Congress of Industrial Organizations

The Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO, was a federation of unions that organized industrial workers in the United States and Canada in the 1930s through the 1950s. Originally known as the Committee for Industrial Organization, it was founded in 1935 by eight international unions within the American Federation of Labor to pressure the AFL, which had either opposed or given only lukewarm support to organizing mass production industries, to change its policies. After failing to change AFL policy from within, five of these eight unions split from the AFL to found the Congress of Industrial Organizations as a rival federation in 1938. The CIO rejoined the AFL, forming the new entity known as the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), in 1955.

Further reading

Archives

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• Southern Labor Archives. Department of Special Collections, The University Library, Georgia State University. Official repository for hundreds of local and regional union offices, as well as the national offices of IAMAW, NFFE, UGWA, UFWA, PATCO, UTWA, and the Georgia State AFL-CIO. Online guide retrieved April 27, 2005.
• Operation Dixie: The CIO Organizing Committee Papers, 1946-1953. Edited by Katherine F. Martin. Media: 75 reels of 35mm microfilm. Online guide to the microfilm edition retrieved April 27, 2005.

Books

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• Fraser, Steven. Labor Will Rule: Sidney Hillman and the Rise of American Labor. Cornell University Press; Reprint edition (September 1, 1993). 688 pages. ISBN 0801481260.
• Griffith, Barbara S. . The Crisis of American Labor: Operation Dixie and the Defeat of the CIO. 240 pp. Temple University Press. Online abstract retrieved April 27, 2005. ISBN 0877225036
• Lichtenstein, Nelson. Labor's War at Home : The CIO in World War II. Cambridge University Press; Reprint edition (February 27, 1987). 332 pages. ISBN 0521335736.
• Lipsitz, George. Rainbow at Midnight: Labor and Culture in the 1940s. University of Illinois Press (November 1, 1994). ISBN 0252063945.
• Preis, Art. Labor's Giant Step: The First Twenty Years of the CIO: 1936-55. Pathfinder Press (NY); Rev edition (December 1, 1964). ISBN 0873482638.
• Zieger, Robert H. The CIO 1935-1955. University of North Carolina Press (March 1, 1995). 504 pages. ISBN 0807821829.

Websites

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• Work'n'Progress: Stories of Southern Labor. A project of the Southern Labor Archives, Department of Special Collections, The University Library, Georgia State University.