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The breakthrough came with World War I: the military needed uniforms fast, and the Amalgamated, after winning several bloody strikes in Chicago and Baltimore, was an all-out supporter of the war effort. Hillman shrewdly mixed militancy and reasonable negotiation, and added a new dimension with his cooperation with the new federal Board of Control and Labor Standards for Army Clothing. By 1920 the Amalgamated enrolled 177,000 dues paying members, with contracts covering 85% of the men's clothing industry. The Amalgamated forced companies to stop using sweatshops (that is, families working in their own apartments for much lower pay), and achieved the forty-four-hour week by 1920.
The breakthrough came with World War I: the military needed uniforms fast, and the Amalgamated, after winning several bloody strikes in Chicago and Baltimore, was an all-out supporter of the war effort. Hillman shrewdly mixed militancy and reasonable negotiation, and added a new dimension with his cooperation with the new federal Board of Control and Labor Standards for Army Clothing. By 1920 the Amalgamated enrolled 177,000 dues paying members, with contracts covering 85% of the men's clothing industry. The Amalgamated forced companies to stop using sweatshops (that is, families working in their own apartments for much lower pay), and achieved the forty-four-hour week by 1920.
==Industrial unionism==
==Industrial unionism==
Hillman disagreed with the strategy of the AFL to concentrate on skilled workers. He believed in "industrial unionism", which involved unionizing all he workers in an industry of all skill levels. He was quite successful with this approach to clothing workers; John L. Lewis was developing a similar approach at the same time regarding coal miners. Hillman and Lewis, however, had a deeper strategy. They saw that industries like sewing and coal mining were dominated by hundreds of small firms, that engaged in ruinous competition. Wage comprised most of the cost of doing business in the needle trades and coal mining, so brutal competition meant lower wages. The way to improve conditions, raise wages and raise profits was to have the union control the industry by setting high wages. In a competitive marketplace, other firms were helpless when a competitor cut prices--they had to follow. But if the union policed the industry and prevented wage cuts and thus price cuts, then cutthroat competition with low wages and low wages would be impossible. The solution only worked in a few industries (especially clothing and coal) where conditions were exactly right (many small companies, wages the biggest expense.) These conditions did not apply in most industries. The problem in the 1920s was that unions were too weak to police their industries, so when the New Deal arrived in 1933, Hillman jumped at the chance to have the [[NRA]] police the industries and keep wages high. When NRA ended in 1935, Hillman helped Congress pass the [[Wagner Act]]
Hillman disagreed with the strategy of the AFL to concentrate on skilled workers. He believed in "industrial unionism", which involved unionizing all he workers in an industry of all skill levels. He was quite successful with this approach to clothing workers; John L. Lewis was developing a similar approach at the same time regarding coal miners. Hillman and Lewis, however, had a deeper strategy. They saw that industries like sewing and coal mining were dominated by hundreds of small firms, that engaged in ruinous competition. Wage comprised most of the cost of doing business in the needle trades and coal mining, so brutal competition meant lower wages. The way to improve conditions, raise wages and raise profits was to have the union control the industry by setting high wages. In a competitive marketplace, other firms were helpless when a competitor cut prices--they had to follow. But if the union policed the industry and prevented wage cuts and thus price cuts, then cutthroat competition with low wages and low wages would be impossible. The solution only worked in a few industries (especially clothing and coal) where conditions were exactly right (many small companies, wages the biggest expense.) These conditions did not apply in most industries. The problem in the 1920s was that unions were too weak to police their industries, so when the New Deal arrived in 1933, Hillman jumped at the chance to have the [[NRA]] police the industries and keep wages high. When NRA ended in 1935, Hillman helped Congress pass the [[Wagner Act]] which greatly facilitated union membership drives.
The AFL finally admitted Amalgamated in 1933, but by 1933 Hillman and Lewis threw their unions behind a new venture, the [[CIO]] (at first named the "Committee for Industrial Organization") with the dream of industrial unionization for all of America. Both the CIO and AFL unions strongly supported Roosevelt's landslide reelection in 1936, with Hillman heading the CIO campaign committee. The AFL in 1937 expelled the CIO (now renamed the "Congress of Industrial Organizations") , and the two federations spent much of 1937-40 fighting each other for membership in industries such as meatpacking and electrical equipment. Both grew rapidly.
In 1940 Lewis broke with Roosevelt over foreign policy<ref>Communists in the miners union supported Russia and its ally Germany in 1940, and strenuously opposed FDR's efforts to help Britain fight Germany. Lewis went along with the Communists and attacked FDR.</ref> and Hillman became FDR's chief labor spokesman, and CIO members, listening to Hillman not Lewis, voted 85% for FDR in 1940. In 1940-42 as the nation rearmed rapidly, Hillman handled labor affairs for the government, which involved rapid expansion of munitions industries and unionization of the new workers.
==Communism==
==Communism==