When was the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union formed?
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The ILGWU was founded on June 3, 1900 in New York City by seven local unions, with a few thousand members between them. The union grew rapidly in the next few years but began to stagnate as the conservative leadership favored the interests of skilled workers, such as cutters. This did not sit well with the majority of immigrant workers, particularly Jewish workers with a background in Bundist activities in Tsarist Russia, or with Polish and Italian workers, many of whom had strong socialist and anarchist leanings.
International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union
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The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU) was once one of the largest labor unions in the United States, one of the first U.S. unions to have a primarily female membership, and a key player in the labor history of the 1920s and 1930s. The union, generally referred to as the "ILGWU" or the "ILG," merged with the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union in 1995 to form the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE). UNITE merged with the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union (HERE) in 2004 to create a new union known as UNITE HERE. The two unions that formed UNITE in 1995 represented 250,000 workers between them, down from the ILGWU's peak membership of 450,000 in 1969.
International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union
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The ILGWU merged with the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union in 1995, to form UNITE. In 2004, that organization merged with the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees union to form UNITE HERE.
International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union
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UNITE was formed in 1995 as a merger between the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU) and the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU). 
In 2004, UNITE announced that it would merge with the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union (HERE) to form UNITE HERE. In 2009 most of the apparel and laundry workers in UNITE HERE broke away to form a separate union known as Workers United, which affiliated with the Service Employees International Union.
Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees
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In the summer and fall of 1928, Gold began building support for a new international union of fur workers. He met with the leaders of eight non-New York City fur workers' locals as well as a left-wing group of fur workers who were attempting to disaffiliate from what remained of the Joint Council. Included in the new union were 15,000 dressmakers and other garment workers comprising the left wing of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. The new Needle Trades Workers Industrial Union was formed on January 1, 1929. Louis Hyman was elected President, and Ben Gold was elected Secretary-Treasurer. The thirty-nine member General Executive Board included African Americans, Russians, Poles, Greeks, women and even a youth delegate.
Ben Gold
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In 1935, Charles P. Howard, president of the ITU, joined with John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers; David Dubinsky of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union; Sidney Hillman of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America; Thomas McMahon of the United Textile Workers; John Sheridan of the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers; Harvey Fremming of the Oil Workers Union and Max Zaritsky of the Hatters, Cap and Millinery Workers to form the Committee for Industrial Organization within the AFL.
International Typographical Union
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The ACWA merged with the TWUA in 1976 to form the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union. The United Hatters, Cap and Millinery Workers International Union (UHCMW) merged into the union in 1983. The ACTWU merged with the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union in 1995 to create the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE), which later merged with the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union (HERE) to become UNITE HERE.
Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America
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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.
International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union
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The first, in 1909, was known as "the Uprising of 20,000" and lasted for fourteen weeks. It was largely spontaneous, sparked by a short walkout of workers of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, involving only about 20% of the workforce. That, however, only prompted the rest of the workers to seek help from the union. The firm locked out its employees when it learned what was happening.
International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union
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For a time she worked in a grocery store in Los Angeles, before moving to New York. Through her high-profile appearances and activism with human rights organizations, Lü came to the attention of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), who hired her in 1990. She worked as an organizer and educator with the ILGWU until 1996 when the organization merged the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union to form the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees. In 1996, she switched to building computer systems; today she sells real estate.
Lü Jinghua
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The Women's Trade Union League (WTUL) was a U.S. organization of both working class and more well-off women formed in 1903 to support the efforts of women to organize labor unions and to eliminate sweatshop conditions. The WTUL played an important role in supporting the massive strikes in the first two decades of the twentieth century that established the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and in campaigning for women's suffrage among men and women workers.
Women's Trade Union League