The Textile Workers Union of America (TWUA) was a labor union largely focused on organizing textile mills in the American South.  ¹ It was a lead union in “Operation Dixie,” an unsuccessful effort by the Congress of Industrial Organizations (a predecessor organization to the modern AFL-CIO union federation) to expand trade unionism in southern states after the end of World War II. ^{2  3}

The TWUA’s independent existence ended in 1976 when it joined with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America to form the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union.  ¹ After a series of mergers and disaffiliations, its successor unions today are Unite Here and the Workers United division of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). ¹

Background

The Textile Workers Union of America was founded in 1939 by the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) to compete with the American Federation of Labor (AFL)-affiliated United Textile Workers of America (UTW) during the period before the federations merged to form the modern AFL-CIO.  ¹

In 1976, the TWUA merged with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America to become the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU). ¹ In 1995, ACTWU merged with the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union to become the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE).  ¹ Nine years later, UNITE merged with the Hotel Employees-Restaurant Employees (HERE) union to become Unite Here.  ¹

Heritage TWUA locals largely sided with the Service Employees International Union-affiliated Workers United dissident group in its split from UNITE HERE in 2009. ⁴

Operation Dixie

The American Federation of Labor-affiliated United Textile Workers’ organizing efforts were largely focused on textile mills in New England, which had been the heart of the American textile industry since the 1800s. ⁵ Because of this focus, the Congress of Industrial Organizations’ leaders believed there was an opportunity to gain ground in its competition with the AFL by organizing the then-new textile mills in the Carolinas and other Southern states. ^{5  1}

The South was seen as potentially fertile ground for the CIO, as the federation’s unions tended to represent more lower-skilled workers than the AFL’s predominantly skilled-trades unions did, and Southern industries and employers were broadly seen as employing lower-skilled workforces. ³ At the time, roughly a third of American workers were labor union members, but only roughly 10 percent of the Southern workforce was unionized. ⁶

The CIO’s attempt to make large-scale inroads into Southern industries and employers began in earnest in 1946 with the launch of “Operation Dixie.” ⁶

The effort made some inroads but ultimately failed to notably expand labor union membership in the South. ⁶ One success was celebrated in the 1979 film Norma Rae, in which actress Sally Field won the Best Actress Oscar award for her portrayal of a TWUA organizer in a North Carolina textile mill.  ⁷ The movie was loosely based on the TWUA’s 17-year campaign to organize J.P. Stevens Co., which at the time was the nation’s second-largest textile manufacturer. ⁷

In recent years, the efforts by modern-day labor unions such as the United Auto Workers (UAW) to organize foreign automakers’ plants in the South and the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union (RWDSU)’s efforts to organize Amazon facilities have been portrayed as successors to the CIO’s Operation Dixie.  ⁶

Compelled Arbitration Supreme Court Case

In 1957, the Textile Workers Union sued an employer that had refused to go to arbitration in a contract dispute, despite having previously agreed to do so in return for the union’s commitment not to go out on strike.  ⁸ The employer argued that the courts had no power to force it to participate in a private arbitration process, but the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the union, ruling that the Taft-Hartley Act gave federal courts the power to compel both unions and employers to participate in arbitration in such circumstances. ⁸

1. “Our History.” Workers United. Accessed January 12, 2026. https://workersunited.org/who-we-ar/our-history.
2. “Fear Runs Rampant in Henderson, 1958-1959.” North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, November 15, 2016. https://www.dncr.nc.gov/blog/2016/11/15/fear-runs-rampant-henderson-1958-1959.
3. Dubofsky, Melvyn, and Benjamin Y. Fong. “The CIO’s Heyday Was the High Tide of the American Labor Movement.” Jacobin, December 19, 2023. https://jacobin.com/2023/12/cio-committee-industrial-organization-mass-production-workers-us-labor-movement-afl.
4. Denvir, Daniel, and Paul Abowd. “Workers United Finds Membership Divided.” Labor Notes. April 15, 2009. http://labornotes.org/2009/04/workers-united-finds-membership-divided.
5. Tilden, Leonard E. “New England Textile Strike.” Monthly Labor Review 16, no. 5 (1923): 13–36. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41828627.
6. Sherer, Jennifer, Dave Kamper, and Chandra Childers. “Operation Dixie Failed 78 Years Ago. Are Today’s Southern Workers about to Change All That?” Economic Policy Institute, May 14, 2024. https://www.epi.org/blog/operation-dixie-failed-78-years-ago-are-todays-southern-workers-about-to-change-all-that/.
7. Williams, David A. “Unionization of the Textile Industry: A Case Study of J.P. Stevens.” The Heritage Foundation, August 1977. https://www.heritage.org/jobs-and-labor/report/unionization-the-textile-industry-case-study-j-p-stevens.
8. “Textile Workers v. Lincoln Mills | 353 U.S. 448 (1957).” U.S. Supreme Court, 1957. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/353/448/.