The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) is a national trade union center that is the largest federation of unions in the United States. It is made up of 65 national and international unions, together representing nearly 15 million active and retired workers. The AFL-CIO engages in substantial political spending and activism, typically in support of progressive and pro-labor policies.Timothy J. Minchin, Labor under Fire: A History of the AFL–CIO Since 1979 (U of North Carolina Press, 2017).
The AFL-CIO was formed in 1955 when the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merged after a long estrangement. Union membership in the US peaked in 1979, when the AFL-CIO's affiliated unions had nearly twenty million members. From 1955 until 2005, the AFL-CIO's member unions represented nearly all unionized workers in the United States. Several large unions split away from the AFL-CIO and formed the rival Change to Win Federation in 2005, although a number of those unions have since re-affiliated, and many locals of Change to Win are either part of or work with their local central labor councils. The largest unions currently in the AFL-CIO are the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), with 2 million members, American Federation of Teachers (AFT) with approximately 1.7 million members, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), with approximately 1.4 million members, and United Food and Commercial Workers with 1.2 million members.
Membership
The AFL-CIO is a federation of international labor unions. As a voluntary federation, the AFL-CIO has little authority over the affairs of its member unions except in extremely limited cases (such as the ability to expel a member union for corruptionConstitution Art. X, Sec. 17 and enforce resolution of disagreements over jurisdiction or organizing). As of January 2025, the AFL-CIO had 61 member unions representing nearly 15 million members.
Political activities The AFL-CIO was a major component of the New Deal Coalition that dominated politics into the mid-1960s.Nelson Lichtenstein, State of the Union: A Century of American Labor (2nd ed. 2013) Although it has lost membership, finances, and political clout since 1970, it remains a major player on the liberal side of national politics, with a great deal of activity in lobbying, grassroots organizing, coordinating with other liberal organizations, fund-raising, and recruiting and supporting candidates around the country.
In recent years the AFL-CIO has concentrated its political efforts on lobbying in Washington and the state capitals, and on "GOTV" (get-out-the-vote) campaigns in major elections. For example, in the 2010 midterm elections, it sent 28.6 million pieces of mail. Members received a "slate card" with a list of union endorsements matched to the member's congressional district, along with a "personalized" letter from President Obama emphasizing the importance of voting. In addition, 100,000 volunteers went door-to-door to promote endorsed candidates to 13 million union voters in 32 states.AFL–CIO, "AFL–CIO Announces Huge 'FINAL FOUR' GOTV Push" "Press release" Oct. 30 2010
Governance The AFL-CIO is governed by its members, who meet in a quadrennial convention. Each member union elects delegates, based on proportional representation. The AFL-CIO's state federations, central and local labor councils, constitutional departments, and constituent groups are also entitled to delegates. The delegates elect officers and vice presidents, debate and approve policy, and set dues.Ray M. Tillman and Michael S. Cummings, The Transformation of U.S. Unions: Voices, Visions, and Strategies from the Grassroots (1999) pp 49–60 explains in detail the governance structure of the AFL–CIO
Annual meetings From 1951 to 1996, the Executive Council held its winter meeting in the resort town of Bal Harbour, Florida. The meeting at the Bal Harbour Sheraton has been the object of frequent criticism, including over a labor dispute at the hotel itself.
Citing image concerns, the council changed the meeting site to Los Angeles. However, the meeting was moved back to Bal Harbour several years later. The 2012 meeting was held in Orlando, Florida.
State and local bodies The AFL-CIO constitution permits international unions to pay state federation and central labor council (CLC) dues directly, rather than have each local or state federation pay them. This relieves each union's state and local affiliates of the administrative duty of assessing, collecting and paying the dues. International unions assess the AFL-CIO dues themselves, and collect them on top of their own dues-generating mechanisms or simply pay them out of the dues the international collects. But not all international unions pay their required state federation and CLC dues.Michelle Amber, "SEIU Agrees to Pay Nearly $4 Million to Settle Dispute with AFL–CIO Over Dues," Daily Labor Report, March 2, 2006.
Constitutional departments One of the most well-known departments was the Industrial Union Department (IUD). It had been constitutionally mandated by the new AFL-CIO constitution created by the merger of the AFL and CIO in 1955, as CIO unions felt that the AFL's commitment to industrial unionism was not strong enough to permit the department to survive without a constitutional mandate. For many years, the IUD was a de facto organizing department in the AFL-CIO. For example, it provided money to the near-destitute American Federation of Teachers (AFT) as it attempted to organize the United Federation of Teachers in 1961. The organizing money enabled the AFT to win the election and establish its first large collective bargaining affiliate. For many years, the IUD remained rather militant on a number of issues.
There are six AFL-CIO constitutionally mandated departments: North America's Building Trades Unions Maritime Trades Department, AFL-CIO Metal Trades Department, AFL-CIO Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO Union Label and Service Trades Department, AFL-CIO
Constituency groups Constituency groups are nonprofit organizations chartered and funded by the AFL-CIO as voter registration and mobilization bodies. These groups conduct research, host training and educational conferences, issue research reports and publications, lobby for legislation and build coalitions with local groups. Each constituency group has the right to sit in on AFL-CIO executive council meetings, and to exercise representational and voting rights at AFL-CIO conventions.
The AFL-CIO's seven constituency groups include the A. Philip Randolph Institute, the AFL-CIO Union Veterans Council, the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement and Pride at Work.
Allied organizations The Working for America Institute started out as a department of the AFL-CIO. Established in 1958, it was previously known as the Human Resources Development Institute (HRDI). John Sweeney renamed the department and spun it off as an independent organization in 1998 to act as a lobbying group to promote economic development, develop new economic policies, and lobby Congress on economic policy.Gilroy, Tom. "Labor to Stress Get-Out-the-Vote Among Members in Fall Elections". Labor Relations Week. October 21, 1998. The American Center for International Labor Solidarity started out as the Free Trade Union Committee (FTUC), which internationally promoted free labor-unions.Under AFL–CIO president Lane Kirkland, the Free Trade Union Committee had four units: the American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD), which covered Latin America; the African-American Labor Center (AALC); the Asian-American Free Labor Institute (AAFLI); and the Free Trade Union Institute (FTUI), which was active Europe. These four units were merged into the American Center for International Labor Solidarity in 1997.
Other organizations that are allied with the AFL-CIO include: Alliance for Retired Americans Solidarity Center American Rights at Work International Labor Communications Association Jobs with Justice Labor Heritage Foundation Labor and Working-Class History Association National Day Laborer Organizing Network United Students Against Sweatshops Working America Working for America Institute Ohio Organizing Collaborative
Programs Programs are organizations established and controlled by the AFL-CIO to serve certain organizational goals. Programs of the AFL-CIO include the AFL-CIO Building Investment Trust, the AFL-CIO Employees Federal Credit Union, the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust, the National Labor College and Union Privilege.
International policy The AFL-CIO is affiliated to the Brussels-based International Trade Union Confederation, formed November 1, 2006. The new body incorporated the member organizations of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, of which the AFL-CIO had long been part. The AFL-CIO had had a very active foreign policy in building and strengthening free trade unions. During the Cold War, it vigorously opposed Communist unions in Latin America and Europe. In opposing Communism, it helped split the CGT in France and helped create the anti-Communist Force Ouvrière.Robert Anthony Waters and Geert van Goethem, eds., American Labor's Global Ambassadors: The International History of the AFL–CIO During the Cold War (Palgrave Macmillan; 2014)
According to the cybersecurity firm Area 1, hackers working for the People's Liberation Army Strategic Support Force compromised the networks of the AFL-CIO in order to gain information on negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
History
Civil rights
The AFL-CIO has a long relationship with civil rights struggles. One of the major points of contention between the AFL and the CIO, particularly in the era immediately after the CIO split off, was the CIO's willingness to include black workers (excluded by the AFL in its focus on craft unionism).Herman, Arthur. Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II, p. 184, Random House, New York, NY. . Later, black workers would also criticize the CIO for abandoning their interests, particularly after the merger with the AFL.
In 1961, Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech titled "If the Negro Wins, Labor Wins" to the organization's convention in Bal Harbour, Florida. King hoped for a coalition between civil rights and labor that would improve the situation for the entire working class by ending racial discrimination. However, King also criticized the AFL-CIO for its tolerance of unions that excluded black workers. "I would be lacking in honesty," he told the delegates of the 1965 Illinois AFL-CIO Convention during his keynote address, "if I did not point out that the labor movement of thirty years ago did more in that period for civil rights than labor is doing today...Our combined strength is potentially enormous, but we have not used a fraction of it for our own good or the needs of society as a whole."Soderstrom, Carl; Soderstrom, Robert; Stevens, Chris; Burt, Andrew (2018). Forty Gavels: The Life of Reuben Soderstrom and the Illinois AFL–CIO. 3. Peoria, IL: CWS Publishing. pp. 261-261. . King and the AFL-CIO diverged further in 1967, when King announced his opposition to the Vietnam War, which the AFL-CIO strongly supported. The AFL-CIO endorsed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Police violence