Special Interest Groups

• WHAT IS ITS MISSION?
• HOW IS IT STRUCTURED?
• PRIMARY FUNCTIONS
• PROGRAMS
• BUDGET INFORMATION
• HISTORY
• CURRENT POLITICAL ISSUES
• BIOGRAPHY: Samuel Gompers
• FAST FACTS
• FUTURE DIRECTIONS
• GROUP RESOURCES
• GROUP PUBLICATIONS
• BIBLIOGRAPHY

ESTABLISHED: December 5, 1955
EMPLOYEES: 300
MEMBERS: 13,600,000
PAC: AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education (COPE)

Contact Information:
ADDRESS: 815 16th St. NW Washington, DC 20006
PHONE: (202) 637-5000
FAX: (202) 637-5058
URL: http://www.aflcio.org
PRESIDENT: John J. Sweeney
SECRETARY-TREASURER: Richard L. Trumka
EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT: Linda Chavez-Thompson

WHAT IS ITS MISSION?

According to its Web site, the mission of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) is "to improve the lives of working families—to bring economic justice to the workplace and social justice to our nation." In representing workers' interests before both the government and the public at large, the AFL-CIO seeks to lead and coordinate the activities of its affiliated unions in political action, organizing new members and bargaining with employers.

HOW IS IT STRUCTURED?

The AFL-CIO is a federation of 78 national unions and 12 international unions; union members typically belong to one of over 35,000 local unions affiliated with a national union member. Some of the largest unions affiliated with the AFL-CIO include the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Workers, the Service Employees International Union, and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. The national unions are, in turn, often affiliated according to trade with one of nine AFL-CIO departments: Building and Construction Trades, Food and Allied Service Trades, Professional Employees, Industrial Union, Maritime Trades, Metal Trades, Public Employees, Transportation Trades, or Union Label and Service Trades.

In addition to the local chapters and their national unions, the AFL-CIO also comprises 51 state organizations and approximately 626 local central bodies. The 51 state organizations—which include Puerto Rico—are composed of different local unions, while local central bodies, or central labor councils, are composed of representatives of unions in a particular community. Central bodies provide the means through which the AFL-CIO handles local, day-to-day business.

The AFL-CIO is headed by an executive council, which includes a president, secretary-treasurer, executive vice president, and 51 vice presidents. The council sets the overall AFL-CIO policy.

PRIMARY FUNCTIONS

While the AFL-CIO does not have direct authority over the activities of its affiliated unions, affiliates generally let the federation take the lead in setting and pursuing organized labor's political agenda. The AFL-CIO's main purpose is and has always been improving workers' wages and benefits. While AFL-CIO-affiliated unions historically used strikes and work stoppages as a primary means of obtaining demands, by the 1980s and 1990s the unions had greatly increased their reliance on congressional lobbying and media relations to further their interests.

The AFL-CIO considers advancing pro-labor legislation to be one of its primary objectives. In 1996 it spent over $35 million supporting congressional candidates who pledged to back pro-labor legislation. Like most public interest groups, the AFL-CIO attempts to influence congressional voting and legislation through a wide variety of activities, including letter writing, lobbying, leafleting, telemarketing, and organizing issue-education programs. Though officially non-partisan, the AFL-CIO traditionally supports Democrats and Democratic initiatives.

In addition to its lobbying efforts, the AFL-CIO organizes boycotts and negative publicity campaigns against corporations and industries it accuses of unfair labor practices. Its Union Label and Service Trades department regularly publishes a list of national boycotts the federation endorses and routinely identifies industries resistant to unionization. While boycotts are often instituted and conducted by specific unions against local employers, to garner official AFL-CIO endorsement they must meet guidelines established by the Executive Council. During boycotts, members of all AFL-CIO affiliated unions are advised of the boycott and encouraged to avoid supporting or patronizing the company in question, while local unions in the employer's area will often picket, distribute leaflets, or hold news conferences promoting the boycott.

PROGRAMS

In additional to the AFL-CIO's extensive political operation it operates several programs designed to strengthen the labor movement, further the interests of workers, reach out to segments of the work force such as women and minorities, and improve organized labor's public image.

Although the federation has historically left the task of organizing up to individual unions, by the early 1990s the AFL-CIO had launched two major programs designed to help affiliated unions reverse the long decline in labor union membership. In 1989 the federation created the Organizing Institute to educate and train union leaders and organizers. In an effort to recruit skilled organizers among rank-and-file union members and community activists, the institute offers intensive, three-day workshops around the country and places graduates in apprenticeships. Paid a modest stipend for living expenses, the apprentices assist in local organizing campaigns and help workers organize unions at their workplaces. Roughly 90 percent of program graduates are eventually offered full-time jobs with affiliated unions. In an effort to attract young organizers and rebuild interest in social and economic justice on U.S. college campuses, the AFL-CIO launched the first Union Summer program in June of 1996. A 25-day educational internship aimed at college students selected from around the country, program interns are paid a small stipend to help organize drives, educate the public on labor issues, organize picket lines and boycotts, stage demonstrations, and help build coalitions between labor and community organizations. Senior Summer, a similar program for senior citizens that was designed to take advantage of the skill and experience of retired union members, was launched in 1997.

The AFL-CIO makes an effort to reach out to women workers who have historically been marginalized in the labor movement, through its Working Women Department. The federation encourages unions to organize such woman-dominated fields as teaching and health care. Through a survey of women workers titled "Ask a Working Woman," the AFL-CIO has also developed an agenda of issues of particular concern to working women, among them quality child and elder care, family leave, flexible work hours, and equal pay for work of equal skill level. As part of this outreach effort the AFL-CIO has publicized the problem of comparable worth by encouraging women to visit the Web site at www.aflcio.org/women, plug in information about their job and education, and find out how much they lose over a lifetime because they are paid less than men.

In an effort to improve public opinion of organized labor and make the climate more hospitable to union organizing and political success, the AFL-CIO launched a "repositioning" campaign in 1997. The campaign included pilot projects in selected cities consisting of paid and free media coverage, speaker appearances, and community outreach. In the same year the federation introduced a more broad-based community outreach program, Union Cities, designed to rebuild the labor movement at the grassroots and mobilize one percent of all union members as activists. By August of that year over 100 central labor councils earned the title of "union cities" after pledging to mobilize members to participate in "Street Heat" activities wherein teams respond to unionizing-related firings within 24 hours by organizing rallies. These councils also agree to encourage the organization of new workers, sponsor economics education, and endorse diversity in union leadership.

BUDGET INFORMATION

The 1996 budget of $118 million reflected a significant increase over the roughly $70 million budgeted for previous years due to new organizing initiatives and the AFL-CIO pledge to spend $35 million on its "Labor '96" election activities. The AFL-CIO's primary income comes from per capita dues paid by affiliated unions on behalf of their members. It also earns a small income from investments and the sale of publications, supplies, and services. The additional spending in 1996 was funded by a special assessment of 15 cents per member per month for the year, the use of sums held in a reserve fund, and the liquidation of some investments.

A large percentage of the organization's budget goes to salaries and administrative expenses. Other significant expenses include roughly $14 million for "field mobilization"—including grassroots lobbying and political action—over $12 million for political education, over $8 million for organizing, and over $6 million for public affairs.

HISTORY

The AFL-CIO was formed in 1955 due to the merger of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The AFL, the older of the two, was formed in 1886 and soon emerged as the major national federation of organized U.S. labor. AFL president Samuel Gompers guided the fledgling federation using the principal of "pure and simple" trade unionism in which the AFL—unlike European labor movements or earlier U.S. movements—would limit its participation in politics and focus on improving workers' conditions through pressure on employers. Although the AFL supported legislation outlawing child labor it opposed proposals restricting the maximum hours in a work week and instituting a minimum wage. Although challenged by some in the labor movement, Gompers's vision of trade unionism dominated until the Great Depression struck in the 1930s.

The AFL Splinters

In 1935 Congress, with the support of Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt, passed the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) which legally guaranteed workers' rights to organize in unions. It also set up the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to handle disputes between unions and employers over organizing and labor law violations. From its formation the AFL had organized workers by craft rather than by industry, and tended to emphasize the unionization of skilled workers. The legions of unskilled or low-skilled factory workers to emerge in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were considered too difficult to organize. The passage of the NLRA, however, presented a new opportunity to organize these workers.

The 1935 AFL convention became a battleground between dissidents wishing to launch major organizing drives of industrial workers and the conservative and traditional AFL leadership. The dissidents soon broke away to form a rival labor federation, the CIO. The CIO differed from the AFL in its dedication to the organization of unskilled factory workers along industrial lines such as steel and auto manufacturing, and its commitment to liberal political activism. A large contributor to Roosevelt's re-election campaign in 1936, the CIO was a key supporter of many of his New Deal legislative initiatives such as the Fair Labor Standards Act, which established a standard work week, overtime pay, and a minimum wage.

The Turbulent 1940s and 1950s

The 1940s and 1950s were a stormy time for organized labor. The unions affiliated with the AFL and the CIO locked in bitter competition with each other over the organization of new workers. Both federations grew considerably as a result of the economic growth associated with World War II (1939–45). However, a post-war wave of strikes resulted in conservative political attacks against the newly powerful unions, and restrictive labor laws were passed at both the state and national level, one of which was the Taft-Hartley Act. The new government role in labor-management relations, as well as the nation's turn toward more conservative politics, caused the AFL to shed its distaste for political action and become more liberal.

In 1952 the AFL made its first presidential endorsement supporting unsuccessful Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson. It also began cooperating with the CIO in politics. AFL leader George Meany and CIO leader Walter Reuther came to see the merger of their respective organizations as the key to both reversing the attacks on organized labor and promoting liberal legislation. In 1955 the two unions merged and Meany was named president. The new unity of the labor movement was short lived, however; during the 1957 AFL-CIO convention a vote was taken to oust one of the largest unions, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, for corruption. The vote was not enough to forestall a highly publicized congressional investigation into trade-union corruption that led to the 1959 passage, over the AFL-CIO's strong objections, of the Landrum-Griffin Act, further regulating internal union affairs.

The Law Withdraws

The 1960s saw a rise in political influence of the AFL-CIO. The federation supported Democrat John F. Kennedy's election as president in 1960 and retained significant leverage during the Kennedy administration. The union developed its Committee on Political Education (COPE), which made contributions to candidates and mobilized union members and other Democratic constituencies such as minorities and the elderly on election day. Although the AFL-CIO failed to win repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act, the federation played a central role in passing Johnson's "Great Society" initiatives, which included civil rights legislation, increased federal funding for housing and education, consumer protection legislation, anti-poverty programs, and Medicare and Medicaid.

As the 1960s came to a close, issues associated with the Vietnam War (1959–75) and the social movements of the decade divided the labor movement just as they divided the nation. Reuther, now president of the United Auto Workers (UAW), publicly criticized the AFL-CIO's diehard support of the nation's involvement in Vietnam, its lack of commitment to unionizing more workers, and its failure to keep in touch with the interests and concerns of rank-and-file union members and economically disadvantaged groups. In 1968 Reuther withdrew the UAW, then the largest union in the federation, from the AFL-CIO.

When Meany convinced AFL-CIO leadership not to endorse 1972 Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern because of McGovern's pledge to end the war, Reuther assembled a labor coalition to campaign for McGovern that included the UAW, the National Education Association (NEA), and liberal AFL-CIO-affiliated unions such as the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Workers (AFSCMW). However, for the first time since the start of election polling in the 1940s, the Democratic presidential candidate received less than 50 percent of the votes of union members and Republican President Richard Nixon easily won reelection.

Challenges in the 1970s and 1980s

Organized labor faced a number of challenges in the 1970s and 1980s. Labor union membership as a percentage of the entire work force declined slowly, from roughly a third of all workers in the mid-1950s to roughly a quarter of all workers by the late 1970s, although the number of union members continued to increase during this period. By the 1980s the absolute number of union members began to decline as well, falling from over 23 million in 1978 to under 17 million in 1989. AFL-CIO-affiliated United Steel Workers lost over half its membership. Unionized U.S. industries faced increasing competition from overseas and many companies began to move production to Third World countries where wages are a fraction of those paid nationally. Faced with a loss of bargaining power, unions accepted significant wage and benefit cutbacks. Politically organized labor did not fare much better. Conservative Republican Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980 and most of his political agenda, including social spending cutbacks, deregulation, and tax cuts for upper income groups, was strongly opposed by the AFL-CIO.

In ill health, Meany retired in 1979 and Lane Kirkland became president. The change in union leadership, as well as the political attack on unions launched by Reagan and congressional Republicans, encouraged renewed unity in the labor movement. The UAW reaffiliated in 1981, the Teamsters returned in 1987, and the United Mine Workers affiliated in 1989. By the end of the 1980s the NEA was the only major union outside the federation. The AFL-CIO sought to strengthen its influence in Congress and better coordinate the lobbying efforts of its affiliated unions. Although many political pundits had declared labor dead as a political force by the early 1980s, by the decade's close, particularly after the Republicans lost control of the Senate in 1986, labor again enjoyed considerable influence in Congress. In a major victory, the AFL-CIO secured passage of a bill requiring employers to give workers 60 days' advance notification of plant closings.

The Sweeney Years

The AFL-CIO had mixed success in politics in the 1990s. While it supported the candidacy of Democrat Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, Clinton would go on to engineer the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which opened up trade between the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Organized labor lobbied heavily against the measure, which was viewed as encouraging manufacturers to move to low-wage Mexico. While this led to initial bad blood between the AFL-CIO and the Clinton administration, that relationship was patched up prior to the ultimately unsuccessful 1993 legislative battle over Clinton's plan to provide health care to all Americans, a plan that labor supported. The election of a Republican majority to the House of Representatives in 1994 for the first time in forty years came as one of the most devastating political blows to the AFL-CIO in recent history. Many newly elected Republicans challenged the programs labor had fought for since the New Deal; talk centered around abolishing the minimum wage, cutting back social programs, and reducing occupational health and safety protections.

Declining union membership and economic strength combined with political defeats such as the passage of NAFTA and the 1994 election results sent ripples of discontent throughout the labor movement, resulting in the first contested election for the presidency of the AFL-CIO in the federation's history. Responding to intense criticism Kirkland retired. Dissidents in the federation coalesced behind the candidacy of Service Employees International Union president John Sweeney, who won the office after a heated campaign. Sweeney pledged that the federation would take a greater role in organizing new workers into unions and resolved he would reverse the decline in labor's political influence putting economic and social justice back on the agenda. He also promised to strengthen AFL-CIO ties to other liberal groups at the national and local level, including minority, civic, and religious organizations and to put renewed emphasis on organizing low-skilled service sector workers, minorities, and women.

In 1996 the AFL-CIO devoted itself to electing a labor-friendly Congress, spending over $35 million supporting Democratic candidates. While the Republican majority prevailed, their numbers were weakened. The AFL-CIO again placed significant emphasis on electing a labor-friendly Congress in 1998, but with a changed strategy. Rather than spending massive amounts on advertising, the federation and affiliated unions focused on grassroots mobilization and voter education. Labor union members represented 22 percent of the electorate in 1998, as opposed to 14 percent in 1994, and over 70 percent voted for Democrats. Organized labor was credited with significantly helping to reduce the Republican majority to just six seats in the House and with contributing to a number of high-profile Senate wins. The year 1998 also produced the first year of growth in union membership since the 1970s. Membership grew by 100,000 to 16.2 million workers although labor union members as a percentage of the total labor force continued to decline from 14.1 to 13.9 percent.

CURRENT POLITICAL ISSUES

The AFL-CIO has been an adamant supporter of social insurance programs that benefit middle class workers, such as Social Security, Medicare, and subsidized student loans. It also supports programs that benefit the poor, such as public assistance, public housing, and free or reduced-rate school lunches. A long-time supporter of civil rights, it continues to lobby in defense of affirmative action. The AFL-CIO has also been a major proponent of reforms in the health-care system that would offer access to more citizens and improve the quality of care.

The AFL-CIO lobbies for measures such as worker education and training, occupational health and safety regulations, comparable worth legislation ensuring that women are paid the same as men, increases in the minimum wage, regulations to secure pension funds and health care, and laws protecting workers' ability to form and join unions. Because the AFL-CIO represents a wide range of workers—from college professors to electricians to janitors—it lobbies on a variety of issues specific to certain sectors of the work force, such as legislation to restrict the imports of steel or the use of public money to fund private education.

BIOGRAPHY: Samuel Gompers

Labor Leader (1850–1924) During a time when the industrial revolution was transforming the political, social, and economic landscapes of the United States, Samuel Gompers emerged to become one of the most influential labor leaders in history. Weaned on trade union ideals from the time he was a young apprentice cigar maker, Gompers's interest in the welfare of skilled and unskilled workers was undying. In the early 1880s, Gompers lobbied hard for laws that would abolish the tenement sweatshops that were springing up in New York City. At the age of 37, Gompers was instrumental in creating the American Federation of Labor (AF of L) and went on to lead the organization as its president for the remaining 38 years of his life. The AF of L's support of President Woodrow Wilson resulted in the creation of the Department of Labor and passage of important pro-labor legislation. In 1917 President Wilson appointed Gompers to the National War Labor Board. From this position, Gompers negotiated improved working conditions and relaxed resistance to labor unions. Although great strides were made during World War I (1914–18), they were short-lived. At the time of Gompers's death, anti-union businesses, newspapers, and politicians had painted union ideology with broad, red, socialist strokes that transformed post-war patriotism into strong anti-union sentiment. It is his enduring legacy that the labor federation he so carefully constructed was able to weather this hostile climate for a decade. Only then did the the federal government, under President Franklin Roosevelt, pass legislation with lasting protections for the rights of unions and workers.

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The AFL-CIO also lobbies against measures that threaten its right to participate in politics. Although claiming to support campaign finance reform, the AFL-CIO has repeatedly fought against measures that would restrict union PAC activities. It has also fought state proposals such as Proposition 226 in California that would have placed new restrictions on the use of union dues in politics.

Case Study: Proposition 226

Organized labor's aggressive participation in the 1996 elections supporting Democratic congressional candidates—including the AFL-CIO's decision to spend a record $35 million largely on radio and television advertising attacking conservative Republicans—created a backlash. After the Republican Congress failed to pass legislation reining in union participation in politics, conservative forces moved to the state level. One of the most threatening measures was California's Proposition 226. A referendum presented to the voters in the June 1998 primary required that union members provide annual, written authorization for the use of any of their dues money for politics. The effort, started by three disgruntled men who had lost school board races against candidates supported by teachers' unions, quickly attracted support from groups such as the Americans for Tax Reform and the National Rifle Association. It was also backed by national political leaders such as then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and California governor Pete Wilson. Proponents of the initiative called it the "paycheck protection" act and argued it was unfair for union leaders to use dues money without members' permission to help political candidates or policies that members may or may not support.

The AFL-CIO and its California affiliates saw the bill as a major attack on labor's right to participate in the electoral process. The AFL-CIO sent staff to support the California AFL-CIO chapter as well as a host of California and Washington political consultants in directing the anti-Proposition 226 effort. They organized the participation of hundreds of AFL-CIO-affiliated locals and the non-affiliated California Teachers Association, a longtime foe of Governor Wilson.

AFL-CIO supporters gathered signatures for another initiative that would have restricted corporate spending on political campaigns. They agreed not to put this measure on the ballot as long as larger businesses and corporate executives agreed to remain neutral on Proposition 226 and not provide financial support to its backers. As a consequence, opponents of Proposition 226 outspent supporters by as much as three to one in television advertising, running ads claiming that if labor's lobbying was restricted the measure would have the effect of hurting education, undermining patients' rights legislation, weakening Medicare, and sending jobs overseas. Because of the wording of Proposition 226, opponents argued it might even hurt charities by making it difficult for organizations such as United Way to arrange for automatic deductions from voluntary contributors' paychecks.

Supporters of Proposition 226 put it on the primary rather than the general election ballot because voter turnout is typically much lower for primaries, and they assumed that labor unions would have a harder time mobilizing their members. However, thousands of union members became active in the grassroots battle against the initiative. According to AFL-CIO President Sweeney, union activists canvassed over 5,000 voting precincts, visited more than 18,000 work sites to educate employees, and made over 650,000 phone calls to union households to turn out the vote. The campaign against Proposition 226 worked. Although early polls had shown strong support for the proposition, even among union members, by election day opinions had turned against it. The measure failed with union members voting against it by a 71 to 29 percent margin.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

Building on its success in the 1998 congressional elections, the AFL-CIO announced by 1999 that it planned to spend over $40 million on the 2000 elections during the two-year period preceding election day. The money would come from a special assessment on affiliated unions of $1 per member per year for two years and would not go to candidates or the parties but would be used for grassroots mobilization such as distribution of political literature, phone banks, and voter registration. While the AFL-CIO hoped to return the Congress to Democratic control, it again announced its intention to support moderate, pro-labor Republicans in an effort to strengthen that element within the party. The AFL-CIO, imitating a tactic of the Christian Coalition, also encouraged union members to run for political office and set a goal of putting 2,000 unionists on the ballot in 2000.

GROUP RESOURCES

The AFL-CIO provides a wide variety of information on its current activities and on pending legislative issues, most of which is available on-line through the organization's Web page at http://www.aflcio.org. These resources include an Economic Research Library with articles and statistics of interest to working families; a list of press releases and editorials by the organization; a list of national boycotts sanctioned by the AFL-CIO; and Executive Paywatch, a web program allowing users to compare their salaries with those of corporate CEO's. Executive Paywatch can be accessed directly at http://www.paywatch.org.

GROUP PUBLICATIONS

The AFL-CIO has one publication it issues to subscribing members, America@Work. Published monthly, the magazine is aimed at leadership officers and activists of local unions and offers articles and information on building coalitions, organizing, and motivating union members. While geared toward a select audience, the magazine can be ordered by calling the AFL-CIO's Public Affairs Department at (202) 637-5340. In addition, the George Meany Institute publishes the Labor Heritage Quarterly, which provides information on the history of the labor movement in general and the AFL-CIO in particular. It can be obtained by calling the institute's customer service department at (301) 431-5457. For more information, visit the AFL-CIO's Web site at http://www.aflcio.org, or write to 815 16th St. NW, Washington, DC 20006.