Other
Castro, Anita (audio interview #5 of 6)
INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - This fifth interview with Anita Castro, recorded in her home, returns to a discussion of her initial involvement with the union and her activities as an organizer. As in previous interviews, it is sometimes difficult to understand Castro because of her breathy, rapid style of speaking. TOPICS - Castro's initial induction into the union and activities as an organizer; relationships between employers and business agents; the role of the communists in the union; the union handling of work stoppages; union structure and governance; and gender discrimination in wages of organizers and business agents;her relationship with the business agents in her Local; the treatment of women in both the shops and the union; her relationship with her husband and their health problems; husband's death; and personal reflections on her experiences as a union organizer; 5/21/1976
- Date
- 2020-03-26
- Resource Type
- Creator
- Campus
- Keywords
- Handle
- Language
- Notes
- File: lhgwacastro12.mp3 Audio Segments and Topics: (0:00-1:18)... Tape introduction. Following her participation in the general strike, Castro worked as a housekeeper because the non-union shops blacklisted her. During this time, she became a member of the Executive Board for the newly formed Local 96. However, she was not active and did not participate in the Local's founding meetings. After the Local was formed, she worked part-time as a union organizer and part-time in the shops organizing workers from within. (1:18-2:06)... When she moved to Los Angeles, she found a job as a finisher in a garment shop. At the time, the workers in the shop were attending union meetings but did not tell her until some time later. When she found out about the meetings, she joined and became active in the union. (2:06-3:45)... As a member of the Executive Board for Local 96, she was not very active. She attended the board meetings, but was not vocal. She also attended several Jewish union meetings, but did not understand what was happening because of the language barrier. When she became an organizer for the union, she was taken off of the Executive Board for Local 96. In addition to organizing workers in the garment industry, she also attempted to organize waitresses and other blue collar workers because she believed everyone should belong to the union. (3:45-5:21)... When she organized a shop, she created a committee of workers and discussed union policies with them. This committee would give union cards to the workers in the shop and tell them what to do when an election was called. Castro then went to the Labor Board and presented them with the results. After a shop was organized, she managed it or it was given to another organizer or business agent. (5:21-7:17)... When general meetings were held at the Local, she spoke at each meeting and translated what was said to the workers. Another part of her organizing responsibilities included seating people at the union meetings and making sure that each member had signed their union card. In addition to these general meetings, she also held organizing meetings where she did most of the speaking and translating. (7:17-9:08)... When the CIO was formed, one of her responsibilities was making leaflets for the rubber industry when they started organizing workers there. For the most part, she acted as support staff for the CIO union because they were already fairly organized when she began working for the garment workers union. Most of her activities centered around organizing and working with workers in the garment industry. (9:08-14:44)... She recalls that the scandal surrounding Bill Busic occurred because he accepted money from an employer and then distributed that money to workers on strike. However, they used this incident against him and he was fired, which was very difficult for her to accept. When she became a union organizer, she learned very quickly not to accept gifts from the shop employers for fear that her job would be in jeopardy if the union found out. When she became a business agent, she recalls that Levy told her to write a check when she bought a dress from a factory so that she could prove she did not accept the dress as a gift from the employer. Employers often sent gifts to her home, but she sent them back because she was not sure if the union was testing her. She did accept gifts from the workers and occasionally accepted the gifts the employer also gave other workers. It was not a good policy to accept gifts from employers because it made it difficult to go to the shop and conduct business, especially if employers expected a union official to show them favoritism because of the gifts. (14:44-18:04)... In her opinion, the Locals were democrat organizations mainly as a result of the communist element within the union. The communists were very aggressive and often questioned union policies or proposed new policies to benefit the workers. However, during her final years at the union, it became obvious to her that the communists were less active in the meetings. Unlike the communists, most union members went along with union policies without question. When she disagreed with something, she did not openly address it, but complained to people individually. (18:04-22:15)... While working as a business agent, she refused to go to a shop to settle a price dispute because the elevator workers were picketing in front of the building where the shop was housed. In general, when a building, shop, or store went on strike she did not cross the picket lines, but tried to help the workers. However, if a building was on strike and there were other businesses inside the building that were not fighting with their employers, workers often crossed the picket lines to get to work. (22:15-26:05)... The union did not advocate work stoppages, nor could they tell workers to stop working. When workers reported to the union after work stoppages, a union official usually returned them to the shop. However, business agents often stalled in returning the workers to the shop in an attempt to make the employer nervous. This was not an open policy because the union could be fined for violating labor clauses. Another clause stipulated that organizers and business agents avoid fights or the use of bad language; however, Castro often violated this clause. (26:05-28:49)... Disputes between business agents and organizers were handled by the vice president of the union, who usually received his instructions from New York. If the entire shop could not be organized, they organized half of the shop and the rest later. (28:49-33:09)... As a business agent, she did not like to enforce union policies that she did not agree with. In these cases, she talked to the workers individually and told them not to accept the union policies when they were presented. However, she did not vocalize her criticism to the vice president or union manager. In general, most of the union policies and procedures in Los Angeles were developed by the New York office. In addition, people in the union with connections in New York often kept their jobs even if they were not well liked or incompetent. Many of the vice presidents from New York were not well liked. Wall, in particular, was disliked because he cleaned house, resulting in a lot of people losing their jobs. However, when policies were handed down from New York, the union officials did not have much control. (33:09-37:16)... Vice presidents supervised the managers in each Local and each vice president had a different relationship with the managers in each Local. The vice president held meetings with the managers where he would inform them of the policies developed in New York. In the beginning, the Locals had a friendly and supportive relationship with each other, which is why she believed the split was unnecessary. However, after the split, the organizers and business agents were only allowed to organize the workers in the shops within their respective Local. The relationship between the managers in each Local was bad. (37:16-41:57)... The Board of Directors and various other committees played roles within the Los Angeles union, but most of the members of these groups did not know what was happening in the New York office. New York was even in charge of granting raises to union officials. She believes that her raises were always skimped. She did not develop resentment towards other business agents because of the wage inequities. The male business agents were getting higher wages and their expenses paid because the office listed them as business agents and organizers. Castro also worked in both capacities, but did not receive the same benefits. This changed when Wall became vice president and he increased her pay to the same level as the male business agents. When she worked as a business agent in the Sportswear Local, the only other woman business agent was May Hamilton. Although Castro liked her, she thought that she was conceited about her position in the union and often put on airs. end of tape File: lhgwacastro13.mp3 (0:00-3:08)... <interview begins with a continued discussion on her relationship with the other business agents> Some of the business agents did not agree with her procedures. For instance, whenever the workers were in her office, she gave them their vacation checks, while the other business agents preferred to schedule a set time for workers to collect their checks. She believes that Hamilton resented this and saw it another reason why Castro was so well liked among the workers. Her relationship with the other business agents was friendly and cooperative. She very rarely, if at all, exchanged heated words with other union agents. She shared better relationships with the business agents than with her managers. For instance, she did not like John Ulene because he belittled people and was partial to Jews. (3:08-5:27)... Mike Avila was the head of the Organization Department when she was with the union. Several other Spanish-speaking union officials worked as organizers. However, she was the only Spanish-speaking business agent until she suffered a heart attack and Gloria Feliciano, who was from New York, was brought in to replace her. Angelita Torres worked as the Spanish-speaking business agent for the Dress Makers Local for no more than five years. There were Spanish-speaking organizers in the Cloak Makers Local, but no Spanish-speaking business agents. Lupe Medina also worked as a Spanish-speaking business agent for less than three years when she left the union to get married. (5:27-7:23)... The majority of workers in the Locals and the shops were women. However, this did not stop women from being referred to as men's helpers. The differences were more obvious in the early years of the union, but in later years, the workers were not distinguished based on their gender, ethnicity, or race, but were treated according to their trade. (7:23-12:22)... In the early years of the union, women were in secondary roles. However, the executive boards within the Locals usually all women. And although the majority of workers in the garment workers union are women, women have only held the position of vice president. She believes that when the union elected the vice president in San Francisco they "killed two birds with one stone" because the woman was also African American. Although the ILGWU claimed it didn't discirminate, when a union is comprised of 90 percent women with the remaining 10 percent of men in power, it is discrimination. This discrimination brought women in the union together and when the women's liberation movement began, members of several Locals held meetings to discuss women's status within the union and the labor force. Castro began to notice the discrepancies within her pay at this time, but because she was near retirement she decided not to fight the wage inequities but wait until she retired and take her grievances to the Labor Board. (12:22-13:46)... The women who attended the women's liberation meetings were from different unions and there were approximately 15-20 women present. The purpose of the meetings was to discuss how to increase female representatives within the union and how to get other benefits, such as child care. The women signed and sent a letter of resolutions to Siggy Horowitz . Her participation in the women's meetings was limited because of her work commitments to the Organization Department of the union. In addition, both she and her husband became very ill during this period. (13:46-21:39)... In the 1940s, she left the union for two months after suffering a nervous breakdown as a result of her work commitments and personal problems. A short time after the Chick Lingerie strike ended and a resolution was reached, she suffered a heart attack in the union office. She had another heart attack in the hospital and stayed there for 46 days. When she was released from hospital care, she was in a wheelchair and could not walk. (21:39-24:31)... After her heart attack she did not return to work. She was on disability for six months and then was paid her full union salary until she retired at the age of sixty-five when she received a retirement check. Wall was the vice president at the time and he continued to pay her a union salary so that she could retire with her full pension. (24:31-28:10)... Her husband's health was also failing. He had emphysema, for which he received an operation. He then contracted pneumonia and never fully recovered. Her husband attempted to conceal his health problems from her. When she was in the hospital, he visited her all day, every day because he wanted to be there if she died. When she left the hospital, she stayed home for approximately one year, during which time her husband's health slowly deteriorated. Before they moved to Twenty-Nine Palms, Castro suffered another heart attack and was hospitalized for approximately a month. When she was released, she and her husband moved to Twenty-Nine Palms and her husband died in July 1974. (28:10-32:15)... When she began walking again, she and her husband decided to travel to Europe. When her husband died, she decided she would go to Europe by herself, which was a bad experience because she was in poor health. While she was visiting relatives in Yugoslavia, she suffered another heart attack and it took six hours for the doctor to arrive. The doctor told her relatives that she would probably die; however, she recovered and made it back to the United States. (32:15-33:12)... She was not involved with the Retiree's Club at the union because she could not walk or drive. She did join the Senior Citizen Clubs in both Monterey Park and Montebello. She maintains contact with women at the union and whenever there is an event, she is invited to the union. (33:12-35:03)... When reflecting on her life, she becomes very emotional, particularly when she mentions that her best accomplishments were coming to the United States and joining the union. When she moved to the United States, she originally wanted to seek a career in teaching, but then decided against this and began attending night school. When she joined the union, she did not have aspirations to become an organizer or business agent, but believes it was meant to be. (35:03-37:14)... It was very frustrating when a majority of workers supported the union, but an election was lost, or if a shop could not be organized at all. It was also frustrating when a shop was organized and the employer closed or moved the shop, leaving all of the workers out of a job. (37:14-43:18)... She was very disappointed when union officials cheated her out of going to the labor convention. In fact, she believes that she suffered her first heart attack as a result of this incident. She originally thought she was suffering from asthma because she had difficulty breathing. She stayed in bed for three days and refused to talk to any of the union officials. She lost enthusiasm about the union at this time, but decided to forget the incident because she was near retirement. (43:18-43:43)... If given the opportunity, she would relive her union activities, but would defend herself more the second time around. At the time, she was concerned more about other people and not herself. End of tape.
- SUBJECT BIO - Anita Muretta Andrade Castro became one of the first Spanish speaking women organizers in the ILGWU in Los Angeles. She became active in the union during the drive leading up to the industry-wide general strike of 1934, and was named to the Executive Board (under the name Anita Andrade). She remained active in the union as an organizer and a business agent, working particularly closely with the Spanish-speaking workers, until her retirement in 1972. Although she was actually born in Yugoslavia (the Austro-Hungarian empire), Castro was raised in Argentina and spent most of her life in the US in the Mexican community. She married Mexican men following a teen-age marriage to a Croatian, and was viewed and accepted as a Latina by the workers in the industry. At the time of the interview, Castro had suffered several strokes and her health and memory deteriorated over the course of the interview series. She was interviewed as part of the Feminist History Research Project labor series. INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - This fifth interview with Anita Castro, recorded in her home, returns to a discussion of her initial involvement with the union and her activities as an organizer. As in previous interviews, it is sometimes difficult to understand Castro because of her breathy, rapid style of speaking. TOPICS - Castro's initial induction into the union and activities as an organizer; relationships between employers and business agents; the role of the communists in the union; the union handling of work stoppages; union structure and governance; and gender discrimination in wages of organizers and business agents;her relationship with the business agents in her Local; the treatment of women in both the shops and the union; her relationship with her husband and their health problems; husband's death; and personal reflections on her experiences as a union organizer;
- Rights Note
- This repository item may be used for classroom presentations, unpublished papers, and other educational, research, or scholarly use. Other uses, especially publication in any form, such as in dissertations, theses, articles, or web pages are not permitted without the express written permission of the individual collection's copyright holder(s). Please contact the CSULB Library Administration should you require permission to publish or distribute any content from this collection or if you need additional information or assistance in using these materials: http://www.csulb.edu/library/Common/SubmittedForms/digital_rep_request.html
Items
| Thumbnail | File information | Actions |
|---|---|---|
|
3829950375907479-lhgwacastro12.mp3 Public
|
Download |
|
|
8330238908087543-lhgwacastro13.mp3 Public
|
Download |
|
|
0932987611324680-gwacastro1.jpg Public
|
Download |
|
|
6923680797446706-gwacastro2.jpg Public
|
Download |