ABSTRACT
The final amalgamation of tailoring unions that took place in 1939, equally as neglected by contemporary commentators and recent historians as that which took place in 1915, was a rewarding conclusion to a movement which had begun almost thirty years before. Trade unions in an industry renowned for its reliance on unskilled female and immigrant labour, bedevilled by the destabilising effects of seasonality and divided by craft jealousies had demonstrated their ability to survive the pressures of war and depression. In addition, they had proved that ethnic pride and craft jealousy could be subjugated to common purpose. The ghosts had finally been laid. The ethos of separatism had been rejected in favour of equality within one union. The ideal had been promoted by the Jewish trade unionist, later Labour Minister, Emanuel Shinwell in the early 1900s. Shinwell had been opposed to the concept of independent Jewish unions or even Jewish branches of English unions. He saw no future in them as he had no faith in the ability of Jewish workers independently to ameliorate their position and maintain effective organisational bodies. It was only when, he maintained, ‘the hand of fellowship’ was genuinely extended ‘that Jew and Gentile may be able to work together for the emancipation of the human race’. 1 Although his thinking was pragmatic and the ideal eventually achieved, Shinwell was unjust in his estimate of the Jewish trade unionists' inability to succeed. Jewish unions were not futile or doomed to failure. Given the right conditions and circumstances they could, as indeed they did, come through.
