United Hatters, Cap, and Millinery Workers International Union, Millinery Workers Joint Board Records

The New York Headwear Joint Board of the United Hatters, Cap and Millinery Workers International Union was formed in 1980 as a merger of Millinery Locals 24 and 42 and five other headwear locals (New Jersey Hat & Cap Makers Local 13; Hat, Cap and Leatherworkers Local 70; Cap Fronts Industry & Lining Makers, Tip Printers Local 80; Novelty Hat Workers Local 102; and Baby Bonnet Local 110). In 1982, the UHCMW merged with the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union.

The joint board's parent body, the United Hatters, Cap and Millinery Workers, was itself a merger of remnants of 19th century cap makers unions, the Millinery & Ladies Straw Hat Workers Union, and the United Hatters of North America (ending a bitter jurisdictional war with the United Cloth Hat and Cap Makers with a merger in 1924). The UHCMU survived the 1920s despite an open shop offensive, a decade-long depression in the cloth cap industry, and a bitter intra-union struggle between Communists and moderates for control of the union. Taking advantage of New Deal labor policies, the union conducted militant organizing drives during the Depression. The numbers of organized millinery workers mushroomed from 3,987 in 1929 to 12,647 in 1934. A spirit of cooperation characterized labor relations in the headwear industry during the 1930s and 1940s to protect the health and stability of the industry, including advertising campaigns, technological assistance to employers, loans to manufacturers. Nevertheless, both the industry and the union, highly susceptible to fashion trends, have gradually waned following World War II. In New York in 1985, there were approximately 3,000 hat and millinery workers. Ethnic composition of the work force, as in the other needle trades, has shifted from Eastern European to Hispanic and Caribbean.