AMALGAMATED CLOTHING WORKERS OF AMERICA

AMALGAMATED CLOTHING WORKERS OF AMERICA. Chicago played an important role in the formation and growth of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (ACWA), a union of men's clothing workers. In 1910–11, after an unsuccessful strike, these semiskilled immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe formed a local chartered by the United Garment Workers Union (UGW). Three years later, this local challenged the conservative UGW leadership and its championing of skilled workers, thereby helping to establish the ACWA. A Chicagoan, Sidney Hillman, became president of the new union. The ACWA completely organized Chicago in 1919, soon claiming a membership of 40,000. It secured wage increases and better working conditions and ventured into unemployment insurance and labor banking. The city became the center of organization campaigns throughout the Midwest, as well as a mainstay of the union nationally. (1)

In 1976, ACWA members celebrated the merger of their organization with the Textile Workers Union of America to form the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union. In 1995, with the addition of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, the organization was renamed UNITE (Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees). (2)

In October, 1937 representatives of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (C.I.O.) and the American Federal of Labor confronted each other for the first time in Dubuque for the right to represent workers in the textile industry. The C.I.O. won. (3)

The 1945 Dubuque City Directory through 1948 Dubuque Classified Business Directory listed 280 W. 6th.

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Source:

1. "Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America," Encyclopedia of Chicago. Online: http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/41.html

2. Ibid.

3. "C.I.O. Organizer at Work Here," Telegraph-Herald, October 6, 1937, p. 1