ABSTRACT

The highly competitive, fluid conditions that prevail in the ladies' garment industry make it particularly sensitive to recessionary and other economic pressures. The sensitivity of the garment industry to recent economic trends demonstrates certain destructive effects on the structure of collective bargaining—effects that may soon be more widely visible. The international dimension of collective bargaining in the ladies' garment industry thus converges with domestic factors tending to disperse and to disrupt orderly labor relations. The destabilization of collective bargaining in the ladies' garment industry is in some part attributable to forces beyond the scope of the bargaining. Half the world's population has an annual income of less than $500. The manufacture of garments requires little initial skill, and the practically limitless supply of labor at subsistance rates could destroy the American garment industry. American garment workers have generally been drawn from the newest immigrants to this country, and from among Black and Puerto Rican arrivals to northern cities.