The Amalgamated Union of Clothiers' Operatives (AUCO) was a trade union representing clothing factory workers in the United Kingdom.
The leading founders were Arthur Evans, William N. Pitts and Joseph Young, and they hoped to create a national industrial union.
[1] The union established its office in Leeds, and by the end of 1894 had also absorbed small unions based in Glossop, Hebden Bridge, Manchester, Nantwich and Wigan.
It continued to rise rapidly, and by the start of World War I its membership was nearly equal to that of the Amalgamated Society of Tailors and Tailoresses (AST&T), the leading union in the industry.
It proposed a merger, but the AST&T rejected this, fearing it would be dominated by the more radical AUCO.