Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO)

CONGRESS OF INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATIONS (CIO)

Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was an organization of trade unions that represented all workers in major mass-production industries. Formed in 1935 by John L. Lewis (1880–1969), the CIO was initially called the Committee for Industrial Organizations, a collection of eight unions within the American Federation of Labor (AFL). But differences soon presented themselves between the AFL and the CIO. Except for miners and textile workers, the AFL was divided into craft unions. Boilermakers, machinists, upholsters, painters, and other trades were separated into local unions by the type of skills required to make their products. The CIO advocated an industrial unionism, whereby workers would be organized according to the nature of their products (their industry). Steel-workers would have one union, for example, and the building trades another. The CIO also had an open-door policy to African Americans and other classes of society rejected by the AFL. In 1938 the eight unions represented by the Committee for Industrial Organizations left the AFL, and reorganized themselves under the name Congress of Industrial Organizations. The CIO faced formidable opposition in its early days. The AFL collaborated with local unions and state and federal legislators to brand the CIO a communist organization. Employers murdered, gassed, beat, and intimidated their workers to demoralize the CIO's unionizing efforts. World War II (1939–1945) pulled the AFL and CIO closer together, as both organizations supported governmental efforts to mobilize industry for military production. During the Korean War (1950–1953) the AFL and CIO formed a joint committee to deal with federal labor policies. This committee facilitated the formal merger of the two organizations in December 1955.

See also: American Federation of Labor, Labor Movement, Labor Unionism