Krasno Brothers Glove & MItten Company

Wow, Barb. Doing okay here. Hope all is well with you and Deb.

The article brings back many memories. My dad knew the presidents of all the tanneries: Seidel, Thiele, Trostel, Pfister & Vogel, Gallun, Gebhardt, Blackhawk.

Because we made work gloves and heavy industrial safety protective gear, we didn’t need A-1 grade fininshed hides. If hides were a little off-color or irregular, that was fine for us.

Becuase my dad trained as a leather chemist at university, here’s the unique thing he did. When the large tanneries made a mistake, like a worker pumping 1000 gallons of red dye into a tanning tank that was already filled with green dye, the entire tankful of hides was a total loss to the tannery. My dad had an arrangement with the presidents that they should call him before dumping the hides in the trash.

My dad, either on the phone, or by going to the tannery, would often be able to tell the president what chemicals could be used to salvage the hides. Either completely reversing the mistake, or making the hides usable for our purposes. Then, instead of the tannery getting zero money for the hides and the president being embarrassed before the board of directors, my dad would offer to buy (on the down-low) the whole tankful at five cents on the dollar.

He was magic with this type of cost saving. Remember the Nash-Rambler factory in Milwaukee – we bought the cut-off edges from the rubberized material they used to line the trunks. We bought the cut-off “timmy tuff” fleece material from the Lakeland Clothing Company in Sheboygan. They used the material to make collars for the Milwaukee Police Department’s winter jackets. etc.

How it ended. In the early 1980’s the OSHA law was enacted. When OSHA inspected our factory, where we made fire-proof work gloves and aprons from asbestos, they said we needed to install a million dollars worth of filtering equipment or face shutdown. We had been fabricating with asbestos for 75 years, and most of our employees had worked for us for 20-plus years, but no matter. We didn’t have a million, so we stopped using asbestos. My dad tried all available substitute materials, but they didn’t provide as good protection – the customers didn’t like the substitutes. So, we stopped making fireproof products and lost a big hunk of the business.

The coup de grace. At about the same time, the Japanese got interested in the tanning and glove-making business. They would buy a load of cattle or horses in places like Iowa. Truck them to the docks at Sault Ste Marie, put the live cattle on a ship and sail to Japan. There, they would tan the hides, sew the gloves, put the finished gloves on a ship and sail back to the US, truck them to wholesalers or end customers…all at a per-pair price LESS than my dad could manufacter the same glove.

How could that be??? One, the Japanese companies, somewhere down the merchandising line, stole our glove patterns. Probably from our wholesalers or end customers.

Two, we were a union shop, represented by the Amalgamated Ladies Garment Workers Union in New York. The Japanese paid pishaches for wages, we paid New York level wages and benefits.

By 1982, the entire leather industry in the US went to hell. There was even a Federal law passed that gave money grants to all employees of glove manufacutring companies who were being “burdened” by the Japanese entrance into the business. Our employees got several thousand dollars from the Federal government. We got nothing. In 1983, my dad closed the business and that was the end of Krasno Brothers Glove & Mitten Company.