The Cardroom Amalgamation or Cardroom Workers' Amalgamation (CWA)[1] was a British trade union which existed between 1886 and 1974. It represented workers in the cottontextile industry.
History
The union was founded in 1886 as the Amalgamated Association of Card and Blowing Room Operatives, by the amalgamation of a few small, local unions. This followed the Oldham weavers' strike of 1885, which had led to non-unionised cardroom workers being locked out and losing their wages.[2]
Merged into South East Lancashire and Cheshire 1967
Warrington
1892
1893
N/A
Disaffiliated 1894, predecessor affiliated in 1889
Wigan and District
1888
1888
1,647
Merged into Wigan and Blackburn 1967
The union represented a wide range of workers in the textile industry, and did not discriminate on the basis of occupation or skill. The core of the union's membership were the strippers and grinders, skilled adult male mechanics, who maintained the carding engines. Almost all strippers and grinders were union members.[5] The CWA also organised less skilled female ring spinners and other mill operatives. From 1904 onwards the only members required to have completed an apprenticeship were the strippers-and-grinders.[2]
The CWA grew rapidly and by 1910 it had 52,000 members.[5] In 1924, it changed its name to the Amalgamated Association of Card and Blowing and Ring Room Operatives, and in 1952 it became the National Association of Card, Blowing and Ring Room Operatives, before adopting its final name, the National Union of Textile and Allied Workers (NUTAW), in 1968.[3]
The CWA was more aggressive in its attitude towards negotiating with employers than the other major cotton unions and by the mid-1960s the wages of strippers and grinders equalled those of mule spinners, traditionally the highest-paid textile workers.[6]
