The AFL-CIO is a voluntary federation of labor unions that represents
workers in various industries. AFL-CIO stands for the American
Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations.
The AFL-CIO began as the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in
1886. At that time, America was in the midst of the Industrial
Revolution. Factory workers were becoming a significant percentage of
the country’s labor force. Workers formed unions to help them bargain
with employers for better working conditions.
The AFL was led at first by Samuel Gompers (1850–1924).
Gompers believed that unions should focus on organizing skilled laborers, but not unskilled ones. Gompers preferred unions to organize based
on the type of work members did, not the industries in which they
worked. He also believed that unions should not be too involved in politics. Rather they should focus on strategies and tactics for bargaining
with employers.
In the 1930s, the Great Depression (1929–41) made poor working
conditions even worse for laborers. By then, the factory system had a
large number of unskilled laborers in the American workforce. Some
members of the AFL, including John L. Lewis (1880–1969), believed
that unions should organize unskilled workers based on the industries in
which they worked. Lewis also believed that unions had to be more political and work for laws that favored workers.
At the AFL’s annual convention in 1934, Lewis and his friends
helped pass a resolution that resulted in the AFL working to increase organization among industrial unions. The executive committee of the
AFL disagreed with the resolution. It associated unskilled laborers with violent strikes and other radical organizing tactics. So the AFL did not
do much to implement the resolution.
In November 1935, Lewis and others formed the Committee on
Industrial Organizations. They intended to operate within the AFL as a
separate committee. AFL president William R. Green (1872–1952) opposed the committee. The AFL ordered the committee to disband and
then suspended it in 1936 and expelled it in 1937.
In 1938, Lewis and his supporters formed
their own organization called the Congress of
Industrial Organizations (CIO). The AFL and
the CIO functioned separately for the next two
decades. The CIO initially had great success,
growing as industry boomed during World War
II (1939–45). This forced the AFL to modify its
recruitment efforts for its member unions.
After World War II, the federal government
passed many laws to restrict the power of
unions. By the 1950s, the AFL and the CIO decided they needed to work together for favorable
laws and to organize workers for bargaining with
employers. They merged into one federation in
1955, representing around sixteen million workers, about 35 percent of the American workforce. By the end of the century, the figure fell to
around fourteen million, or 20 percent of the
workforce, as factories began to move overseas, forcing Americans to find
other types of work.