Archive Transcript: Letters

Letter from General Executive Board to Delegates, 1995

An historic opportunity

DELEGATES:

On the eve of a proposed merger between the ILGWU and the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union, your participation in this 42nd Convention has even greater significance than usual. Your actions at this Convention will again set the union's course for the coming years.

But you will also be making an historic decision that would create a union, uniting members in all industries represented by both the ILGWU and ACTWU. The propose Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE) would be one of the largest manufacturing unions in North America.

It is indeed a crucial time for labor to be strong, as it stands up to the forces arrayed against us. There are the escalating pressures of the global economy, which provide fertile soil for the return of the sweatshop and child labor. Meanwhile, legislation proposed by the Republican Congress benefits the might while attacking workers, the middle-class and the poor.

Hopefully, this report has given you an overview of development in the last three years. Now it is your turn to write the next chapter of our history. We know you will act wisely as you decide the course of our union, perhaps as a new entity, into the 21st century.

Respectfully Submitted,

Jay Mazur
President

Irwin Solomon
General Secretary-Treasurer

Edgar Romney
Executive Vice President

Vice Presidents
Ronald Alman
Nicholas Nonanno
Susan Cowell
Evelyn Dubrow
Joseph Fisher
Sidney Gerstein
Salvatore Giardina
Lillian Kolwyck Grobmyer
Stanley Gross
Sol Hoffman
Barbara Laufman
William Lee
Emanuel Leventhal
Peter Nadash
Steven Nutter
Gerald Roy
Anthony Sciuto
Jose Torres
Paul Winslow

GEB Report, June 1995