households are increasingly impoverished and find it difficult to escape poverty no matter how much they work. KWWA, together with regional KWWA branches, has selected ending poverty and securing women’s labor rights as the foremost task for the next 3 years(2006-2008). The Hope Center to End Poverty and Secure Women’s Labor Rights was inaugurated in March 2006 in order to expand the direction of KWWA programs and movement-building efforts to include unemployment to poverty. The hope is to build a national, organizational foundation for poor working women so they can take leadership in addressing these issues. This also marks a significant expansion of the horizon for the contemporary women workers’ movement. The Hope Center headquarter is comprised of organizations such as the regional branches of the Unemployment Aid Society, the National House Managers Cooperative, and the Single-Parent Female Heads of Household. 7) Conclusion; Summary KWWA’s organization-building and movement­building activities over the last 20 years can be divided into 4 major periods. The first period covers from 1987 to 1992 when KWWA assisted the widespread explosion of efforts to form new labor unions. KWWA began assisting the formation of democratic labor unions, and focused on recruiting as members unmarried and married women factory workers and wives of other workers. The second period covers the stretch to 1998 when KWWA was reorganized to transition from an assistance organization to a mass-based, membership organization, focusing on building a broad organizational base. Rising to the needs of the workers, KWWA organized programs like women’s job counseling, job training, employment referral services, regional wives programs, and public lectures which expanded the contact zone with unorganized women workers. The third period includes 1999 to 2002 during the IMF financial crisis when KWWA’s position as a professional organization was in demand to address the expansion of women’s unemployment and irregular employment. In response to the worsening labor conditions for women, KWWA built such broad-based organizations as the Women’s Aid Society to Overcome Unemployment and the Korean Women’s Trade Union, and worked to develop an organization in which women workers can have strong agency and take leadership. The fourth period covers the present moment when the intense societal polarization and the issue of the working poor have emerged as key social issues of the time. To organize unemployed, poor, and informal-sector women workers, KWWA has established the National House Managers Cooperative and the Hope