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The ILGWU

Social Unionism in Action

ILGWU mobile health unit arrives in Puerto Rico, circa 1944.

ILGWU Archives (5780pb29f8ap300g), Kheel Center, Cornell University.

In addition to providing regular health care, the regional offices also provide specialized services through their health centers, which serve to alert the mobile health centers with respect to the need for both diagnoses and prescriptions. The mobile units were often located near factories—particularly in the South—and became a model for Southern health care.

The photo above shows a mobile health unit disembarking in Puerto Rico after a particularly devastating hurricane. Puerto Rico was the home territory of many of the ILGWU’s members