Coalition of Labor Union Women
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| Full name | Coalition of Labor Union Women |
|---|---|
| Founded | March 24, 1974 |
| Head union | Connie Leak, president |
| Affiliation | AFL-CIO |
| Office location | Washington, D.C. |
| Country | United States |
| Website | www.cluw.org |
The Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization of trade union women affiliated with the AFL-CIO. The CLUW is a bridging organization that seeks to create connections between the feminist movement and the labor movement in the United States. The organization works towards overcoming past constraints and conflicts in pursuance of relationship improvement between those movements and thus enabling broad coalitions. The CLUW is the only national organization solely for women union members and is one of six constituency groups within the AFL-CIO. It is based in the headquarters of the AFL-CIO in Washington, D.C. CLUW pursues by four goals: to bring women into union leadership, to organise unorganized women workers, to bring women’s issues onto the labor agenda, and to involve women into political action.
Women had participated in unions throughout time. Beginning with the first national women’s labor union in the United States, The Daughters of St. Crispin. Followed by many other unions such as: printer unions, The Knights of Labor, Women’s Trade Union League, National Organization for Women, and many more. However, these unions did not support all women and discriminated against certain races.
CLUW was founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1974 by a group of diverse women labor union leaders as part of a wave of constituency group organizing within the AFL-CIO. The founding members wanted an organization that did not discriminate among race and to also include unionized women workers.
The impetus for the formation of CLUW came in June 1973 when women labor union leaders, led by Olga Madar, who later became first president, of the United Auto Workers and Addie Wyatt of the United Food and Commercial Workers met to discuss the formation of a new AFL-CIO body. They sought to create a more effective voice for women in the labor movement.
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