Flip to Virginia Matthews, secretary of the Philadelphia branch of the United States Textile Workers in Philadelphia, 1934.Close Window
Credit: Courtesy of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania
In 1933, 10,000 workers walked out of the stocking mills around Reading, PA, when their employers refused to negotiate with the Full-Fashioned Hosiery Workers union. That August, the National Labor Board mediated a strike settlement by supervising secret-ballot elections to determine who would represent the workers. The use of elections rather than strikes, called "Reading Formula," became a cornerstone of national labor policy during the Great Depression, and especially useful in the mining industry.
