Leather Workers' International Union of America

The Leather Workers' International Union of America (LWU) was a labor union representing workers in the leather industry in the United States and Canada.

The union was founded on January 14, 1955, as the Leather Workers' Organizing Committee.^[1] Its founding affiliates were some former locals of the International Fur and Leather Workers' Union, which had opposed that union's merger into the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen.^[2] On November 2, it was chartered by the Congress of Industrial Organizations as the LWIU.^[1]

In December 1955, the union affiliated to the new AFL-CIO, and by 1957, it had 5,743 members.^[3] Its membership fell to only 2,110 in 1980,^[4] and on February 3, 1992, it merged into the Office and Professional Employees' International Union.^[1]

Presidents

1955: R. J. Thomas

1955: Richard B. O'Keefe

1971: Arthur Cecelski

1980s: James L. Sawyer