American Federation of Labor

The American Federation of Labor (AFL) was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio in 1886 by Samuel Gompers as a reorganization of its predecessor, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions. Gompers was the president of the AFL until his death in 1924.

Early years

The AFL was formed in large part because of the dissatisfaction of many trade union leaders with the Knights of Labor, an organization that contained many trade unions and which had played a leading role in some of the largest strikes of the era, but whose leadership had supported several rival unions that had bargained for lower wages and provided strikebreakers during other unions' strikes. The new AFL distinguished itself from the Knights by emphasizing the autonomy of each trade union affiliated with it and limiting membership to workers and organizations made up of workers, unlike the Knights, who also admitted employers as members.

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The AFL grew steadily in the late nineteenth century while the Knights disappeared. Although Gompers at first advocated something like industrial unionism, he retreated from that in the face of opposition from the craft unions that made up most of the AFL. That emphasis on craft unionism also made it difficult for the AFL to put its egalitarian principles into practice: while the AFL did not exclude workers on the basis of their race or nationality, and refused to grant charters to those unions that formally excluded African-Americans, its emphasis on representing skilled workers excluded most black and foreign-born workers.

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That policy of egalitarianism also gave way, however, in 1895, when the AFL admitted the International Association of Machinists, a merger of one organization which the AFL had previously refused to admit and the rival union it had chartered, even though the new union also discriminated against black workers. The AFL sanctioned creation of segregated locals within its affiliates and many affiliated unions, particularly in the construction and railroad industries, actively excluded black workers altogether from both union membership and employment in the industries they had organized.

Related Topics:
1895 - International Association of Machinists

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The AFL took a similar stance on foreign-born workers: while nominally opposing any formal restrictions on their right to join an affiliated union, the Federation's leaders looked down on them as unskilled and therefore not organizable. The AFL also supported legislation that would cut off immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe. Many affiliates excluded immigrant workers by carefully tailored membership requirements and high initiation fees.

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In 1901, the AFL under Samuel Gompers lobbied Congress to reauthorize the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act in a pamphlet entitled "Some reasons for Chinese exclusion. Meat vs. rice. American manhood against Asiatic coolieism. Which shall survive?"

Related Topics:
1882 - Chinese Exclusion Act

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