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Labor strike in Chinatown--official statements of parties involved: Chinese Digest, April 1938.

Article Excerpt
Note by the editor of Chinese Digest: The first organized, large-scale labor strike between Chinatown workers and Chinatown employers occurred here recently, a fact which is history making in the life of the Chinese in America. On the morning of Feb. 26, 1938, the newly organized Chinese Ladies Garment Workers, an affiliate of the International Ladies Garment Workers' Union, declared a strike against Chinatown's largest garment factory at 720 Washington Street, and pickets of the Chinese local were thrown around the place. At the same time picket lines were also thrown around three units of the National Dollar Stores, a chain dry-goods firm with two-score branches in several states, in this city. Employees of the Dollar Stores, who were members of the Retail Clerks' union, refused to pass the picket lines, and the three stores as well as the factory all suspended operation.

(In order to secure the pro and con views on this situation, spokesmen of the parties concerned were requested by the Chinese Digest to state their positions in this labor dispute. The following statements from the National Dollar Stores, Ltd., the Golden Gate Manufacturing Company, and the Chinese Local No. 341 of the ILGWU. are authorized for exclusive publication in this journal. These statements are herein released for the first time and the parties involved may now read each other's views. These statements have been secured for publication here in the interests of frank and impartial discussion.

(The importance of this present labor dispute may be gauged by the fact that the livelihood of several hundred Chinese...