Bagel Bakers Local 338 facts for kids

The Bagel Bakers Local 338 was a special kind of workers' group in New York City. It started in the early 1900s. Its members were skilled bakers who made New York's famous bagels by hand.

For many years, these bakers were the main people making bagels. But in the 1960s, machines started making bagels. This change led to the union becoming less important. By the 1970s, it joined with another union. Local 338 was part of a bigger group called the Bakery and Confectionery Workers International Union. Before 1964, the union was known as the Beigel Bakers Union.

How the Union Started

Bagels Come to America

Jewish immigrants brought bagels to the United States around 1900. Many small bagel bakeries opened in Manhattan's Lower East Side. Workers in these bakeries often had tough jobs and earned very little money.

To help these workers, the International Beigel Bakers Union was formed. Local 338 was created by 300 skilled bagel makers in Manhattan. They set rules for how bagels should be made by hand. They also made sure that new jobs in the union went to the sons of current members. All members of Local 338 were Jewish. Their meetings were held in Yiddish, a Jewish language. By 1915, the union had agreements with 36 bakeries in the New York City area.

Making Bagels by Hand

The bagels made by hand were quite small. They weighed about 2 to 3 ounces (57 to 85 g). Today's bagels are often twice that size or even bigger. These smaller, denser bagels were made with special flour, malt syrup, salt, water, and yeast. The recipe was a closely guarded secret. These bagels would get hard after about six hours.

Bakers would roll the dough into strips about two inches (5.1 cm) thick. Then, they would shape them into bagels by hand. The bagels were boiled in hot water for one minute. After boiling, they were baked in an oven. The finished bagels were delivered to customers on long strings, usually five dozen at a time. The job was split into two parts:

• Bench men kneaded, shaped, and boiled the bagels.
• Oven men finished the baking process.

Union Actions and Wages

The "Bagel Famine" of 1951

In December 1951, Local 338 had a disagreement with the Bagel Bakers Association. This led to a strike that closed 32 bagel bakeries in the city. The New York Times newspaper called this a "bagel famine." The two bakeries that stayed open could not make enough bagels. People usually bought 1.2 million bagels each week.

Because of the strike, many delicatessens reported big drops in sales of lox. Sales went down by 30 to 50 percent. A person named Murray Nathan helped solve the problem. He brought the two sides together to talk. Local 338 settled their part of the strike by late January. But the bagel shortage lasted until early February. This was when the Bagel Bakers Association agreed to pay the delivery drivers for wages they lost during the seven-week strike.

Later Strikes and Pay

In 1956, another strike was avoided. Local 338 members received an extra $6 per week. This brought their pay to between $70 and $138 per week. In 1957, there was a 33-day strike. This strike ended with even better pay and benefits for 350 workers at 34 bakeries.

By 1960, the union's 350 workers were making 250,000 bagels every day. A bench man earned $144 for a 37-hour work week. An oven man earned $150. They could earn much more with overtime when there was high demand.

In February 1962, Local 338 went on strike again. This caused about an 85% drop in the bagel supply. Ten bakeries, some in New Jersey, had signed agreements with the union. But 29 other bakeries were shut down. New York City and Nassau County were hit hardest. Local 338 wanted a third week of paid vacation and three more paid holidays. Employers offered one extra paid holiday and wage increases.

The strike lasted for a month. On March 8, a two-year agreement was reached. Workers would get an extra $2 per day in the first year. They had been earning $25 to $26 per day. In the second year, they would get another $1 per day. They also got a third paid week of vacation and other benefits. Plus, each member was already allowed to receive two dozen bagels per day!

In February 1967, employers locked out Local 338 members. This means they stopped workers from coming to work. Employers wanted to cut wages by 40%. They said they were losing money because of:

• Competition from bakeries without unions.
• Frozen bagels from outside the area.
• Companies using machines to make bagels.

Local 338 was willing to consider pay cuts for individual bakeries. But only if those companies showed their financial records to prove they needed the cuts.

The End of the Union

The union controlled the bagel market for many years. But then, machines changed everything in the 1960s. A Canadian man named Dan Thompson invented the Thompson Bagel Machine. Lender's Bagels in New Haven, Connecticut, started using these machines in 1962. This helped make bagels easy to find everywhere.

A bagel machine could make 300 dozen bagels in the same time it took two men to make 125 dozen. Because of these changes, the union stopped being an independent group. It joined a larger bakers' union in the early 1970s.

Between 1970 and 1973, Local 338 merged with Local 3. This was part of the Bakery, Confectionery, and Tobacco Workers International Union.]