The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-09-09
WANTS NO LITTLE SHOPS
,HNE\T WORKERS FROM on
UOMi\'S HONE FACTORY.
Size wa. Gnc of the ORGANIZERS Of the
nion. hut Now That She wants 10
Resume Business IN = Modest Way She's
Told She Cannot Get the Union Label.

Mr. Louisa Vokmann of 1875 Boston
rad a woman Of small means, started
,a- June with her four grown-up sons and
daughters to build up little business in
the making of overalls, jumpers and other
things that workingmen wear.
Sn, had had experience in similar tradA
and hv il had been able to bring up her
family comfortably She gave up her
business when she married a second time
and then had tidy little sum laid by.
So, with the business at her fingers ends.
II was with confidence that she urged her
two sons to give up their jobs, invested her
little capital in material and machinery,
and, with her daughters two outside work.
ers and a cutter. union man, started IN
10 make samples for the fall trade.
The outlook FOR her business was bright
until she tried to arrange for having
the union label on her goods. The United
Garment Workers. the general union Of
tie trades, supplies the label to manu-
iacrurers at 81 a thousand, with IS a month
extra for the privilege of its Use.
This part of the business was new to
Mrs Volkmann. but as 4 friend of organized
labor and with confidence in the justice of
the union which she herself had helped to
organize, she let the matter of the union
label go over until last week.
Then she sent her cutter down to the
UNIONS headquarters in the Bible House to
apply for the label and to get union cards
for the other workers in the family shop.
The cutter came back and reported
nothing doing. He had been told, he
sad, that labels were only supplied to big
concerns; and as for union cards, they
wouldn't be issued to members of the Volk-
mann family as long as they remained in
their mothers employ.
Mrs. Vokmarn couldn't believe the news
her cutter brought home. She wrote to
the union. setting her case forth at length.
she got no reply, she says, and yesterday
Size went to the Bible House to plead
with the secretary Of the General Union.
Henry White.
The only explanation she could get, she
says, was that the privilege Of the union
label is granted only TO big concerns. Up
il, TIE Bronx, where her little home industry
las been started, the workroom looks out
on the garden and fruit trees surround the
house, but Mrs. Vo]kmann promised when
the business grew 10 move her shop down
to a city loft.
Her promises and pleadings were useless,
she says, and the secretary wouldn't even
listen to her, but repeated that the label
was only for large concerns.
Mrs. Vokmann in a desperate moment
asked if the union was in league with the
trust, and that abruptly finished the inter-
view.
Mrs Volkmann feels the unions action
all the more because she is in danger Of
being ruined by an organization Of which
she was one of the founders. AS a manu-
facturer of skirts and vests she organized
her employees and was herself taken
into the Knights of Labor. Altogether
she says, she brought 8ls tailors into the
union ranks, and in the first big strikes she
was one of the few employers who didn't
join in the lockout.
Every union man must see that the union
label is on all his clothes, says Mrs. Volk-
mann. Now. If the union leaders are only
going to give labels to the big concerns,
what will become of all the little talors
that get most of the workingmen's trade
to-day?"