family. 

Replicating the structures of community and family within the garment factory, though, was not always idyllic. As the shop floor became an extension of the Chinese-American community itself, complex tensions arose. Although shared experiences and identities could build trust between the vulnerable population of newly immigrated families, this dynamic of similarity could also be weaponized by employers to maximize their profits and legitimacy. Chinese male bosses often played on Confucian values and ethnic ties to instill worker loyalties, which limited workers’ capacity to report unsafe working conditions and abuses. Confucian values encourage patriarchal standards and following orders from men, meaning female workers would be expected to be beholden to their male employers. Family-like atmospheres were also fostered by employers’ use of gam chihng, a Cantonese term meaning “emotional ties,” which further reinforced paternalistic relationships. 

Employers would also impose the idea that, since “blood was thicker than water,” as historian Xiaolan Bao writes in Holding Up More Than Half the Sky: Chinese Women Garment Workers in New York City, 1948-92, garment workers should remain silent in the face of unfair treatment due to shared ethnic background. Whether in fear of unemployment, physical retaliation from employers, or blacklisting from their community, garment workers could not safely voice out concerns. Mrs. Zheng, a former Chinatown garment worker who was interviewed by Bao, notes her experience after confronting her employer for verbally abusing other workers: “I became the victim… in addition to the barrage of curses, they [employers] turned the huge electric fan to blow to my face… The wind blown out of the fan was so strong I felt terribly dizzy by the end of the day… Realizing my hopeless and helpless position, I left the shop. For quite a long time, I was blacklisted in Chinatown.” 

Mrs. Zheng’s treatment was common for those who spoke out against workplace abuses. The threat of social ramifications, in addition to workplace retaliation, perpetuated a system wherein the loss of community support and sustenance was not worth risking. Language access further isolated many workers like Mrs. Zheng. Though the ILGWU had historically translated many of their materials into the languages of their workers — Yiddish, Italian, Spanish, and later, Chinese, depending on the decade — the working world (outside of Chinatown) was still overwhelmingly conducted in English. While the garment industry's lack of English requirements was one of the initial reasons that recent arrivals joined it in such high numbers, it proved to be a double-edged sword. Isolated by cultural and language barriers from the dominant English mainstream, Chinese employers could persuade their workers to quietly surrender to them, limiting their pursuit of improved benefits and rights.^¹ 

In an oral history I conducted with Dr. William Cheung, a beloved Social Studies teacher at Brooklyn Technical High School and one of my most influential mentors, he shared his thoughts on the interplay between familial, cultural, and economic dynamics within the garment factory. His own mother was a garment worker, and he spent time throughout his childhood and youth within the garment factory.  

"In general, I'm a big proponent of unions and workers' power. I'm okay with the idea that you should have an extended family, extended kinship, and that you can't go -- you know, if you wanna go fast, you go alone, but if you wanna go far, you go together. That sort of spirit. But I think the idea of work as family is very spurious. The manager of the plant is not your friend. Ultimately, they're trying to make money and you shouldn't make the mistake that you should work harder out of the kindness of your love for even an ethnic affinity. Because your boss is always just your boss in that sense, and you should know where the interests stand."^¹

From the physical perspective, garment work was extremely straining. Chinatown garment workers often worked long hours in tightly packed factories to make a living. Injury was common, and poorly ventilated facilities often led to the spread of viral and gastrointestinal disease among garment workers.^¹ The tightly packed physical environment of the factory workplace enabled employers to perpetrate labor law violations, such as stealing wages.^¹ These issues were prevalent throughout the garment industry’s history. 

Perhaps the best known example of such conditions leading to disastrous consequences is the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. In 1911, nearly two hundred garment workers, most of whom were young, female Jewish and Italian immigrants, were killed in a fire within a factory that was not compliant with any safety standards and that actively endangered workers’ safety.^¹ The factory was hazardous due to its overcrowding, its lack of fire sprinklers, and the dangerous tactics used by employers, such as locking factory exits, to promote greater productivity — at the cost of women’s lives.^¹ The Triangle Fire is often pointed to as the turning point for better labor protections in New York City, though it came at an unimaginable price. Subsequent New York State investigations found over 2,500 workplace safety violations in Manhattan alone, each with the very real potential of becoming another Triangle at any time.^¹ 

After looking at the above images, consider what similarities there appear to be between immigrant female European garment workers’ conditions in the early 1900s and Chinese garment workers post-1965. As Gussie, a garment worker in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, remarked to a journalist in 1911, "'If I take a day off to hunt a job, the boss will fire me. I might be out of work for weeks, and I can't afford that. Besides, if I found a new job, it wouldn't be any better. All the bosses drive you the same way, and our shop is as safe as any, and safer than some. No, we've got to keep on working, no matter what the danger. It's work or starve. That's all there is to it.'"^¹ Her words, spoken nearly six decades before organizing in Chinatown's garment shops took place, are remarkably similar to the rhetoric that Chinese garment workers would one day reference when describing their own options.

While the structural and safety issues covered in the last section reveal deeply concerning workplace dynamics, garment workers continued to persevere and built their own sense of belonging with one another. May Ying Chen, a labor organizer who helped lead the 1982 Chinatown Garment Workers’ Strike, highlights that the unique communal space of the factory helped facilitate such belonging.

“The factory became this very social space, because in the old days, the traditional rules for women is that they should stay home and listen to their husband, family, mother-in-law, and so on. And, I think that when they [garment workers] started to go out to work, a lot of the community felt ‘oh, this is bad because they’re going to be working with all these women, and gossip, and meet other people, and turn against their family.’ So there was this kind of… but they were making family to support their family, which is a positive. So I think there was this culture that as long as they were just going to the workplace, and then going home, and not staying out late at night or doing anything that was so-called bad, it was fine for them to work in the workplace. So the relationships they had in the workplace were very deep, because they were with these coworkers all day and the coworkers also gave them a lot of advice about where to shop, where to take your kids to the doctor, you know all those very practical day-to-day things that working mothers needed to know.”^¹ 

The idea of "making family to support their family" was the foundation of how many women working in the garment factories approached their daily lives. For lunch, the vast majority of workers would bring leftovers from family dinners and would eat in the factory together.^¹ And starting in the late 1970s, when growing numbers of garment workers started moving to other boroughs and commuting to work, rather than living nearby in the neighborhood, employers began providing pots of free communal rice.^¹

It is also important to understand the impact the garment industry’s piece rate system had on the social lives of garment workers. In contrast to hourly wages, piece rate was the system in which garment workers earned income strictly based on how many pieces of textile they could sew each day. In our oral history, Dr. Cheung noted that the piece rate system attracted many workers like his own mother to the garment industry. To Dr. Cheung, this system “meant mothers could tend to their children and later return to work. This meant that having childcare could help increase your production and pay. It also meant that children could have access to a place for socialization and some level of education at daycare.”^¹

Dr. Cheung also believes that possessing seamstress skills empowered working women, like his own mother, who then could take on the role of breadwinners within their families. 

“In my own household, even as my father struggled to find work, my mother had a steady income. Elsewhere, many cited sources highlight how many of the women workers won degrees of independence from their spouses, which would have been unimaginable under ‘Confucian’ patriarchal conditions. That being said, as work done primarily by women, the garment industry was also extremely exploitative at times.”

As Dr. Cheung points out, the piece rate system proved problematic for many. For instance, when new styles of textiles were introduced, which could occur numerous times in a day, employers would set piece rates as low as possible in order to maximize their own profits, cutting workers’ wages in the process.^¹ This led to many workers pushing themselves physically in order to maximize textile production output, as they were driven by the objective of making more money for their families.^¹ Some went to such lengths as to bring home textiles and sew at home.^¹ 

“A formative experience for me was being brought to the garment industry as a kid when we couldn't afford childcare. And I remember the packed lunches and teas and also the aunties and uncles who would give us, give me candy and like, be amused by my presence 'cause it's like a little boy running around. But I also remember the economic anxiety of those moments. I bring up the tea, 'cause I once spilled it— I don't know, I forget how old I was, I was very young — on a piece of finished fabric that my mom was working on. And she got really pissed 'cause she had to clean it up and it's because you're being paid by piece and not by hour, right? And so it's also under the table, you know, the textiles and so forth and so on. But output is something that people are very concerned with.”

Dr. William Cheung also recalls the complicated feelings that came with the blurred lines between workplace and home. 

“We had a sewing machine at home. My mom would bring work home, and I would help her do finishing touches on things. I once pricked my finger on the sew machine and it was a little bit messy. But she was always around fabric, always around garments, always worried about getting the pieces of the work done. So just in the home setting, there was a lot of work involved. And I also was cognizant of, on the days in which I did not go with her to work, that she would get home very late and she'd be very tired and very angry. So those are my childhood memories.”

Another perspective into the garment factory is that of Katie Quan’s. Ms. Quan was a lead organizer of the 1982 Chinatown Garment Workers’ Strike, and currently serves as a senior fellow at the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education. In "Memories of the 1982 ILGWU Strike in New York Chinatown," she details her perspective of the piece rate system:

“Wages were calculated by piece rate, where each sewing operation was assigned a price, and the more you sewed, the more you earned. Each time a new style was introduced, which might be twice or more a day, the employers tried to set prices as low as they could. If the price was too low, workers would complain, and sometimes fierce shouting matches would take place. Life was a battle, as piece rate workers negotiated real earnings on a daily basis. I call the piece rate system the system of being both the slave and the slave driver. You’re the slave because you’re the one doing the work. But you’re the slave driver too, because you force yourself to work faster and faster, believing that the more pieces you sew, the more money you earn.”^¹ 

After years of unsafe working conditions, underpayment, and denial of essential benefits, in 1982, the dam broke. Working life had become increasingly unsustainable for garment workers in Chinatown, especially after their employers refused to sign a new contract with the International Ladies' Garment Workers’ Union. Faced with the challenge of improving their sub-standard working conditions, garment workers had to organize and unify to fight against deeply entrenched, gendered assertions that women were subordinate to men, while also overcoming ethnic loyalties in their workplaces. While Chinatown employers were confident that they could maintain control over their workers through intimidation and prevent the union from strengthening its influence, they would soon be proven wrong. 

When fire singes the hairs on the skin of the women workers, they will rise up like tigers. 

- A Chinese proverb, as told to Katie Quan by the husband of a garment worker^¹

In May of 1982, negotiations for a new contract began, covering about 150,000 already-unionized ILGWU workers in four states across the Northeast.^¹ If successful, the new contract would be in effect from June 1, 1982, through May 31, 1985.^¹ Some of the demands that they included were an increase in minimum wage, an increase in holiday pay, and a twelfth paid personal day.^¹ They also demanded increased employer contributions to services like health and welfare funds, retirement funds, and health services plans. Recognizing the importance of civic participation, the proposed contract also included a provision to guarantee payment of wages during jury duty. Within Chinatown, Jay Mazur, the manager of Local 23-25, helped lead negotiations with Chinatown garment factory employers, of whom over 500 were represented by the Greater Blouse, Skirt and Undergarment Association (GBSUA).^¹ The employers, frustrated by the asks of the new contract and believing that it would endanger their ability to stay in business, formed a coalition. There, they decided to “overwhelmingly reject the contract” on June 10th, 1982.^¹ 

Kathryn Dowgiewicz, then an archivist at Cornell’s Kheel Center, describes how this rejection proved problematic, as the livelihoods of Chinatown garment workers became immediately jeopardized. To express their grievances, employers who refused to sign the new contract advocated for their own counter-demands. Among these counter-demands included three fewer holidays off, no increase in holiday pay, no minimum wage increase, and a shift from 35 to 40 work hours per week.^¹ Yet, the union had little flexibility and willingness to consider their counter-demands because it had been widely accepted by other manufacturers, contractors, the union and its members.^¹ Organizers found themselves at an impasse: without any movement on their contract demands, the idea of a mass strike became not just a dream, but an inevitability. 

There were other complex sources of pushback from Chinese garment factory contractors surrounding any pro-unionization efforts. In her dissertation on the 1982 strike, historian Xiaolan Bao explains that concerns about the racial dynamics of the union were paramount: namely, employers were extremely wary about the fact that most ILGWU leadership was white, while advocating for their majority-Chinese members.^¹ One contractor expressed his frustration on a local radio program. In response to the fight for increased union participation, he argued that “The bosses’ friends and relatives are all workers; how could they exploit their own family?”^¹ For him, the workplace was an extension of the local Chinatown community itself, one bound and sustained by mutual support through shared struggle. Similar tensions flared over language accessibility, as Chinese immigrant workers who were not proficient in English could not fully participate in Local 23-25 union meetings or read union literature. There were also very few Chinese-speaking union representatives.^¹ This linguistic and cultural barrier was used by others, namely Chinese employers, to portray the union as "external" to the Chinatown community. However, many garment workers did not buy into this logic and still felt empowered by the backing of the union.^¹ 

With the fight for unionization perceived as a betrayal to the community’s ethnic solidarity by some, Chinese garment workers and organizers had to rise up like tigers to reach garment workers who were reluctant to strike. They insisted on fighting for the new contract, despite many Chinese employers' attempts to sway them away from such organizing. 

As part of the intense campaign to settle the contract, a committee of 5,000 garment workers led phone banks, leafletted thousands of bilingual flyers in English and Chinese,^¹ and mobilized their friends and coworkers through word of mouth.^¹ In the weeks leading up to a large June 24th rally, Local 23-25 bought out advertisement time on the two main Chinatown radio stations (which were played in garment factories) to talk about the new contract negotiation.^¹ Sound trucks announced the upcoming rally throughout the neighborhood.^¹ Maggie Lu, a student at Washington University in St. Louis, highlights the innovative nature of this organizing in her writing on the strike, noting that “Much of the organizing was done in new ways. The union would broadcast over the radio frequency played in the factory and blast information about workers’ rights. They spread information over the phone and at grocery stores. They hosted events like skincare, hair, and cooking lessons, where women would hear about their rights.”^¹

By meeting garment workers in everyday spaces — and often gendered ones, where they would feel safe and valued in their identities as working women — the issue of unionization became a more accessible idea to workers who might have never seen that as an option for themselves. 

Consider: What role does language accessibility play in ensuring immigrant populations feel included and valued in the societal structures they navigate? Can you think of any examples local to you?

As many Chinese families had multiple members in the garment factories, the upcoming strike became both a personal and community-wide event. Shop owners faced the prospect of solidarity strikes by restaurant, laundry, and domestic workers.^¹ The possibility of a strike expanded to the entire Chinatown community. Katie Quan recounted to Xiaolan Bao that “Everybody was talking about the strike. The whole community was talking about it. People called each other at night to talk about it on the phone. They talked about it on the subways and in grocery stores when they were shopping.”^¹

June 24th Rally

On the humid summer day of June 24th, Chinese garment workers streamed into Columbus Park.^¹ By 8:30 in the morning, the park and surrounding streets were overflowing.^¹ The rally garnered support from the entire community, and local community leaders and workers made speeches in support and solidarity. Following the rally, the crowd marched through Chinatown. By the end of the day, most employers signed the contract. However, a small group of employers still did not cooperate, forcing a two-day shutdown of the industry.^¹ 

It is clear from photos like the two above that strike organizing was actively brought to life and sustained by the presence of Chinatown garment workers themselves. Their displays of laughter, smiles, and kinship signify the sheer level of joy they found in community and mutual support. Given that historical displays of such joy tend to remain isolated from mainstream narratives of Asian Americans as people solely defined by struggle, seeing our Chinese women elders exhibit such authentic joy in their efforts is deeply refreshing and inspiring.

• How can the air of jubilance restore hope in times of hardship? 
• In what ways can we practice likeminded small acts of triumph that inspire the people around us?
• What significance does photography hold in documenting the lives of marginalized groups? Where else do you see this theme throughout this exhibit?

July 15th Rally

In addition to the June 24th demonstration, a second rally was organized a month later and took place on July 15th, 1982, to push the last of employers to sign the new contract. Once again, 20,000 workers participated. Within hours, most employers finally caved in, but the union and workers did not give up until all had signed. The Local 23-25 set an ultimatum for July 15th for employers to sign the contract before they mobilized workers to strike.^¹ 

By the morning of July 15th, 90% of all shops had signed the new contract.^¹ At midday, shops who had not signed the contract were immediately placed on strike.^¹ The campaign was so successful that the strike lasted only a few hours, and by the end of the day, all employers had signed the contract. Chinatown garment workers won their fight, shocking their employers, who expected them to follow traditional values in staying out of the public eye.^¹

It is also essential to note the fact that though the strike was led by Chinese garment workers themselves, other ILGWU members of other racial backgrounds—namely, Black and Latina women—joined the strike in solidarity to support their Chinese union comrades. 

We workers must be united. It’s not yet spring, unless all flowers blossom. We cannot rely on a single worker’s power, but we need all the workers together.

- Shui Mak Ka, union steward of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, speaking at the 1982 Columbus Park rally for the strike, as told to Huiying B. Chan 

The strike played a crucial role in improving the Chinese-American garment workers’ representation in the workplace and community. The contract mandated an hourly salary rate of $1.10 instead of a piece rate paid system. Following the strike, the Local 23-25 devoted significant resources to strengthen its relationship with Chinese membership. With a focus on community building, the Local 23-25 provided free and accessible English classes, immigration paralegal work, transportation, and health services.

Chinese-speaking staff were also hired to better advocate for garment workers. These changes extended to not just working conditions, but the community overall. Moreover, it made a significant statement on the intersectionality between race, class, and gender of garment workers. Previously, Chinese employers believed their shared ethnic background guaranteed their workers’ loyalty. They assumed that, as “traditionally-raised women,” Chinese garment workers would not stand against them, as Chinese men. The 1982 strike showed clearly that when workers’ rights are at stake, minority workers will act against oppression, regardless of ethnic ties.

Katie Quan, a lead organizer of the strike, explains that the strike is also part of a larger conversation regarding the importance of Asian-American strength and visibility: “There is definitely agency and power amongst Asian women… It doesn’t need to be a thing that’s to be fearful about.”^¹ Considering stereotypes that exist about Asian-American women being submissive to injustice, acknowledging the strength of garment workers during the strike—and resilience throughout their career in general—is inspiring. The success of efforts made by Chinese garment workers lay the foundation for future generations to be empowered in protesting for their rights. Locally, Chinese garment women continued to be the major force behind the garment industry’s prosperity and upheld stability for their families. They played an indispensable role in sustaining the New York City garment industry's leading position in the nation’s garment production and their community.^¹

Threads of Labor Organizing Post-Strike 

The 1982 Chinatown Garment Workers’ Strike was not an isolated instance of community and union activism. Chinatown garment workers kept organizing afterwards, seeking to maintain their wins of 1982 and to continue fighting for more workers’ rights. 

Another important labor action took place on August 28, 1998, when members of the Local 23-25 led a rally to call attention to sweatshop conditions in Chinatown. A Daily News article that covered the rally speaks to the ongoing power of unionized garment workers in New York City: 

“Amid streamers of red, white and blue balloons, more than 4,000 unionized garment workers rallied yesterday in the heart of Chinatown’s garment district to call for sweatshops to be outlawed. The demonstrators packed a two-block stretch of Lafayette St. between Canal and Grand Sts. and demanded that retailers, manufacturers and Congress end the underground sweatshop industry.
The mostly Chinese crowd members chanted, 'Union power!' in Chinese and sang union songs to the tune of the 'Solidarity Forever,' as they complained about how sweatshop labor undercuts salaries and creates horrendous working conditions.

Yook Chee Hom, a seamstress living in Jackson Heights, Queens, came to the rally to let people working in sweatshops know they don’t have to be afraid to fight for decent wages. “We have people who work 14-hour days, and Saturday and Sunday. They have no family life,” said Hom, 64. “This kind of work can kill you. America is not supposed to be like that. It’s strong and fair.” Union Local 23-25, which represents sportswear garment workers and sponsored the rally, said they were inspired to have their rally on the 35th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.‘s March on Washington."^¹

Consider the following questions:

• Why are instances of organized labor activism important?
• What is the significance of representation in workers’ organizing?
• How did language access play a role in organizing Chinatown garment workers? Where do you see connections in other immigrant communities?

The garment industry was undoubtedly a major economic and social force within New York City, but by the end of the 20th century, it was in decline. Data from the Chinese Garment Manufacturers Association shows that there were 300 garment factories in 1997; by 2000, they had dwindled to a mere 120.^¹ 

Two main forces exacerbating this decline were globalization and 9/11's impact on New York City. Above all, I would be remiss to not highlight the ways in which clothing manufacturing largely shifting abroad deepened the abusive conditions that the Chinatown garment workers fought against in their own shops.^¹ Across the Global South—a term I intentionally use to point towards enduring legacies of imperial violence and economic exploitation worldwide—vulnerable women and young girls toil in sweatshop conditions to meet the growing global demands of overconsumption.^¹ If you’re interested in hearing more contemporary stories of garment workers, be sure to check out fellow LHP Youth Researcher Navipa’s oral history with Showun, an immigrant Bangladeshi garment worker. In her oral history with Navipa, Showun talks about her own work experiences in conditions that were similar to that of the 2013 Rana Plaza disaster. 

On a local level, many garment workers felt the direct impact of globalization as the jobs that once drove Chinatown's economy began to disappear. In our oral history, Ms. May Ying Chen told me how although the industry began declining soon after the strike, it remained a key part of former garment workers’ identities, even as they sought new jobs. 

“ One of the reasons that some of the employers gave for taking such a hard line with the union was that they could see the writing on the wall, that there was globalization coming, and there were fewer and fewer unionized manufacturers that they could get work from. But there were more and more factories competing for that work. And when they compete, they have to cut a few cents off here and there. So the conditions in the industry were starting to get worse. But in terms of the impact of the strike, I just feel like even though the industry was not in a -- was in a downhill position afterwards, it gave the workers, especially the women, a lot more visibility, willingness to speak up, to complain, to fight against some of the very old-fashioned Asian attitudes towards women like that. Women have to just, you know, listen to their husbands and not complain. But also that the role of women in the workforce should be to assert their rights.”^¹

Involvement in the union directly helped cultivate many Chinatown garment workers’ confidence and skills as women who could take initiative in the workplace. Ms. Chen connects these skills, learned and honed on the shop floor, to something that women took into the community to make change in other non-factory spaces. 

“After the strike, we did have a lot of classes to train Chinese workers to become shop representatives and organizers, and to be just more active to go with us on lobby trips to Washington, to speak up and to talk about their lives and what they wanted in life. So I think that was very positive, even though we have this other backdrop of the decline of the industry. But these workers also would take that into the community. You began to have more women leaders.”^¹

The final blow to the Chinatown garment industry were the 9/11 attacks. Sociologist Margaret Chin explains that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, because “Half the workers lived outside Chinatown,” most “couldn’t commute to work.”^¹ She added, “A lot of owners didn’t live there either,” and those who did live in the neighborhood faced frequent issues of no electricity or phone service within the factories.^¹ The same infrastructure issues that made commuting impossible also turned order fulfillment into a volatile proposition, as roads, subways, and other transportation were essentially closed throughout Lower Manhattan and across the bridges into Brooklyn. If you are interested in learning more about how other Asian-American communities in New York City were impacted by 9/11, please be sure to check out the projects of my fellow peer researchers East and Saira, who center the narratives of South-Asian New Yorkers who faced criminalization and racist harassment post-9/11. 

These developments created the conditions that forced garment workers to seek other forms of employment. Ms. Chen shares what she knows about this process below. 

“And also into the new jobs that they took when they left the industry. Like to know how to assert their rights and, you know, to look for jobs that might have a union. They helped the Homecare Division of 1199 to organize some of those, you know, home care units and stuff like that. And they joined the hotel worker industry, became housekeepers and helped a lot of small hotels to become unionized. So I think it had, you know, it had some transferable skills and benefits, even though the industry didn't last.”^¹

Despite the industry's disappearance, many in the Chinatown and Sunset Park communities continue to commemorate the 1982 struggle. Tequila Minsky of amNY wrote a beautiful article about a celebration that took place the summer of 2022, capturing photos and reporting on the similar vein of local community joy that took place in 1982. The event celebrated the enduring triumph of the 1982 Chinatown Garment Workers’ Strike, showcasing cultural dance and art activities, and providing a meaningful space for former garment workers to share their own stories. As Minsky writes, “Sitting in a slightly shaded area, retired Chinatown garment factory workers wearing ILGWU caps listened to the speakers. Between speakers, cultural entertainment by the Red Silk Dancers transformed the ambiance. At the commemoration, there were tents with art activity opportunities for children.”^¹ 

In addition to community-based events organized and led by former garment workers, local institutions like the Tenement Museum have done significant work in chronicling the lives of New York City’s garment workers. While the Tenement Museum's initial scope was primarily the Jewish garment workers of the Lower East Side, they have made strides in recent years by also incorporating Puerto Rican and Chinese family histories into their programming. If you are interested in experiencing the lives of Chinese garment worker families, in particular, the museum houses a wonderful apartment tour called “100 Years Apart.” The exhibition showcases the Wong family alongside the Gumpertz family, a 19th-century German-Jewish immigrant family that also worked in New York City’s garment industry.^¹ They also created a short digital exhibition about the garment industry, found here.^¹ 

Other initiatives to preserve New York City garment history include that of New York University, whose own Brown Building — formerly the Asch Building, the site of the Triangle Fire — has been the site of increased historic preservation and public memory efforts since it was donated in 1929.^¹ The Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition also organizes an annual gathering at the building to bring light to the tragedy of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory.^¹ It is clear that histories of labor activism are truly all around us, and it is our responsibility to preserve it. 

As the concluding part of this project, I wanted to uplift a poem by local CAAAV organizer Alina Shen.^¹ Her writing encapsulates the need to understand the 1982 Chinatown Garment Workers’ Strike not as an isolated instance of labor activism, but rather as a call to action to continue fighting for the rights of marginalized working people everywhere—especially local working-class and immigrant women of color, who hold up more than half our sky. 

In June of 1982, by Alina Shen

In 2015, I combed through black and white

cropped hair and smiling faces,

beige hose and flowered blouses

looking for a relative, my grandmother,

even my own faced mother,

a girl attentively snipping threads

among heavy folds of fabric.

You practice combing by removing short fibers, hoping what can be worsted can be useful,

and incite the rest to twist together to make one rectilinear foretelling.

While we waited in the car for my father

back with a plastic container of duck,

I asked: Do you remember working in the factory?

Mom later turned to dad. He thought about it:

My job was snipping threads and making rice.

The rice? We brought our own side dishes.

The foreman served us rice.

Was it unsanitary, to eat in the factory?

No one got sick, mom pointed out.

It was okay, dad agreed.

In 2015, I wanted something to be mine. Why not this?

That semester I sailed through labor studies

on gilded waves of ultra-leftism like I was

being pop quizzed on hot-headed justice, 1930s

on the compensation of workers, the fire still

named for assembly line production and not

for the worker women who died for them in 1911.

I felt like I could combust,

the way our professor lectured Five Points

without mentioning the now soggy stubble of Astroturf

the block still bent between Baxter and Mulberry.

I found my comb, curious now, at

the threads caught in the tooth.

Take the 1982 ILGWU Strike in New York Chinatown.

In history, when unions flatten workers

into busy squabbling lines of easily excitable, simple –

everyone knows but does not care about the smearing,

blurring into nameless faces and selfsame bodies with no past.

Workers become a different kind of machine.

Arm and leg a lever in an equation for optimization.

The hand is not actually a lever,

and the joint is not actually a bolt.

I watched the aftermath of Rana Plaza in 2013,

the one they say is no one’s fault.

Famous pictures plastered on screens,

dust turning, some freak sandstorm

turning workers into martyrs.

It is easy for the overseas bosses to pretend

that the workers have always been there,

this far distance from human, even dead.

In 2015, I chase the past,

a compass vibrating off-kilter,

a comb picking through what

has already been shaped.

You know their victories not our victories,

but you recognize when they lose, we lose.

Your hand is the hand that combs

is the hand that cheers the strike

is the hand that Taylor broke into a lever and a bolt

is the body that embraces someone you would fight for

in a factory doomed to become a stranger’s story.

In June of 1982, Chinese immigrant women struck,

so we organize, powerful enough to fight for more.

— Alina Shen

TKTK