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AFL–CIO, American federation of autonomous labour unions formed in 1955 by the merger of the AFL (founded 1886), which originally organized workers in craft unions, and the CIO (founded 1935), which organized workers by industries.

History of the AFL

Founded in 1881, the Federation of Organized Trades was the precursor of the American Federation of Labor (AFL, or AF of L), which, late in the 19th century, replaced the Knights of Labor (KOL) as the most powerful industrial union of the era. In seeking to absorb the existing craft unions, the KOL had reduced their autonomy and involved them in social and political disputes that did not represent the unions’ own direct interests. Consequently, the craft unions revolted. In 1886, under the leadership of Samuel Gompers, they organized themselves as the AFL, a loose federation that remained for half a century the sole unifying agency of the American labour movement.

In its beginnings, the American Federation of Labor was dedicated to the principles of craft unionism. Its approximately 100 national and international unions retained full autonomy over their own affairs. In return, each union received “exclusive jurisdiction” over a craft. Although this provoked some bitter jurisdictional disputes between unions affiliated with the federation, union membership still grew. The AFL, unlike the KOL, did not focus on national political issues. Instead, it concentrated on gaining the right to bargain collectively for wages, benefits, hours, and working conditions.

The 1920s marked the first period of economic prosperity that lacked a parallel expansion of unionism. During the Great Depression and into the early 1930s, growth in union enrollments slowed. The administration of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt, however, brought new opportunities for labour. The new political climate, marked by the passage of the 1935 Wagner Act, prevented employers from interfering with union activities and created the National Labor Relations Board to foster union organization and collective bargaining. As a result, the U.S. labour movement entered a new era of unprecedented growth.

History of the CIO

An enduring question—whether union organization should be based on craft (skill) or industry (workplace)—became a divisive issue at the American Federation of Labor’s 1935 convention. An industry-based resolution, which stated that “in the great mass production industries … industrial organization is the only solution,” was defeated, which prompted defection. In November 1935, representatives of eight unions announced the formation of the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO). Two more unions joined later. The AFL retaliated by suspending all 10 unions, but the CIO built momentum by organizing the key steel, rubber, and automobile industries, reaching agreements with such large corporations as U.S. Steel and General Motors. In the following year the CIO and the AFL battled for leadership of American labour, often trying to organize the same workers.

The CIO held its first convention in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in November 1938, adopting a new name (Congress of Industrial Organizations) and a constitution as well as electing John L. Lewis as its president. Lewis had organized the first successful strike against General Motors (a “sit-down” tactic) in 1937. This action spurred several other organizing efforts and drew new members.

Lewis pledged to resign as CIO president if Roosevelt, whom he had previously supported, was reelected in 1940. He kept his promise and was succeeded that year by Philip Murray, who had served under Lewis in the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) union. In the following year the CIO organized the employees of the Ford Motor Company, steel companies (including Bethlehem, Republic, Inland, and Youngstown), and other big industrial corporations that previously had refused to sign agreements with it.

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Merger of the AFL and the CIO

The passage of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 and the growing conservatism in U.S. national labour policies implicit in the statute aroused unions to renewed political activity. The CIO joined the AFL in opposition to the new law, but political unity was only gradually translated into union solidarity. After Murray’s death late in 1952, Walter P. Reuther, head of the CIO’s United Automobile Workers, became president of the CIO. Three years later, in 1955, the AFL and the CIO merged, with George Meany, former head of the AFL, becoming president of the new federation (a post he held until November 1979, a few months before his death). Membership in the new labour entity included about one-third of all nonagricultural workers in 1955. Membership declined steadily thereafter.

In 1957 the union federation expressed ethical concerns when it expelled the Teamsters Union after disclosures of corruption and labour racketeering in what was then the nation’s largest union. (Not until 1987 was the Teamsters Union readmitted to the AFL-CIO.)

The conservative Meany and the liberal Reuther never achieved more than an icy cordiality, and in 1968 Meany succeeded in getting Reuther and several other CIO leaders expelled from the federation’s executive board. Thereupon, Reuther’s United Automobile Workers (UAW) promptly withdrew from the AFL-CIO, allying with the Teamsters from 1968 to 1972. Reuther died in 1970, and, two years after Meany’s retirement and Lane Kirkland’s accession to the presidency of the AFL-CIO in 1979, the UAW reaffiliated with the AFL-CIO. During Kirkland’s presidency (1979–95) the percentage of workers represented by organized labour declined from 19 to 15 percent.

When Kirkland retired on August 1, 1995, he named his secretary-treasurer, Thomas R. Donahue, to fill the remainder of his term. At the organization’s 1995 convention, Donahue was defeated for the presidency by John J. Sweeney in what marked the first competitive election in AFL-CIO history. Sweeney, former president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), led a dissident slate committed to reversing the federation’s declining membership and waning political power. Also in 1995, the first person of colour was elected to an AFL-CIO executive office when Linda Chavez-Thompson became executive vice president. Sweeney pledged to increase union membership through aggressive organizing campaigns and political lobbying.

However, because of an increasing decline in union membership, five international labour unions—the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA), the SEIU, and the United Brotherhood of Carpenters, as well as the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE) and the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union (HERE), which later merged to form UNITE HERE—joined together in 2003 to form the New Unity Partnership (NUP), an informal coalition that advocated reform of the AFL-CIO, emphasizing organizing efforts to promote union growth. Following the dissolution of the NUP in 2005, its former member unions—which by then also included the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) and the Teamsters—disaffiliated from the AFL-CIO and launched Change to Win, a formal coalition that afforded an alternative to the AFL-CIO.

In 2009 Sweeney stepped down as AFL-CIO president. He was succeeded by Richard Trumka, who had previously served as the president of the UMWA and as the AFL-CIO’s secretary-treasurer. Trumka held the post until his death in 2021.

The general organization

Local union delegates, allocated in proportion to their membership, elect the president to a four-year term. The executive council, which meets at least twice a year, consists of the president, executive vice president, secretary-treasurer, and about 50 vice presidents—most of them presidents of national unions affiliated with the AFL-CIO. An executive committee of six vice presidents selected by the council meets more often with the president and secretary-treasurer to discuss policy matters. Moreover, a general board, which includes the executive council and a principal officer of each affiliated union, meets at least once a year to address policy matters.

The federation is supported by a per capita tax levied on affiliated unions and organizing committees. The federation engages in organizing efforts, educational campaigns on behalf of the labour movement, and political support of legislation deemed beneficial to labour.