TSOTM Mar 2023: Bread and Roses

Our T-Shirt of the Month for March 2023, made of 100% organic cotton by a worker-owned co-operative, and supporting grassroots labour unions in South Asia. It celebrates the victory of the Bread and Roses strike in March 1912. 20,000 garment workers, mostly women and girls, in Lawrence, Massachusetts, had walked out on strike and were denounced by the American Federation of Labor as "revolutionary" and "anarchistic". The workers instead turned to the radical Industrial Workers of the World union for support. The name of the strike referred to the workers wanting their basic needs met, "bread", as well as the beautiful things in life, "roses".The workers held meetings which were translated into almost 30 languages, faced down brutal police and militarily repression, who killed one woman and beat and jailed many others, and eventually won big concessions across the whole garment industry. In particular, the workers won a 15% pay increase, double pay for overtime and amnesty for most of t