People First Profits Last
2016
Screen print, ink on paper, edition of 10
11 x 17 inches

The print recreates a placard used in a rally organized by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union in New York City in 1978. The rally was part of a campaign to demand union recognition by J.P. Stevens and Company, which was the second-largest textile manufacturing corporation in the US. It refused to recognize a 1974 unionization vote by workers at its seven textile plants in Roanoke Rapids, NC. The unionization campaign was supported by an interracial coalition of labor unions, civil rights groups, religious leaders, and politicians. J.P. Stevens recognized the union in 1980. In 1988, the company was sold to textile competitors, who moved their operations overseas.

Adapted from an archival photograph of the placard and the larger rally, International Ladies Garment Workers Union archives at the Kheel Center, Cornell University.

Photo by Robert Chase Heisman