Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America
| Full name | Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1914 |
| Date dissolved | 1976 |
| Union merger | Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union, Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees UNITE HERE, Workers United |
| Affiliation | AFL, CIO, AFL-CIO |
| Key people | Sidney Hillman |
| Country | United States |
The Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (ACWA) was a United States labor union known for its support for "social unionism" and progressive political causes. Led by Sidney Hillman for its first thirty years, it helped found the Congress of Industrial Organizations. It merged with the Textile Workers Union of America (TWUA) in 1976 to form the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU), which merged with the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union in 1995 to create the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE). UNITE merged in 2004 with the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union (HERE) in 2004 to create a new union known as UNITE HERE. After a bitter internal dispute in 2009, the majority of the UNITE side of the union, along with some of the disgruntled HERE locals left UNITE HERE, and formed a new union named Workers United, Led by former UNITE president Bruce Raynor.
In 1914, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America—also known as "ACWA" or simply "the Amalgamated"—formed as a result of the revolt of the urban locals against the conservative AFL affiliate the United Garment Workers. The roots of this conflict date back to the general strike of Chicago, when a spontaneous strike by a handful of women workers led to a citywide strike of 45,000 garment workers in 1910, That strike was a bitter one and pitted the strikers against not only their employers and the local authorities, but also their own union.
The leadership of the United Garment Workers mistrusted the more militant local leadership in Chicago and in other large urban locals, which had strong Socialist loyalties. When it tried to disenfranchise those locals' members at the UGW's 1914 convention, those locals, representing two thirds of the union's membership, bolted to form the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. The AFL refused to recognize the new union and the UGW regularly raided it, furnishing strikebreakers and signing contracts with struck employers, in the years to come.
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