February 1: Bagel Bakers Lock-Out

The 350-or-so members of Local 338 of the Bagel Bakers union were locked out by their employers on this date in 1967. The manufacturers were demanding a 40 percent decrease in wages to compensate for competition from newly automated bakeries, which had machines that could produce 300 dozen bagels in the time that two union members could roll 125 dozen by hand. The union had been organized in 1907 by 300 New York bagel bakers, all Jewish, who established standards for bagel production by hand and a system of control over the labor market (spots in the union were reserved for sons of union members). A strike in 1951 led to what the New York Times called a “bagel famine,” with only two of thirty-four bakeries trying to keep up with the area’s demand for 1.2 million bagels per week. Another strike in 1962 led to an 85 percent drop in the bagel supply. By the early 1970s, automation and non-union labor drove the union to merge with the larger, all-purpose bakers’ union.

“It was probably easier to get into medical school than to get an apprenticeship in one of the 36 union bagel shops in New York City and New Jersey.”—“The Schmooze, Bagel History”