Pink Collar Workers: Sue Ko Lee

Sue Ko Lee (1910-1996) was a labor organizer who participated in one of the longest strikes in the history of San Francisco’s Chinatown. She and other garment workers joined forces with a white-led union to win better pay and shorter hours — and a huge victory for the Chinese American workforce. 

For Further Reading: 

• Unbound Voices by Judy Yung - University of California Press
• Sue Ko Lee (U.S. National Park Service)
• Sue Ko Lee - National Union of Healthcare Workers
• Sue Ko Lee and the National Dollar Stores Strike of 1938 | Library Exhibitions  

This month, we’re bringing back some of our favorite Womanica episodes you might have missed! We’ll be talking about Pink Collar Workers: women who revolutionized jobs that have traditionally been called "women's work." Through their lives, they created a more just and humane world for us today.

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Every weekday, listeners explore the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of groundbreaking women throughout history who have dramatically shaped the world around us. In each 5 minute episode, we’ll dive into the story behind one woman listeners may or may not know–but definitely should. These diverse women from across space and time are grouped into easily accessible and engaging monthly themes like Educators, Villains, Indigenous Storytellers, Activists, and many more. Womanica is hosted by WMN co-founder and award-winning journalist Jenny Kaplan. The bite-sized episodes pack painstakingly researched content into fun, entertaining, and addictive daily adventures.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello from Wonder Media Network. I'm Jenny Kaplan and this
is Womanica. This August, we're bringing back some of our
favorite Womanica episodes you might have missed. All month, we'll
be talking about pink collar workers. These women revolutionized jobs
that have traditionally been called women's work. Through their lives,
they created a more just and humane world for us today.

(00:22):
With that, here's one of our favorite episodes. Hello from
Wondermedia Network. I'm Jenny Kaplan and this is Womanica. This month,
we're talking about workers, women who fought for labor rights
and shaped the way we do business today. They advocated
for reform to make the office wherever it is, a
more equitable place. Today, we're talking about a garment factory

(00:46):
worker who was part of one of the longest strikes
in the history of San Francisco's Chinatown. She and her
fellow garment workers joined forces with a white leg union
to win better pay and shorter hours and a huge
victory for the Chinese American world. Let's talk about Sue
Ko Lee. Sue Coo Lee was born on March ninth,

(01:08):
nineteen ten, in Honolulu, Hawaii, though she grew up in Watsonville, California.
She was the oldest of ten children. When she was
eighteen years old, she married Lee Ju Hing. He was
a Chinese immigrant who worked as a bookkeeper at the
dry goods retail chain National Dollar Stores. The company was
owned by entrepreneur Joe Shun, one of the first Chinese

(01:30):
American millionaires in the country. Sue took a job at
the same factory in San Francisco as her husband and
several other family members. She earned twenty five cents an
hour as a buttonhole machine operator. At the time, most
Chinese and Chinese American workers in the city were employed
at Chinese owned businesses. As Sue later explained, you couldn't

(01:53):
get out of Chinatown and work anywhere else. Most white
employers refused to hire them. Chinese employers did provide families
like sus with job opportunities, but their wages were often
low working conditions were poor. Sue later recalled her employer
National Dollar Stores breaking labor laws. Unlike many of their

(02:16):
white counterparts, Chinese workers weren't unionized, and bosses often took
advantage of the friendship and family ties they had with
their workforce to discourage attempts at bargaining for better conditions.
By the nineteen thirties, that was all beginning to change.
The International Ladies Garment Workers' Union, or at the ILGWU,

(02:37):
campaigned to bring black, Latina and Asian workers into the fold.
White union members argued that when Chinese workers were underpaid
and overworked, they became a more attractive workforce for employers
to exploit, undercutting the white union's bargaining power, so it
made sense to have Chinese workers joined their union ranks.

(02:58):
At first, unionizing face for its stalled white organizers failed
to make connections with the local Chinese American community, but
the tide turned when Jennie Maitas, a Hungarian immigrant and
labor organizer, started to canvass Chinatown. She built trust with
many Chinese garment workers and championed the benefits of unionizing.

(03:21):
In nineteen thirty eight, Sue and her fellow garment workers
voted to join the ILGWU. They formed the Chinese Ladies
Garment Workers Association. After several rounds of negotiation, the union
and National Dollar Stores signed a preliminary agreement, but this
win was quickly overshadowed when the company's owner sold it

(03:41):
to a group of its own managers. The newly unionized
workers interpreted this as a sneaky way for National Dollar
Stores to get out of its end of the bargain,
so they decided to go on strike, Sue, and more
than one hundred and fifty workers walked out, many of
them also women. The ILGWU helped them organize picket lines

(04:03):
at the factory and several of the company's retail locations.
Union organizers often also provided donuts and coffee to the
striking workers. White retail clerks also refused to cross the
picket line, forcing shops to temporarily close. During the strike.
The management at National Dollar Stores campaigned against the workers

(04:24):
in the local Chinatown community, arguing that the company was
the victim. Sue recalled the striking workers being labeled as
troublemakers by many fellow Chinese Americans. Still, they refused to budge.
As they wrote in a union bulletin in nineteen thirty eight,
we will fight our fight to the end and hope

(04:44):
to raise the living conditions not only for ourselves, but
for the other workers of Chinatown as well. The strike
ended up lasting for one hundred and five days, the
longest in the history of San Francisco's Chinatown at the time,
Sue and the other workers won a new contract with
the factory owners. They gained higher wages, a forty hour

(05:04):
work week, time and a half overtime, and a paid
holiday on Labor Day. It felt like a huge victory,
especially considering the racial and cultural barriers the striking workers
had broken by joining the ILGWU. Sue later said, in
my opinion, the strike was the best thing that ever happened.

(05:25):
It changed our lives. We overcame bigotry, didn't we A
year later, the union's contract expired with the company. At
the same time, the company conveniently went out of business,
ensuring its owners would not have to negotiate another agreement
with its newly unionized workforce. But Jenny Mitas helped many
Chinese and Chinese American workers, including Sue, get new jobs

(05:48):
in white owned factories, where conditions in pay were usually better.
In the nineteen fifties, Sue joined the ILGWU as a
business agent and convention delegate and attended national labor conferences.
Sue died of cancer on May fifteenth, nineteen ninety six.
She was eighty six years old. Thanks for listening to

(06:12):
this best of episode of Wimanica. For more information, find
us on Facebook and Instagram at Wamanica Podcast Special thanks
to lose Kaplan, my favorite sister and co creator, join
us tomorrow for another one of our favorite episodes, honoring
pink collar workers. Talk to you then,