How was the American Federation of Labor (AFL) different from the Knights of Labor
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 William Green (1870-1952), one of the outstanding American trade union leaders of the twentieth century, served as president of the American Federation of Labor from 1924 until his death in 1952. Established in 1886, the American Federation of Labor is an umbrella organization for other unions. In 1881, Samuel Gompers took the lead in organizing the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States of America and Canada. This organization became the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in 1886, in Columbus, Ohio. Many members of these two groups were disgruntled members of the Knights of Labor, the most influential organization of unions in the United States during the 1870s. Gompers served as the AFL's first president. He remained the organization's president, other than for one year, until his death in 1924. Under Gompers's leadership, the AFL became the largest labor union organization in the United States. The AFL initially allowed only skilled workers to join the organization. Unskilled laborers initially did not have representation under the AFL. The group also originally prohibited women, African Americans, and other racial minorities from joining the organization. Gompers supported the use of strikes, but he preferred peaceful negotiations to attain fair contracts for workers from their employers. He also sought to keep the AFL out of the political arena, believing that political activity might offend some business owners and hinder the workers' ability to attain better conditions. By 1904, the American Federation of Labor had 1.7 million members. The organization's membership soared during World War I, as the federal government granted numerous concessions to workers and unions. As the United States was engaged in a world war, the government hoped to avoid strikes by intervening on the behalf of workers with their employers. In 1920, AFL membership had soared beyond four million workers. Unfortunately for the AFL, the 1920s and 1930s resulted in new difficulties for the organization and its leadership. Some members began to call for a more inclusive organization -- one that would fight for the rights of unskilled workers as well, rather than just workers skilled in a particular craft. Tensions over this issue became so prevalent that, in 1935, John L. Lewis, an AFL member, formed the Committee for Industrial Organization. Originally, this organization was a part of the AFL, but in 1937, the parent organization expelled all members of the Committee for Industrial Organization. The Committee for Industrial Organization eventually became the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The AFL and the CIO remained as two separate organizations until 1955, when the two groups reunited together as the AFL-CIO. For the remainder of the twentieth century, the AFL-CIO remained the largest union organization in the United States. The percentage of unionized workers, however, declined beginning in the 1950s. In 1953, 32.5% of American workers were union members. By 1983, only twenty percent of American workers belonged to a union. See AlsoReferences
Summary Read a brief summary of this topicAFL–CIO, in full American Federation of Labor–Congress of Industrial Organizations, American federation of autonomous labour unions formed in 1955 by the merger of the AFL (founded 1886), which originally organized workers in craft unions, and the CIO (founded 1935), which organized workers by industries. History of the AFLFounded in 1881, the Federation of Organized Trades was the precursor of the American Federation of Labor (AFL, or AF of L), which, late in the 19th century, replaced the Knights of Labor (KOL) as the most powerful industrial union of the era. In seeking to absorb the existing craft unions, the KOL had reduced their autonomy and involved them in social and political disputes that did not represent the unions’ own direct interests. Consequently, the craft unions revolted. In 1886, under the leadership of Samuel Gompers, they organized themselves as the AFL, a loose federation that remained for half a century the sole unifying agency of the American labour movement. In its beginnings, the American Federation of Labor was dedicated to the principles of craft unionism. Its approximately 100 national and international unions retained full autonomy over their own affairs. In return, each union received “exclusive jurisdiction” over a craft. Although this provoked some bitter jurisdictional disputes between unions affiliated with the federation, union membership still grew. The AFL, unlike the KOL, did not focus on national political issues. Instead, it concentrated on gaining the right to bargain collectively for wages, benefits, hours, and working conditions. The 1920s marked the first period of economic prosperity that lacked a parallel expansion of unionism. During the Great Depression and into the early 1930s, growth in union enrollments slowed. The administration of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt, however, brought new opportunities for labour. The new political climate, marked by the passage of the 1935 Wagner Act, prevented employers from interfering with union activities and created the National Labor Relations Board to foster union organization and collective bargaining. As a result, the U.S. labour movement entered a new era of unprecedented growth. History of the CIOAn enduring question—whether union organization should be based on craft (skill) or industry (workplace)—became a divisive issue at the American Federation of Labor’s 1935 convention. An industry-based resolution, which stated that “in the great mass production industries … industrial organization is the only solution,” was defeated, which prompted defection. In November 1935, representatives of eight unions announced the formation of the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO). Two more unions joined later. The AFL retaliated by suspending all 10 unions, but the CIO built momentum by organizing the key steel, rubber, and automobile industries, reaching agreements with such large corporations as U.S. Steel and General Motors. In the following year the CIO and the AFL battled for leadership of American labour, often trying to organize the same workers. The CIO held its first convention in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in November 1938, adopting a new name (Congress of Industrial Organizations) and a constitution as well as electing John L. Lewis as its president. Lewis had organized the first successful strike against General Motors (a “sit-down” tactic) in 1937. This action spurred several other organizing efforts and drew new members. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Subscribe Now Lewis pledged to resign as CIO president if Roosevelt, whom he had previously supported, was reelected in 1940. He kept his promise and was succeeded that year by Philip Murray, who had served under Lewis in the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) union. In the following year the CIO organized the employees of the Ford Motor Company, steel companies (including Bethlehem, Republic, Inland, and Youngstown), and other big industrial corporations that previously had refused to sign agreements with it. Merger of the AFL and the CIOThe passage of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 and the growing conservatism in U.S. national labour policies implicit in the statute aroused unions to renewed political activity. The CIO joined the AFL in opposition to the new law, but political unity was only gradually translated into union solidarity. After Murray’s death late in 1952, Walter P. Reuther, head of the CIO’s United Automobile Workers, became president of the CIO. Three years later, in 1955, the AFL and the CIO merged, with George Meany, former head of the AFL, becoming president of the new federation (a post he held until November 1979, a few months before his death). Membership in the new labour entity included about one-third of all nonagricultural workers in 1955. Membership declined steadily thereafter. In 1957 the union federation expressed ethical concerns when it expelled the Teamsters Union after disclosures of corruption and labour racketeering in what was then the nation’s largest union. (Not until 1987 was the Teamsters Union readmitted to the AFL-CIO.) The conservative Meany and the liberal Reuther never achieved more than an icy cordiality, and in 1968 Meany succeeded in getting Reuther and several other CIO leaders expelled from the federation’s executive board. Thereupon, Reuther’s United Automobile Workers (UAW) promptly withdrew from the AFL-CIO, allying with the Teamsters from 1968 to 1972. Reuther died in 1970, and, two years after Meany’s retirement and Lane Kirkland’s accession to the presidency of the AFL-CIO in 1979, the UAW reaffiliated with the AFL-CIO. During Kirkland’s presidency (1979–95) the percentage of workers represented by organized labour declined from 19 to 15 percent. When Kirkland retired on August 1, 1995, he named his secretary-treasurer, Thomas R. Donahue, to fill the remainder of his term. At the organization’s 1995 convention, Donahue was defeated for the presidency by John J. Sweeney in what marked the first competitive election in AFL-CIO history. Sweeney, former president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), led a dissident slate committed to reversing the federation’s declining membership and waning political power. Also in 1995, the first person of colour was elected to an AFL-CIO executive office when Linda Chavez-Thompson became executive vice president. Sweeney pledged to increase union membership through aggressive organizing campaigns and political lobbying. However, because of an increasing decline in union membership, five international labour unions—the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA), the SEIU, and the United Brotherhood of Carpenters, as well as the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE) and the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union (HERE), which later merged to form UNITE HERE—joined together in 2003 to form the New Unity Partnership (NUP), an informal coalition that advocated reform of the AFL-CIO, emphasizing organizing efforts to promote union growth. Following the dissolution of the NUP in 2005, its former member unions—which by then also included the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) and the Teamsters—disaffiliated from the AFL-CIO and launched Change to Win, a formal coalition that afforded an alternative to the AFL-CIO. In 2009 Sweeney stepped down as AFL-CIO president. He was succeeded by Richard Trumka, who had previously served as the president of the UMWA and as the AFL-CIO’s secretary-treasurer. Trumka held the post until his death in 2021. The general organizationLocal union delegates, allocated in proportion to their membership, elect the president to a four-year term. The executive council, which meets at least twice a year, consists of the president, executive vice president, secretary-treasurer, and about 50 vice presidents—most of them presidents of national unions affiliated with the AFL-CIO. An executive committee of six vice presidents selected by the council meets more often with the president and secretary-treasurer to discuss policy matters. Moreover, a general board, which includes the executive council and a principal officer of each affiliated union, meets at least once a year to address policy matters. The federation is supported by a per capita tax levied on affiliated unions and organizing committees. The federation engages in organizing efforts, educational campaigns on behalf of the labour movement, and political support of legislation deemed beneficial to labour. The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaThis article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen. What was the difference between the Knights of Labor and the AFL?The AFL focused on winning economic benefits for its members through collective bargaining. As a federation, it represented several national craft unions that each retained autonomous operations. The Knights, by contrast, represented both craft and unskilled workers in a single national union.
How was the American Federation of Labor AFL different from the Knights of Labor Brainly?The AFL only accepted skilled workers, while the KOL represented both skilled and unskilled laborers.
What made the American Federation of Labor AFL different?Samuel Gompers was the unionist who helped found the American Federation of Labor. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) was a loose amalgamation of skilled craft unions, in contrast to other unions that admitted unskilled laborers.
What was a major difference between the Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor quizlet?What was a major difference between the Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor? The Knights of Labor included African Americans, but the American Federation of Labor excluded them.
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