International Fur & Leather Workers Union

The International Fur and Leather Workers Union (IFLWU), was a labor union that represented workers in the fur and leather trades. The IFLWU was founded in 1913 and affiliated with the American Federation of Labor (AFL).

Radical union organizers, including Communists, played a role in the union from its early years. One radical and long-time dissident, Ben Gold, became union president in 1935.

In 1937, the IFLWU left the AFL and joined the new Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), led by John L. Lewis. Between 1949 and 1950, with Cold War tensions rising, the CIO expelled the IFLWU and 10 other unions that it accused of being "communist dominated."

In 1955, the union dissolved into the Amalgamated Meat Cutters union.

External links

* [http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/EAD/htmldocs/KCL05676.html Records of the IFLWU (Cornell University)]

Further reading

*Steve Rosswurm, "The CIO's Left-Led Unions" (Rutgers University Press, 1992), pp. 159-181.