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.

Merger with the AFL

Reuther succeeded Murray, who died in 1952, as head of the CIO. William Green, who had headed the AFL since the 1920s, died the same month. Reuther began discussing merger of the two organizations with George Meany, Green?s successor as head of the AFL, the next year.

Related Topics:
1952 - William Green - George Meany

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Many of the differences that once separated the two organizations had faded in the years since the CIO left. The AFL had not only embraced industrial organizing, but included industrial unions, such as the International Association of Machinists, that had become as large as the UAW or the Steelworkers. Both union federations had embraced the cause of civil rights, although the AFL included unions that still openly discriminated against black and other minority workers.

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The AFL had a number of advantages in those negotiations. It was, for one thing, twice as large as the CIO. The CIO was, for its part, once again facing internal rivalries that threatened to seriously weaken it.

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Reuther was spurred toward merger by the threats from David McDonald, Murray?s successor as President of the Steelworkers, who disliked Reuther intensely, insulted him publicly and flirted with disaffiliation from the CIO. While Reuther set out a number of conditions for merger with the AFL, such as constitutional provisions supporting industrial unionism, guarantees against racial discrimination, and internal procedures to clean up corrupt unions, his weak bargaining position forced him to compromise most of these demands. Although the unions that made up the CIO survived, and in some cases thrived, as members of the newly created AFL-CIO, the CIO as an organization essentially disappeared in the merger process.

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