McCain Manufacturing Co.: Strike Injunction File #2, 1968-1969

Series 3: Companies, 1945-1974, is arranged alphabetically by company name, with any identifying information affixed to the descriptor (i.e. "Hobco Manufacturing Co. (division of Genesco): NLRB Case, 1966"), plus the record type (i.e. "NLRB Case" as above) also included in the folder title. The materials and correspondence within the company series include the following subjects and record types: organizing, contract negotiation and maintenance, National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) cases, arbitration; strike materials, expenses, and funds; label order forms, membership, back pay, proceedings, briefs, and depositions. Several companies figure prominently in this series, and they are: Alba-Waldensian, Inc., Biflex Marion, Inc., Cherokee Sportswear, Inc., Cullman Lingerie Corp., Elberton Manufacturing Co., Garland Knitting Mills, Inc., Jolog Sportswear, Inc. and Jonathan Logan, Inc., Marlene Industries Corp., Movie Star, Inc., Oneita Knitting Mills, Inc., Palmetto Manufacturing Co., Reverie Lingerie, Inc., Scherer and Sons, Inc., and Wentworth Manufacturing Co..

Following the company files are several folders containing ILGWU agreements with various manufacturers (filed by manufacturer name) and ILGWU constitutions.

Several noteworthy company files in Series III are:

Brewton Fashions, Inc. folders in boxes 3112 and 3113 contain materials related to a group of workers represented by then solicitor general of the NLRB, Thurgood Marshall (Marshall, Thurgood, pps. 310-313). In May, 1962, two women employees reported to work wearing ILGWU buttons that were forcibly removed from them, with plant manager Byrd sending them home. other altercations between ILGWU and United Garment Workers (UGW) adherents at the plant (a division of Judy Bond) followed over the next weeks. Marshall alludes to the workers' accounts and Byrd's correspondence in this collection within his brief, later upheld by the high court, for the NLRB in October, 1966. In 1967, President Johnson appointed Marshall to the Supreme Court. (See also Judy Bond and Oneita Knitting Mills folders in Series 3.)

In Industrialization and Southern Society - 1877-1984, Cobb mentions the "revolt" at Loray Mill in Gastonia, North Carolina in the late 1920s (pps. 88 and 89). Issues involved were pay cuts, stretch-outs, minimum weekly wages, and equal pay for women and children with the Communist-backed National Textile Workers Union (NTWU) actively working with the strikers. The Loray Corporation folders in Box 3146 of this ILGWU collection demonstrate constant surveillance of workers attempting to organize this Savannah, Georgia plant in the late 1960s.

The Oneita Knitting Mills folders, spanning four boxes and the years 1953 through 1968, provide extensive information about the 1963 strike for union recognition organized by the ILGWU. This material provides background for a study of the January, 1973 Textile Workers Union of America (TWUA)-led strike (see Essays in Southern Labor History - Selected Papers, Southern Labor History Conference, 1976, Fink and Reed, eds., 1977). Ashbaugh and McCurry, in "On the Line at Oneita" (in Working Lives - The Southern Exposure History of Labor in the South, edited by Marc S. Miller, 1980), provide a narrative to the 1963 and 1973 strikes.