American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations: Merger to the Present

Merger to the Present

During the entire period of the alienation of the CIO from the AFL, the idea of merger was being considered by elements in both federations, and labor's concern over the apparent antiunion policies of President Eisenhower's administration (the first Republican administration in 20 years) gave new impetus to the movement for labor unity. The death in 1952 of the presidents of both organizations and the appointment of George Meany to head the AFL and Walter P. Reuther to run the CIO paved the way for a merger in 1955.

At its first convention the merged organizations, now called the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), elected Meany as its president. In 1957 the AFL-CIO adopted antiracket codes, and the convention expelled the Teamsters Union for alleged failure to meet the parent organization's ethical standards. The AFL-CIO took a major step in 1961 in the direction of settling internal disputes by setting up a mandatory arbitration procedure.

A submerged dispute between George Meany and Walter Reuther, who opposed the AFL-CIO's conservative approach to civil rights and social welfare programs, finally erupted in 1968 and the United Automobile Workers (UAW) withdrew from the union. The AFL-CIO supported the Democratic presidential candidates in 1956, 1960, 1964, and 1968. In 1972 however, Meany led the AFL-CIO into a neutral stance, supporting neither major candidate. Meany decided not to run for reelection in 1979 and Lane Kirkland, who had been secretary-treasurer for the AFL-CIO, was elected president.

From the start of Kirkland's term, the AFL-CIO was forced to adapt to a number of adverse economic trends. Union membership dropped from 33% of all U.S. workers in 1960 to 14% in the late 1990s. To shore up organized labor's declining influence, the AFL-CIO concentrated on organizing service workers and public employees and improving labor unity. In 1981 the UAW rejoined the union; the Teamsters (1988) and United Mine Workers (1989) later followed.

Kirkland retired under pressure in 1995. Thomas R. Donahue, the AFL-CIO's secretary-treasurer, was named interim president, but Donahue was challenged for the federation's presidency by John J. Sweeney, who won the first contested election for president in the AFL-CIO's history. In 2005, heads of some of the organization's largest and most active unions, led by Andrew Stern of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), unsuccessfuly attempted to secure Sweeney's retirement and to implement other organizational changes, such as the merging of the ALF-CIO's member unions into 20 large unions, each representing a segment of the economy, and the refocusing of its energies to stress the unionization of unrepresented workers. The SEIU, Teamsters, United Food and Commercial Workers, Laborers' International, and Unite Here subsequently left the AFL-CIO, and with several other unions formed the Change to Win Federation. Sweeney retired in 2009 and was succeeded as president by Richard L. Trumka, who had previously led the United Mine Workers and then served as AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer. Unite Here rejoined the AFL-CIO in 2009, and Laborers' International rejoined in 2010.

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