User:Shaqevans

General History
The Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) was founded in 1974 by a group of women labor union leaders. It all started when in the same year over 3,000 women met in Chicago, Illinois for the first conference and all the women supported the goals that this newly founded coalition stood for. During this time, a good number of women workers were looking for a stronger and more active voice in labor union leadership. There were fifty-eight unions and forty-one states that came together to form the Coalition of Labor Women union. People that contributed a good amount in the founding of the union were ladies like Olga M. Madar of the United Auto Workers, Addie Wyatt of the United Food and Commercial Workers Unions, and Joyce Dannen Miller of the Social Services for the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union. The CLUW has women working in almost every industry in almost every part of the United States of America.

Key Members/Founders
As stated before one of the key members of the CLUW was Olga M. Madar. Madar worked in factories in Michigan to earn her way through Michigan Normal College, and that is when she became aware of sex discrimination in employment. After she graduated she was given a job at the Willow Run bomber plant during World War II, and soon after that she became director of UAW Local 50’s Recreation Department and coordinator of women’s activities. After the war Walter Ruether appointed her Director of Recreation for the UAW and one of her first assignments was to eliminate racial bias in organized bowling. In 1973 she gave leadership to the formation of the CLUW and was elected the first president of the union at its founding convention in 1974.

Another key member was Addie Wyatt. Wyatt started out by working with the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America in 1941 in Chicago and later became president of the local union the first female to hold such a position. She also became the first female to be elected an international vice president of Amalgamated. Being elected president redefined women’s roles within the general labor movement. She also became a minister in 1955. Also from 1956 until 1968 she joined Martin Luther King Jr. in major civil rights marches. In 1974 she became one of the founders of the CLUW.

Goals of the CLUW
This wasn’t just a coalition that went blindly about their business, they had set goals in mind when they founded the union. The goals read like this:


 * To promote affirmative action in the workplace
 * To strengthen the role of women in unions
 * To organize the unorganized women
 * To increase the involvement of women in the political and legislative process

These women also wanted and demanded equal pay for equal work and they also wanted child-care and parental leave policies and programs. Another important goal of this union was to take all the unorganized unions and give them direction and focus. The main goal was to simply just empower their women so they can become leaders and a huge force in the labor union movement.