Американская федерация труда и Конгресс производственных профсоюзов (AFL-CIO)

Federation of American trade unions

The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL CIO) is a national trade union center that is the largest federation of unions in the United States. It is made up of 60 national and international unions, together representing more than 12 million active and retired workers. The AFL CIO was formed in 1955 when the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merged after a long estrangement. Union membership in the US peaked in 1979, when the AFL CIO's affiliated unions had nearly twenty million members. From 1955 until 2005, the AFL CIO's member unions represented nearly all unionized workers in the United States. Several large unions split away from AFL CIO and formed the rival Change to Win Federation in 2005, although a number of those unions have since re affiliated, and many locals of Change to Win are either part of or work with their local central labor councils. The largest unions currently in the AFL CIO are the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) with approximately 1.7 million members, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), with approximately 1.4 million members, and United Food and Commercial Workers with 1.2 million members.

The AFL CIO was a major component of the New Deal Coalition that dominated politics into the mid 1960s. Although it has lost membership, finances, and political clout since 1970, it remains a major player on the liberal side of national politics, with a great deal of activity in lobbying, grassroots organizing, coordinating with other liberal organizations, fund raising, and recruiting and supporting candidates around the country. In recent years the AFL CIO has concentrated its political efforts on lobbying in Washington and the state capitals, and on "GOTV" (get out the vote) campaigns in major elections. For example, in the 2010 midterm elections, it sent 28.6 million pieces of mail. Members received a "slate card" with a list of union endorsements matched to the member's congressional district, along with a "personalized" letter from President Obama emphasizing the importance of voting. In addition, 100,000 volunteers went door to door to promote endorsed candidates to 13 million union voters in 32 states.

The AFL CIO is governed by its members, who meet in a quadrennial convention. Each member union elects delegates, based on proportional representation. The AFL CIO's state federations, central and local labor councils, constitutional departments, and constituent groups are also entitled to delegates. The delegates elect officers and vice presidents, debate and approve policy, and set dues.

From 1951 to 1996, the Executive Council held its winter meeting in the resort town of Bal Harbour, Florida. The meeting at the Bal Harbour Sheraton has been the object of frequent criticism, including over a labor dispute at the hotel itself. Citing image concerns, the council changed the meeting site to Los Angeles. However, the meeting was moved back to Bal Harbour several years later. The 2012 meeting was held in Orlando, Florida.

The AFL CIO constitution permits international unions to pay state federation and CLC dues directly, rather than have each local or state federation pay them. This relieves each union's state and local affiliates of the administrative duty of assessing, collecting and paying the dues. International unions assess the AFL CIO dues themselves, and collect them on top of their own dues generating mechanisms or simply pay them out of the dues the international collects. But not all international unions pay their required state federation and CLC dues.

Constituency groups are nonprofit organizations chartered and funded by the AFL CIO as voter registration and mobilization bodies. These groups conduct research, host training and educational conferences, issue research reports and publications, lobby for legislation and build coalitions with local groups. Each constituency group has the right to sit in on AFL CIO executive council meetings, and to exercise representational and voting rights at AFL CIO conventions. The AFL CIO's seven constituency groups include the A. Philip Randolph Institute, the AFL CIO Union Veterans Council, the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement and Pride at Work.

Programs are organizations established and controlled by the AFL CIO to serve certain organizational goals. Programs of the AFL CIO include the AFL CIO Building Investment Trust, the AFL CIO Employees Federal Credit Union, the AFL CIO Housing Investment Trust, the National Labor College and Union Privilege.

The AFL CIO is affiliated to the Brussels based International Trade Union Confederation, formed November 1, 2006. The new body incorporated the member organizations of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, of which the AFL CIO had long been part. The AFL CIO had had a very active foreign policy in building and strengthening free trade unions. During the Cold War, it vigorously opposed Communist unions in Latin America and Europe. In opposing Communism, it helped split the CGT in France and helped create the anti Communist Force Ouvrière. According to the cybersecurity firm Area 1, hackers working for the People's Liberation Army Strategic Support Force compromised the networks of the AFL CIO in order to gain information on negotiations for the Trans Pacific Partnership.

The AFL CIO has a long relationship with civil rights struggles. One of the major points of contention between the AFL and the CIO, particularly in the era immediately after the CIO split off, was the CIO's willingness to include black workers (excluded by the AFL in its focus on craft unionism). Later, blacks would also criticize the CIO for abandoning their interests, particularly after the merger with the AFL. In 1961, Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech titled "If the Negro Wins, Labor Wins" to the organization's convention in Bal Harbour, Florida. "I would be lacking in honesty," he told the delegates of the 1965 Illinois AFL CIO Convention during his keynote address, "if I did not point out that the labor movement of thirty years ago did more in that period for civil rights than labor is doing today Our combined strength is potentially enormous, but we have not used a fraction of it for our own good or the needs of society as a whole." King and the AFL CIO diverged further in 1967, when King announced his opposition to the Vietnam War, which the AFL CIO strongly supported. The AFL CIO endorsed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In the 21st century, the AFL CIO has been criticized by campaigners against police violence for its affiliation with the International Union of Police Associations (IUPA). On May 31, 2020, the AFL CIO offices in Washington, DC, were set on fire during the George Floyd protests taking place in the city. In response, AFL CIO president Richard Trumka condemned both the murder of George Floyd and the destruction of the offices, but did not address demands to end the organization's affiliation with the IUPA.

After the smashing electoral victory of President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, the heavily Democratic Congress passed a raft of liberal legislation. Labor union leaders claimed credit for the widest range of liberal laws since the New Deal era, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964; the Voting Rights Act of 1965; the War on Poverty; aid to cities and education; increased Social Security benefits; and Medicare for the elderly. The 1966 elections were an unexpected disaster, with defeats for many of the more liberal Democrats. According to Alan Draper, the AFL CIO Committee on Political Action (COPE) was the main electioneering unit of the labor movement. It ignored the white backlash against civil rights. The COPE assumed falsely that union members were interested in issues of greatest salience to union leadership, but polls showed this was not true. The members were much more conservative. The younger ones were deeply concerned about taxes and crime, and the older ones had more conservative social views. Furthermore, a new issue—the War in Vietnam—was bitterly splitting the New Deal coalition into hawks (led by Johnson and Vice President Hubert Humphrey) and doves (led by Senators Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy).

In 2003, the AFL CIO began an intense internal debate over the future of the labor movement in the United States with the creation of the New Unity Partnership (NUP), a loose coalition of some of the AFL CIO's largest unions. This debate intensified in 2004, after the defeat of labor backed candidate John Kerry in the November 2004 US presidential election. The NUP's program for reform of the federation included reduction of the central bureaucracy, more money spent on organizing new members rather than on electoral politics, and a restructuring of unions and locals, eliminating some smaller locals and focusing more along the lines of industrial unionism. In 2005, the NUP dissolved and the Change to Win Federation (CtW) formed, threatening to secede from the AFL CIO if its demands for major reorganization were not met. As the AFL CIO prepared for its 50th anniversary convention in late July, three of the federations' four largest unions announced their withdrawal from the federation: the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the International Brotherhood of Teamsters ("The Teamsters"), and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW). UNITE HERE disaffiliated in mid September 2005, the United Farm Workers left in January 2006, and the Laborers' International Union of North America disaffiliated on June 1, 2006. Two unions later left CtW and rejoined the AFL CIO. After a bitter internal leadership dispute that involved allegations of embezzlement and accusations that SEIU was attempting to raid the union, a substantial number of UNITE HERE members formed their own union (Workers United) while the remainder of UNITE HERE reaffiliated with the AFL CIO on September 17, 2009. The Laborers' International Union of North America said on August 13, 2010, that it would also leave Change to Win and rejoin the AFL CIO in October 2010.

In August 2013, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) disaffiliated from the AFL CIO. The ILWU said that members of other AFL CIO unions were crossing its picket lines, and the AFL CIO had done nothing to stop it. The ILWU also cited the AFL CIO's willingness to compromise on key policies such as labor law reform, immigration reform, and health care reform. The longshoremen's union said it would become an independent union.

In 2024, AFL CIO voiced its opposition to an investor led plan at Norfolk Southern Railway to replace the company's top management and several board members. Organized labor is divided on the issue, which is the major sticking point of a proxy battle between NS management and investors ahead of a May 9, 2024 shareholder meeting. AFL CIO came out and voiced its support for Norfolk's CEO Alan Shaw, citing concerns about safety, service, and job losses. The union criticized the proposal to replace Shaw and implement a system known as precision railroading.