American Federation of Labor

American Federation of Labor (AFL) was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers (1850–1924) was elected president of the Federation at its founding convention and was reelected every year except one until his death. As the Knights of Labor faded away, the AFL coalition gradually gained strength. In practice, AFL unions were important in industrial cities, where they formed a central labor office to coordinate the actions of different AFL unions. Most strikes were assertions of jurisdiction, so that the plumbers, for example, used strikes to ensure that all major construction projects in the city used union plumbers. To win they needed the support of other unions, hence the need for AFL solidarity.

Gompers promoted harmony among the different craft unions that comprised the AFL. Focused on higher wages and job security, the AFL fought against socialism and the Socialist party. After 1907 it formed alliances with the Democratic party at the local, state and national levels. The AFL enthusiastically supported the war effort in World War I, and saw rapid growth in union membership and wage rates. The AFL unions lost membership in the 1920s, and did not recover from the doldrums until the New Deal passed the Wagner Act in 1935. The AFL enthusiastically supported the New Deal Coalition led by Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt.

John L. Lewis led a group of industrial unions to break away in the 1930s to form the CIO. The two federations competed for new members furiously, even violently. The AFL was always larger, and added more members in the very rapid growth period in the late 1930s and World War II era, while avoiding the radicalism of the CIO. William Green was president (1925–1952), but after 1940 the dominant leader was George Meany (1894–1980).

Historical problems

Racism

During its first years, the AFL admitted nearly anyone. Gompers opened the AFL to radical and socialist workers and to some semiskilled and unskilled workers. Women, African Americans, and immigrants joined in small numbers. But by the 1890s, the Federation had begun to organize only skilled workers in craft unions and became an organization of mostly white men. Although the Federation preached a policy of egalitarianism in regard to African American workers, it actively discriminated against black workers.

The AFL sanctioned the maintenance of segregated locals within its affiliates — particularly in the construction and railroad industries — a practice which often excluded black workers altogether from union membership and thus from employment in organized industries. The AFL also actively supported legislation, such as literacy tests, that would reduce unskilled immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe.

In 1901, the AFL lobbied Congress to reauthorize the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, and issued a pamphlet entitled "Some reasons for Chinese exclusion. Which shall survive?" The AFL also began one of the first organized labor boycotts when they began putting white stickers on the cigars made by unionized white cigar rollers while simultaneously discouraging consumers from purchasing cigars rolled by Chinese workers.

Sexism

In most ways, the AFL’s treatment of women workers paralleled its policy towards black workers. The AFL never adopted a strict policy of gender exclusion and, at times, even came out in favor of women’s unionism. But despite such rhetoric, the Federation only half-heartedly supported women’s attempts to organize and, more often, took pains to keep women out of unions and the workforce altogether. Only two national unions affiliated with the AFL at its founding openly included women, and others passed by-laws barring women’s membership entirely. The AFL hired its first female organizer, Mary Kenney O'Sullivan, only in 1892, released her after five months, and it did not replace her or hire another women national organizer until 1908.Women who organized their own unions were often turned down in bids to join the Federation, and even women who did join unions found them hostile or intentionally inaccessible. AFL unions often held meetings at night or in bars when women might find it difficult to attend and where they might feel uncomfortable, and male unionists heckled women who tried to speak at meetings.

Generally the AFL viewed women workers as competition, as strikebreakers, or as an unskilled labor reserve that kept wages low. As such, the Federation often opposed women’s employment entirely. When it did organize women workers, most often it did so to protect men’s jobs and earning power and not to improve the conditions, lives, or wages of women workers. In response, most women workers remained outside the labor movement. In 1900, only 3.3% of working women were organized into unions. In 1910, even as the AFL surged forward in membership, the number had dipped to 1.5%. And while it improved to 6.6% over the next decade, women remained mostly outside of unions and practically invisible inside of them into the mid-1920s.

Organizing and coordination

The AFL made efforts in its early years to assist its affiliates in organizing: it advanced funds or provided organizers or, in some cases, such as the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the Teamsters and the American Federation of Musicians, helped form the union. The AFL also used its influence (including refusal of charters or expulsion) to heal splits within affiliated unions, to force separate unions seeking to represent the same or closely related jurisdictions to merge, or to mediate disputes between rival factions where both sides claimed to represent the leadership of an affiliated union. The AFL also chartered "federal unions" — local unions not affiliated with any international union — in those fields in which no affiliate claimed jurisdiction.

The AFL also encouraged the formation of local labor bodies (known as central labor councils) in major metropolitan areas in which all of the affiliates could participate. These local labor councils acquired a great deal of influence in some cases. For example, the Chicago Federation of Labor spearheaded efforts to organize packinghouse and steel workers during and immediately after World War I. Local building trades councils also became powerful in some areas. In San Francisco, the local Building Trades Council, led by Carpenters official P. H. McCarthy, not only dominated the local labor council but helped elect McCarthy mayor of San Francisco in 1909. In a very few cases early in the AFL's history, state and local bodies defied AFL policy or chose to disaffiliate over policy disputes.

Origins

By the late 1880s there were over 40 international unions, comprising local chapters of skilled craftsmen in specific fields, such as carpenters, printers and cigar makers. They formed the "Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions" (FOTLU) in 1881. By 1886 they were threatened by the explosive growth of the Knights of Labor, a national reform organization that had little interest in such local issues as jurisdiction over specific trades, strikes, qualifications of craftsmen, wage scales, or local working conditions. The Knights wanted to enroll practically everyone, and quest of social reforms. To meet the challenge, FOTLU disbanded and was succeeded by the American Federation of Labor in 1886. The AFL was an umbrella group, designed to assist and coordinate the international unions that comprised its membership. That is, individuals belong to locals of the international union which in turn were members of the AFL.

In April 1886, a circular letter was issued by two FOTLU unions calling on 43 national trade unions to attend an organizing conference in Philadelphia in May. Twenty unions sent delegates and 12 others indicated their approval. The meeting charged the K of L with conspiring with anti-union bosses to provide labor at below going union rates and with making use of individuals who had crossed picket lines or defaulted on payment of union dues and demanded that the K of L cease attempting to organize members of international unions into its own assemblies. The K of L refused to enter into serious discussions.