The union also found it nearly impossible to organize garment workers in communities such as Los Angeles, even when going after established manufacturers such as Guess?. Organizing on a shop by shop basis proved largely futile, given the proliferation of "fly by night" contractors, the number of workers willing to take striking or fired workers' jobs, the uncertain immigration status of many workers and the kinship connections that bound many workers to their foremen and other low-level managers. The union found itself in 1995 in nearly the same position that it had been in more than ninety years earlier, but without any prospect of the sort of mass upsurge that had produced the general strikes of 1909 and 1910.