American Federation of Labor

American Federation of Labor. Formed in 1886 as an umbrella organization to represent craft unions, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) emphasized practical “bread and butter” unionism, promoted the integity of its affiliates, and upheld the sanctity of union contracts. Apart from one two‐year interval (1893–1895), Samuel Gompers served as President from 1886 to 1924. Early on, its leaders mediated jurisdictional conflicts among affiliates and promoted legislation considered beneficial to organized labor, including immigration restriction. It also sought to establish powerful city and state federations.

The burgeoning strength of its member unions in the early twentieth century created a vibrant AFL and solidified trade union power. The Woodrow Wilson Presidential administration bestowed critical recognition on the AFL by establishing a separate Department of Labor in 1913. An alliance between labor and the Democratic party took shape during World War I when the administration created a National War Labor Board empowered to encourage trade union recognition. A grateful Gompers worked tirelessly for Wilson's war programs, promoting the American Alliance for Labor and Democracy and attacking more radical labor organizations. Stimulated by the AFL's alliance with the administration, trade union membership expanded from 1,562,000 in 1910 to 4,125,000 in 1919. The war's end brought an employer backlash, however, and subsequent unsympathetic Republican administrations weakened the AFL still more.

The Great Depression of the 1930s brought further strains as the industrial unions within the AFL's ranks, most notably John L. Lewis's United Mine Workers of America, challenged it to organize mass‐production workers. Refusing to devote scarce resources to a risky endeavor, the more cautious members of the AFL executive board balked. This strategy backfired in 1938 when eleven industrial unions created the rival Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).

Although the AFL had initially failed to organize the millions of nonunion workers seeking representation rights, it competed aggressively for new members throughout World War II and the postwar years, growing more rapidly than the CIO. Diluting their craft principles, AFL affiliates accepted masses of new members regardless of skill or job title. By the mid–1950s the AFL had 50 percent more members that the CIO (9 million to 6 million). In 1952 the incumbent Presidents of the two rival labor organizations died, clearing the way for a merger. The merged AFL‐CIO held its first convention in December 1955.
See also Federal Government, Executive Branch: Other Departments (Department of Labor); Gilded Age; Industrialization; Labor Movements; New Deal Era, The.

Bibliography

Philip Taft , The A.F.L., 2 vols., 1957–1959.

Colin J. Davis