Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco (42 page)

Workers like Sue and her husband, Lee Jew Hing, who was vicepresident of the Chinese LGWU and, prior to the strike, bookkeeper
for National Dollar Stores, had savings to fall back on. Others, such as
Edna Lee, a presser, went hungry during the strike, but still they did not
waver in their commitment to the cause. Jennie Matyas described the
situation:

It was one of the most inspiring experiences I've ever had.... We had
one girl, her name was Edna Lee. Pretty as could be. No parents, she was
an orphan, and she had younger sisters or brothers. Anyhow, she was sort
of the head of the family. I was told one day that she couldn't be on
picket duty because she was sick, so I went to her house to see whether
I could do anything. I saw the house in which she lived. It was one room
somewhere on Grant Avenue, a kitchen was shared by the other tenants
on the floor. When I went in to see Edna, she was in bed. I asked her
how sick she was. "Oh," she said, "I'm not sick at all." I said, "Well, why
are you in bed if you're not sick at all?" "Well, you know, it's funny, but
if I stay in bed I don't get hungry. And so I often stay in bed because
then I don't get hungry." Now, the International helped with strike relief, but it was just relief, it wasn't wages. This girl, Edna, said, "You see,
before the strike I could buy groceries on credit. Now, none of the merchants will give us credit.". . . I gave her a little more [money], but she
wouldn't take it. She was very proud. She said that if that was all the others got, that's all she got.144

Although the Chinese LGWU and the 1938 strike were initiated and
sustained by determined garment workers like Edna Lee, credit must also go to the ILGWU, and Jennie Matyas in particular, said Sue Ko Lee.
"We knew the union was behind us. We all worked on it, the schedules
and all, with the Chinese leadership and advice from the top because we
didn't know anything ... the legal stuff they had to do it for us."145
The ILGWU not only took care of legal matters, conducted the negotiations, provided relief monies, and sponsored English classes for the
workers, but it also sought the sanction of the San Francisco Labor
Council and the cooperation of the Retail Department Store Employees' Union. Only when the white retail clerks refused to cross the picket
line at the three local National Dollar Stores, thus closing down the stores
for two weeks, did Joe Shoong feel compelled to deal with the situation.
He filed an injunction against picketing at his stores, then sued the
ILGWU and the Employees' Union for $500,000 in damages. In response, the union went to the National Labor Relations Board and
charged National Dollar Stores with unfair labor practices, arguing that
the sale of the garment factory had been made for the express purpose
of circumventing collective bargaining. On March 19, r938, the Superior Court of San Francisco granted National Dollar Stores a restraining order, and pickets were removed from the three retail stores but allowed to remain at the factory.146

The 105 -day strike against National Dollar Stores was at the time the
longest strike in the history of San Francisco Chinatown.147 Thanks to
the support of the ILGWU and the determination of the Chinese workers to win, an agreement was finally reached on June 8, 19 3 8. National
Dollar Stores withdrew its $ 500,000 damage suit, and the union dropped
its charges with the National Labor Relations Board. The factory would
be a closed union shop. In addition, there would be a 5 percent raise (to
$ 14 per week minimum except for apprentices); a forty-hour workweek,
with time-and-a-half for overtime; a paid holiday for Labor Day; enforcement of health, fire, and sanitary conditions; a guaranteed half-day
of work whenever workers were called in; a shop steward authorized to
collect dues and deal with grievances; the right to a hearing before an
arbitration committee in the case of a dispute over the contract or a questionable discharge; and a price committee to step in whenever piece rates
did not yield the minimum wages for 75 percent of the factory workers. The National Dollar Stores also agreed to continue contracting at
least some work to the Golden Gate Company.148

The ILGWU felt that while not a complete victory, the settlement
was fair; it therefore urged workers to accept the terms.149 The Chinese
LGWU was divided on the contract. "I had the time of my life to get
the workers to accept that settlement," recalled Matyas. "Some of the members upon whom I relied very greatly and who had become personal friends left the union because they thought the acceptance of such
a settlement was a hurt to their pride, it was so much less than they had
hoped to get." 110 The debate was intense, and the vote was close: thirtyone for the agreement, twenty-seven against.15' "Some of the militant
members were against it. It wasn't good enough for them," recalled Sue
Ko Lee. That's when she spoke out. "I said, `At least that's something
to begin with."' After all, she explained, "You had to start someplace.
There was nothing, right? At least you got something for one year. And
maybe something better would come out of it. If you take longer, people are not going to stand around. They can't afford to."' S2

Workers went back to their jobs a few days later, and although the
National Dollar Stores continued to contract work out to other shops,
there were enough orders to keep the Golden Gate factory open. When
the year was up and the contract expired, the factory conveniently went
out of business, claiming "financial losses."'-" Despite a long history of
Chinese workers not being hired at the white shops downtown, the
ILGWU was eventually able to find jobs for many of its Chinese members. With the closing of the factory and the dispersal of its workers,
membership in the Chinese LGWU dwindled from more than one hundred to less than forty. The remaining members finally voted to disband
and join the predominantly white Local 101.114

Patricia M. Fong has argued in her study of the 19 3 8 National Dollar Stores strike that everyone gained from the strike except the workers: "Who received the most satisfaction from the outcome? Probably
the ILGWU, the National Dollar Stores Ltd., and the Golden Gate Manufacturing Company. The workers were (sold out by the union?) dissatisfied with the terms of the contract, they all lost their jobs within
two years, and the union could not really help them much afterwards." 155 Sue Ko Lee disagreed with this opinion. In her view, the experience changed the course of history for Chinese American women
like herself.156 For the first time in their lives, Chinese American
women-both foreign- and American-born-banded together, supported by the ILGWU and Chinese leftist organizations, to challenge
unfair labor practices in the Chinatown garment industry. Determined
to win, they were able to sustain a strike for fifteen weeks despite economic hardships to themselves and their families and with little support
from the local community. Complicating matters, they were constantly
harassed by American Federation of Labor (AFL) organizers, who were
in competition with the ILGWU to recruit Chinese workers into their union. But as Matyas proudly wrote, the Chinese LGWU refused to
desert the ILGWU. "Can these Chinese stick together? Can they build
a Union?" she asked. "In the face of heartbreaking adversity they have
shown that they can stick together, fight together and build together." 157

Moreover, Sue pointed out, the ILGWU was able to help the Chinese workers break the racial barrier and find jobs in white shops downtown after the Golden Gate Company closed the factory. This was no
easy task. As if the language barrier, the different sewing machines used
by the Chinese workers (with horizontal instead of vertical stitching),
and the reluctance of Chinese workers to venture outside Chinatown
were not enough, there was also the problem of racial discrimination.
Jennie Matyas had to convince white employers that Chinese workers
were just as good as white workers. "They didn't want any Chinese because of the reputation that the Chinese will work for nothing and cut
the wages down," Sue recalled. "Finally she got Edna [Lee] in, and she
proved her worth. And after that, the door was open and employers began asking for Chinese workers. . . . And that was how the Chinese workers got out of Chinatown to work elsewhere." She concluded emphatically: "The strike was the best thing that ever happened. It changed our
lives." 158

Sue and her husband were successfully placed as machine operator
and cutter, respectively, in union shops outside Chinatown. "You made
more money and you had set hours," she said in comparing the working conditions in shops downtown with those in Chinatown. "It was
still piecework, but the price had to come up so that you made your minimum. It's controlled that way. So the faster ones can make more but at
least the slowest one made the minimum."159 In her new job, she also
had the benefits of holiday and vacation pay and, later, health benefits
and a pension. When Koret Corporation took over the small shop in
which she worked, Sue was promoted to quality control. A loyal union
supporter, she became secretary of both Local ioi and the San Francisco ILGWU Joint Board.

While the Chinese LGWU was active, Chinese American women
proved themselves stalwart members of the labor movement and significant contributors to the anti-Japanese war effort. When downtown
department store employees went on strike, these activists beseeched the
Chinese community not to cross the picket lines, and they contributed
z percent of their earnings to the strike fund. They also campaigned
against antilabor legislation, participated in the drive protesting the U.S.
shipment of war materials to Japan, and supported the boycott of non union-made lisle stockings, which women wore in lieu of silk stock-
ings.lbo The National Dollar Stores strike and its aftermath, however,
did not go far enough in sustaining Chinese women's involvement in
the labor movement or improving labor conditions in Chinatown. In
the final analysis, the ILGWU lost its chance to organize Chinatown effectively as the labor movement dissipated with the coming of war, the
end of the depression, and the repression of the left following World
War II.

Ironically, Chinese women in San Francisco stood to gain more than lose
by the depressed times precisely because they had been discriminated
against on the basis of race, gender, and class. Their low position in the
rigid race- and sex-segregated labor market kept them employed even
as Chinese men lost their jobs. Experienced survivors of multiple forms
of oppression, they proved resourceful, becoming the temporary breadwinners and providing the necessary support to pull their families
through the depression. Nor did they hesitate to take advantage of New
Deal opportunities to change working and living conditions for themselves and their families. Thus, at a time of great economic strife for
most of America, Chinese women in San Francisco were able to take
long strides to improve their socioeconomic status and work for the betterment of the community. World War II would afford them further
chances to expand their gender roles and fall in step with the rest of the
country.