Wortis, Rose

WORTIS, ROSE (1886–1958). Born in the village of Krasilov, in czarist Russia, Rose Wortis arrived in Brooklyn, New York, in 1900. She immediately went to work in a blouse factory at three dollars a week but also attended school at night. Living in the Williamsburg section, she soon became involved in the very active Socialist Party until the split over the question of U.S. entry into World War I. She then became a charter member of the Communist Party of the United States. At the same time, she became active in Local 22 of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU). She became proficient in speaking and writing and became a leader of the rank-and-file movement to democratize the union. She was found on picket lines wherever workers were struggling for better conditions, particularly in the textile industry. She wrote articles for the Daily Worker, the Communist, and Labor Unity.

When the Trade Union Unity League (TUUL) was organized in 1929, attended by 690 delegates, representing about seventy thousand members, Wortis was elected secretary. The TUUL was an outgrowth of the Trade Union Educational League organized in 1920 to work within the American Federation of Labor to make it more progressive. The TUUL emphasized the organization of the unorganized into industrial, revolutionary industrial unions and organized left-wingers in the old unions on the principle of class struggle. In later years, she was an elected official in the complaints department of Local 22, ILGWU.

Katz, Daniel. All Together Different: Yiddish Socialists, Garment Workers, and the Labor Roots of Multiculturalism. New York: New York University Press, 2011.

“Rose Wortis: In Memoriam. Jewish Currents 13 (February 1959): 28. https://archive.jewishcurrents.org