National Affairs: Dress Peace

New York’s Lieutenant Governor Herbert H. Lehman, as mediator, last week satisfactorily ended the strike of 35,000 New York City dressmakers (TIME, Feb. 17).

Winnings. Organized contractors (manufacturers) who employ only union labor, agreed to a 40-hour, five-day week. The union agreed to hold in abeyance for a year its demand for wage increases, unemployment insurance. Abolition of sweatshops, prime object of the strike, seemed assured when wholesalers signed a three-months agreement to buy only from organized contractors and out-of-town union shops.

Losings. The union estimated that the strike had cost it $225,000. Dress manufacturers guessed that the nine-day delay in the Spring trade would cost the industry $15,000,000.