union, labor: Early Years to the AFL-CIO

In the United States unionism in some form is almost as old as the nation itself. Crafts that formed local unions in the late 18th and early 19th cent. included printers, carpenters, tailors, and weavers. Their chief purpose was to keep up craft standards and to prevent employers from hiring untrained workers and importing foreign labor. From 1806 there were numerous prosecutions by employers of unions as combinations in restraint of trade. The early 1830s, a period of industrial prosperity and inflation, was a time of union development; however, the financial Panic of 1837 halted this growth. After the Civil War, in 1866, the National Labor Union was formed; it had such objectives as the abolition of convict labor, the establishment of the eight-hour workday, and the restriction of immigration, but it collapsed with its entry into politics in 1872.

Among the most important of the early national organizations was the Knights of Labor (1869–1917), organizing among both skilled and unskilled workers. That policy brought them into conflict with the established craft unions, who joined together to form the American Federation of Labor (AFL; see American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations) in the 1890s under Samuel Gompers. The Knights, thereafter, declined in numbers and effectiveness. The leaders of the AFL opposed the entry of the federation into politics. In 1905 a huge, unwieldy but militant industrial body arose—the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). It concentrated on unskilled workers—lumbermen, migrant workers, and miners. With the conviction of most of its leaders under the Espionage Act during and after World War I, IWW membership shrank, and the organization became ineffective in the 1920s.

During the depression of the 1930s, unions experienced a rapid growth in membership. At this time the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was formed; it was made up at first of dissident unions of the AFL and was led by John L. Lewis. During the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, steps were taken to restore seriously deteriorated standards of employment and to facilitate the development of trade-union organization. The accomplishment of those goals were sought through the passage of such acts as the National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act of 1935, an enactment that enlarged the rights of unions and created the National Labor Relations Board, and by protective labor legislation such as the Fair Labor Standards Act (1938) and the Social Security Act (1935). There were often severe conflicts between the AFL and the CIO during the 1930s and 40s. It was therefore considered a momentous step when in 1955 the two labor groups merged to form the AFL-CIO. The AFL, the larger of the two organizations, was given a proportionate share of the offices of the new federation, and its president, George Meany, was unanimously elected president of the combined body. Industrial unions of the CIO were given a department of their own within the merged organization.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• International Organizations
• In the Third World
• The Late 1950s to the Present
• Early Years to the AFL-CIO
• On the Continent
• In Great Britain
• Bibliography

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