DUBINSKY, DAVID

The life of the labor leader and political activist David Dubinsky (February 22, 1892–September 17, 1982) was governed by three great passions: trade unionism, social reform, and anticommunism. Raised as the youngest son of a Jewish baker in Lodz in Russian Poland, Dubinsky started his labor activism early. After a rudimentary secular Zionist education, he went to work for his father at the age of eleven and led his first strike at fifteen. Dubinsky also joined the Jewish Bund, a socialist organization banned by czarist authorities. Imprisoned and later exiled to Siberia at eighteen, he escaped. Recognizing that he was a hunted man, Dubinsky left Poland, arriving in New York on New Year's Day, 1911.

Dubinsky became a U.S. citizen and joined the Socialist Party and garment cutters' Local 10 of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU). He embraced the cutters' craft culture, moderate socialism, and practical trade unionism. Elected president of his local in 1921, he played a vital role in the bitter "civil war" between Communists and Socialists that decimated New York's garment unions during the 1920s. Several factors led to the ILGWU's demise, but Dubinsky blamed an ill-fated 1926 strike and supported the expulsion of the Communists. ILGWU membership fell from a high of 120,000 in the early 1920s to only 40,000 in early 1933 shortly after Dubinsky's ascent to the presidency. His tenure became closely entwined with Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. Taking advantage of the National Recovery Administration's nominal recognition of collective bargaining rights, Dubinsky launched organizing drives in sixty cities, as well as a series of successful strikes. By May 1934 membership in the ILGWU had jumped to more than 400,000, and Dubinsky emerged as a major figure in New Deal labor circles. Placing its new strength behind the NRA code authority, the ILGWU established a thirty-five hour work week, substantially raised wages, and transformed conditions in its industry. In the process, it provided a model for the industrial union explosion of the late 1930s.

Convinced that the labor movement's future lay in the development of giant industrial unions, in late 1935 Dubinsky formed the Committee for Industrial Organization with Sidney Hillman, John L. Lewis, and other American Federation of Labor (AFL) leaders to push the AFL into organizing basic industry. Although he supported organizing drives throughout 1936 and 1937 and recognized the need to revitalize the labor movement, Dubinsky opposed the formation of the CIO as a separate labor federation in November 1938, fearing dual unionism and Communist Party influence in the new group. He led his union back into the AFL in 1940 and rejoined the Federation's executive board in 1945. Dubinsky retired from the ILGWU presidency in 1966.

Dubinsky's political life was shaped both by his strong commitment to social justice and his staunch anti-Communism. He helped to form the American Labor Party in 1936 but eventually renounced it, alleging Communist influence. He cofounded the New York Liberal Party, Americans for Democratic Action, and the International Confederation of Trade Unions, all bastions of Cold War liberal anti-Communism. Throughout, he remained an avid supporter of Roosevelt and later Democratic presidents.

DUBINSKY, DAVID

BIBLIOGRAPHY