American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations

AFL-CIO

 in full American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations

U.S. federation of labour unions formed in 1955 by the merger of the AFL and the CIO. The AFL was founded in 1886 as a loose federation of craft unions under the leadership of Samuel Gompers. Member unions retained autonomy and received protection of their workers and jurisdiction over a certain industrial territory. The CIO was founded in 1935 as the Committee for Industrial Organization by a splinter group of AFL unions whose leaders believed in organizing skilled and unskilled workers across entire industries; at its first convention in 1938, it adopted its current name and elected John L. Lewis president. For two decades the AFL and CIO were bitter rivals for the leadership of the U.S. labour movement, but they formed an alliance in the increasingly conservative, antilabour climate of the postwar era, and in 1955 they merged under the leadership of George Meany. AFL-CIO membership reached 17 million in the late 1970s but declined from the 1980s as the U.S. manufacturing sector shrank. AFL-CIO activities include recruiting and organizing members, conducting educational campaigns, and supporting political candidates and legislation deemed beneficial to labour. See also Lane Kirkland; Knights of Labor; Walter Reuther.

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American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) 

The major trade union organization in the USA. Founded in Dec. 1955 by the merger of the American Federation of Labor (founded in 1881) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (founded in 1935). Right-wing trade union leaders hold the major leadership positions in the AFL-CIO. Since 1955 the president of the AFL-CIO has been G. Meany. The leadership of the AFL-CIO follows a policy of class collaboration, restrains the struggle of American workers for their rights, and often limits itself to only symbolic support for strikers; it maintains an anticommunist line and supports the aggressive foreign policy of American imperialism. The AFL-CIO plays a leading role in the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. As a result of the conciliatory position of the leadership of the AFL-CIO, the influence of this trade union among American workers is gradually declining. The number of American workers who are members of the trade unions united in the AFL-CIO decreased from 22.5 percent in 1954 to 17.6 percent in 1966. In 1966 there were 129 trade unions (15.09 million members) in the AFL-CIO. By December 1967 the membership had declined to 14.3 million. Among the rank-and-file members of the trade unions and part of the local trade union leadership, there is a growing dissatisfaction with the conciliatory, opportunistic policies of the leadership of the AFL-CIO; demands for strengthening the strike movement and the fight for civil rights and professional freedom are being advanced more and more actively. During 1967–68 these tendencies were expressed in the break in relations between the leadership of the AFL-CIO and one of the most powerful trade unions in the USA, the United Automobile and Aircraft Workers (1.3 million members), the leader of which (W. Reuther) had been vice-president of the AFL-CIO since 1955. The publications of the AFL-CIO are the weekly AFL-CIO News and the monthly journal American Federationist.

A. P. KARPOV