The organization works towards overcoming past constraints and conflicts in pursuance of relationship improvement between those movements, and thus enabling broad coalitions.

The CLUW is the only national organization solely for women union members and is one of six constituency groups within the AFL–CIO.

Beginning with the first national women's labor union in the United States, The Daughters of St. Crispin.

The founding members wanted an organization that did not discriminate among races, and to also include unionized women workers.

The impetus for the formation of CLUW came in June 1973 when women labor union leaders, led by Olga Madar,[1] who later became first president, of the United Auto Workers and Addie Wyatt of the United Food and Commercial Workers met to discuss the formation of a new AFL–CIO body.

At least six times each year, the National Officers Council meet to act on organization business concepts and to plan these conventions.

The membership discusses and sets policy, and elects the officers and board of directors of the organization.

CLUW's standing committees take care of administrative tasks like elections, archives, recruitments, finances, and introducing topics of devoted concern.

CLUW take initiative to recruit young working women concerning such issues that affect their lives, unity with coworkers, and demonstrating the union wage advantage.

The NEB is empowered to charter new chapters, and Article XIII of the CLUW constitution governs the conditions under which they may be established.

And I think we are... considered to be more progressive in certain areas of the labor movement and in regard to women's issues and children and family.

So, we are looked at with respect, and hope and admiration from ... the members of the AFL–CIO.CLUW strived to build coalitions between women's issues toward the labor agenda.

The unions were altered from within and demonstrated "unobtrusive mobilization," a method that accomplished feminist goals.

CLUW's advancement on issues like childcare, pay equity, and sexual harassment helped develop a feminist labor agenda.

Miscommunication between the labor and women's movement was a factor that played a role in the strike's failure.

Women's labor, civil rights, and other social movement organizations formed coalitions with CLUW.

CLUW represented networks of union women even though the organization itself contained few members and staff.

CLUW united the goals of the women's and labor movements by addressing issues such as childcare, sexual harassment, and pay equity.

The CLUW is a very diverse organization with respect to not only education and occupation but also gender, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation.

CLUW holds educational conferences the day before each National Executive Board (NEB) meeting.

The conferences cover a wide variety of topics, from equal pay to organizing new workers to family-friendly collective bargaining language.

The goal of the Center is to train members to become more effective advocates for working women in the workplace and the labor movement.

These cover breast and cervical cancer awareness and a project to increase access to contraception.

In September 2010, the new health care law went to effect which required insurance plans to cover certain defensive health care services, that includes mammograms, smoking cessation treatment, folic acid, among others, at no cost.

Primary documents related to CLUW's functions are located in several archives in the United States: