Hillman, Sidney (1887–1946)

Lithuanian-born US labour leader. He was president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (ACWA) union, which by 1940 dominated the manufacture of men's clothing and had pioneered such reforms as the 40-hour week and industry-wide wage scales. A strong backer of the New Deal, he was appointed as a labour adviser to the National Recovery Administration in 1933, and to several war production boards during World War II. A founder of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), he was the first chairman of the CIO's Political Action Committee (1943–46), and a vice chairman of the newly founded World Federation of Trade Unions (1945–46). Hillman was an advocate of cooperation instead of confrontation between labour and management; he pioneered his union's policy of lending money to companies and providing research to improve efficiency.

Hillman was born in Zagare, Lithuania. A labour activist in Russia, he was imprisoned for participation in the abortive revolution of 1905. Upon his release, he emigrated in 1907 to the USA, settling in Chicago. A garment worker, he emerged in the 1910 Hart, Schaffner, and Marx strike in Chicago as one of the leaders of the United Garment Workers (UGW) and negotiated a new contract that was regarded as a model of labour-management relations. In 1914 he went to New York City where he led a split from the UGW that resulted in the formation of the ACWA; he was elected its first president in 1914, an office he held until his death.