American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations | |
Formation | December 5, 1955 |
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Merger of | |
Type | Trade union center |
Headquarters | Washington, DC, US |
Location |
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Membership (2022) | 12,471,480[1] |
President | Liz Shuler |
Secretary-treasurer | Fred Redmond |
Secessions | Change to Win Federation |
Affiliations | International Trade Union Confederation |
Website | aflcio |
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) is a national trade union center that is the largest federation of unions in the United States. It is made up of 60 national and international unions,[2] together representing more than 12 million active and retired workers.[1] The AFL-CIO engages in substantial political spending and activism, typically in support of progressive and pro-labor policies.[3]
The AFL-CIO was formed in 1955 when the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merged after a long estrangement. Union membership in the US peaked in 1979, when the AFL-CIO's affiliated unions had nearly twenty million members.[4] From 1955 until 2005, the AFL-CIO's member unions represented nearly all unionized workers in the United States. Several large unions split away from AFL-CIO and formed the rival Change to Win Federation in 2005, although a number of those unions have since re-affiliated, and many locals of Change to Win are either part of or work with their local central labor councils. The largest unions currently in the AFL-CIO are the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) with approximately 1.7 million members,[5] American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), with approximately 1.4 million members,[6] and United Food and Commercial Workers with 1.2 million members.[7]