Fighting for the Union Label : Penn State University Press : 9780271021683 : 0271021683 : 15 May 2002 : It is no coincidence that the garment industry gained a foothold in Pennsylvania&;s hard-coal region as mines were closing or reducing operations. "Runaway" factories, especially ones from Manhattan, set up shop in mining towns where labor was plentiful and unions scarce. By the 1930s, garment factories employed thousands of wives and daughters of unemployed or underemployed coal miners in the Wyoming Valley. Organizing workers would prove difficult for the International Ladies&; Garment Workers&; Union (ILGWU). Fighting for the Union Label tells the story of how workers in the Wyoming Valley, led by Min Lurye Matheson and her husband, Bill, banded together and built one of the largest and most activist movements of garment workers in the ILGWU&;s vast network. Workers&; education, political activism, a health care center, and a widely recognized chorus were among the union&;s trad