Area shirt factories became focus of labor disputes

Employees at the Greenwich, N.Y., and Rutland, Vt., shirt factories of Tim, Wallerstein & Co. acted in solidarity with striking workers at the company’s factory on Liberty Street in Albany in 1891.

The Greenwich and Rutland employees pledged not to complete any work transferred from the Albany factory — and if necessary, to walk off the job to protect their right to refuse the work.
The company wound up closing the Albany factory and moving the machinery and work to Troy. But it was a somewhat hollow victory for management: The striking workers affiliated with the Central Federation of Labor during the strike, which gave the union a toehold among garment factory workers in the region, most of whom were women.

Union leaders said it was a moral victory for labor, as all of the striking workers found jobs at other shirt factories in the region, which were in the midst of a shortage of skilled labor.
The strike broke out in early August when management imposed a new piece-work rate based on the same worker sewing the entire garment, rather than a system based on sewing specific parts of shirts, which had been more lucrative for employees.

“The girls claimed that they cannot make enough money to live on in this new way,” The Argus of Albany reported on Aug. 14, 1891. “The company informed them that they must manufacture the shirt in the new way and the employees refused to do so and struck.”
Management claimed the new system was already in place at all of the company’s other shirt factories.

Workers at the Albany plant walked out after an unsuccessful negotiating session between employee representatives and management that lasted just two minutes, according to Josephine Lewis, a spokeswoman for the employee committee.

“Very briefly she stated what the strikers demanded, which was assurance from their employer that they could return to work under the old system and an increase of weekly pay, or two cents advance on all parts of the shirt,” The Argus reported.

Management, in the person of Edward Wallerstein, “evidently had not read the morning paper, for he was thunderstruck at the demand for an increase in wages, and with a wave of his hand and a toss of his head as he put on his hat, he brought the interview to a close,” the paper reported.
It was a bitter strike, with workers decrying what they described as “penitentiary wages.”
On Sept. 5, The Argus reported that the company was removing machinery from the Albany factory and taking it to a plant in Troy.

 

Growing industry
At the time of the 1891 strike, Wallerstein operated shirt factories in Rutland, Greenwich, Albany and Troy.

The Greenwich factory opened in 1890 and initially employed 200. The community had offered economic development incentives to help the operation get started.

“The public-spirited citizens of Greenwich furnished the mill and power line, costing $5,000 [the equivalent of $172,824 in today’s dollars],” The People’s Journal of Greenwich reported on Aug. 7, 1890. “The shop gives employment chiefly to women, and there is no need for girls or women to be idle here.”

The Greenwich factory expanded a few months later.
“Owing to the increased amount of hands, Tim, Wallerstein & Co. have been adding to their factory,” The People’s Journal reported on Jan. 1, 1891. “The new wheel is of the latest of improved kind, and will run upwards of 300 hands.”

Wallerstein opened a shirt factory in Shushan in 1895, and in 1898 he was negotiating to open a shirt factory in Cambridge.

The 1891 strike was not the only labor unrest at Wallerstein factories. In 1896, there was a walkout at a Wallerstein mill at a different location in Albany.

“About a hundred girls, constituting the entire force employed in Wallerstein Co.’s shirt factory, located on the corner of Broadway and North Ferry Street, went out in a sympathetic strike yesterday afternoon, and operation in the factory ceased,” The Argus reported on Feb. 5, 1896. “The cause of the strike was the firm’s action in discharging the forewoman, Miss Bridget Kearns of North Albany, who has held the position for about seven months.”

The employees not only sympathized with Kearns but also feared the firing was a precursor to eliminating the forewoman position, leaving workers without an advocate in their dealings with management.

In the morning, employees had planned merely to send a committee to voice their concerns to management, but tensions escalated.

“The girls discussed the matter at lunch hour, and Miss Kearns had the sympathy of all,” The Argus reported. “The more they talked of the matter, the more they thought the action of the firm in discharging Miss Kearns was unjust and severe. Their sympathies got the best of them about 2:00, and without any announcement of their intentions, put on their things and left the factory in body. … The girls made no demonstration, but quietly went to their homes.”

Wallerstein initially refused to consider their concerns.
“I have kept the girls on when business was very dull for charity’s sake,” he said. “It matters little to me whether they return to work, for when business picks up, I can assure you that I can secure enough help to resume operations.”

Miss Faren, a spokeswoman for the strikers, said she hoped Wallerstein would reconsider.
“We know that she [Kearns] must have given satisfaction, for she was always faithful, energetic, and watchful for the interests of the firm,” Faren said. “This is our first grievance and I hope the firm will consider the smallness of it and reappoint Miss Kearns.”

The strike was settled the next day when Wallerstein agreed to promote Gertie Sherlock, whom the employees had suggested, as the new forewoman.

In 1884, workers in the laundry department struck at the company’s factory in Troy, but they returned to work when the company refused to increase pay.

There was a strike at the Rutland factory in 1886, and there was a brief work stoppage at one of the company’s factories in Troy in 1887.

“The 450 employees of Tim, Wallerstein & Co.’s collar shop on Sixth Street, Troy, refused to go to work yesterday on account of the supposed unsafe condition of the boiler,” The Argus reported on April 10, 1887.

In 1898, about 150 employees were laid off at the Broadway factory in Albany when Wallerstein dismantled the equipment and moved it to a state prison in Ionia, Mich., where the company opened a factory that employed convict labor, The Argus reported on Oct. 2, 1898. The company had a 10-year contract to employ 300 inmates, the newspaper reported on Nov. 20.
A manager of another of the company’s Albany-area factories disputed a Michigan news report that Wallerstein was moving the entire operation to Michigan, The Argus reported on Nov. 23.
“There is no foundation for this report, and to prove the utter absurdity of the rumor, I will show you where we have just put in 18 new sewing machines and contemplate adding 50 more,” the manager told the Albany paper.

In time, however, Wallerstein did sell all of his New York and Vermont factory buildings as he consolidated his operations in Michigan.

 

Maury Thompson was a reporter for The Post-Star of Glens Falls for 21 years before retiring in 2017. He now is a freelance writer focusing on the history of politics, labor and media in the region.