International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union.

About International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union

The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU) was a labor union for employees in the women's clothing industry in the United States. It was one of the largest unions in the country, one of the first 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 the 1990s 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 become 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.