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What is the AFL-CIO?

The AFL-CIO is the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations. It consists of labor unions spread throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama, and some U.S. dependencies. The organization was formed in 1955 when the American Federation of Labor (AFL) merged with the Congress of Industrial Nations (CIO) to increase collective bargaining (negotiations between worker representatives and an employer) and political power. By 1992 the AFL-CIO included 88 international unions and had a U.S. membership of 14,100,000 people.

The roots of the AFL-CIO can be traced back to the late nineteenth century. The AFL formed in 1881 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions in the United States and Canada. In 1886 in Columbus, Ohio, it reorganized as the American Federation of Labor. The group was initially a decentralized, craft-based organization that...

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