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American Federation of Labor (AFL)

The American Federation of Labor (AFL) was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio in 1886 by Samuel Gompers as a reorganization of its predecessor, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions. Gompers became president of the AFL in 1886 and was reelected every year except one until his death on December 13, 1924.

The AFL was the largest union grouping in the United States for the first half of the twentieth century, even after the creation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) by unions that left the AFL in 1934 over its opposition to organizing mass production industries. While the federation was founded and dominated by craft unions throughout the first fifty years of its existence, many of its craft union affiliates turned to organizing on an industrial basis to meet the challenge from the CIO in the 1940s.

The AFL represented a conservative “pure and simple unionism” that stressed foremost the concern with working conditions, pay and control over jobs, relegating political goals to a minor role. Unlike the Socialist Party or the even more radical Industrial Workers of the World, it saw the capitalist system as the path to betterment of labor. The AFL adopted “business unionism”, the philosophy that unions could become stronger by emulating corporations. This philosophy, which had been championed by AFL President Gompers for years, favored pursuit of workers’ immediate demands, rather than challenging the rights of owners under capitalism, and took a pragmatic, and often pessimistic, view of politics that favored tactical support for particular politicians over formation of a party devoted to workers’ interests.

American Federation of Labor The American Federation of Labor (AFL) was organized as an association of trade unions in 1886, growing out of an earlier Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions founded in 1881. Gompers (who served nearly every year until 1924), was convinced that unions open to workers of all types of skills within a given industry—called industrial unions—were too diffuse and undisciplined to withstand the repressive tactics that both government and management had used to break American unions in the past. The answer, he believed, was craft unions, each limited to the skilled workers in a single trade. According to Gompers’s “pure and simple unionism,” labor should not waste its energies fighting capitalism; its sole task was to hammer out the best arrangement it could under the existing system, using strikes, boycotts, and negotiations to win better work conditions, higher wages, and union recognition.

Applying this philosophy to politics, the AFL refused to ally itself with the Socialist party or with independent labor parties. Instead, Gompers argued that labor should “reward its friends and punish its enemies” in both major parties. After 1908, the organization’s tie to the Democratic party grew increasingly strong, but the AFL continued to concentrate on political protection for unions, rather than seeking social change through legislative action.

By 1904, the AFL claimed 1.7 million members. Although the union represented only the more privileged members of the country’s work force, it gained increasing influence as the recognized voice of American labor. Its membership declined between 1904 and 1914 in the face of a concerted open-shop drive by management but rose again during World War I, when unions were given considerable government protection. By 1920 the AFL had nearly 4 million members. After the war, however, business resumed its union-busting activities, and the AFL lost ground throughout the 1920s.

By the time the New Deal opened the door again to organized labor, the AFL—now led by William Green (president, 1924-1952)#8212;was facing increasing dissension within its ranks. Craft unions had proved ineffective as a way of organizing the huge industries, such as auto, rubber, and steel, that now dominated the economy. Many in the AFL believed that only industrial unions fit the modern pattern of production. In 1935 John L. Lewis led the dissenting unions in forming a new Committee for Industrial Organization within the AFL. This group, which became the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), grew so powerful that the AFL expelled the ten CIO unions in 1937. The AFL and CIO continued as separate organizations during World War II but were reunited in 1955.

The AFL—CIO was now the nation’s dominant labor organization, but this achievement was already being undermined by changes in the American economy and work force—most notably, the growing loss of jobs in the manufacturing sector where unions had been strongest. In 1945 nearly one-third of American workers belonged to a union; by 1990 the proportion had fallen to less than one-fifth.

American Labor Party

The American Labor Party was a political party in the United States established in 1936 which was active almost exclusively in the state of New York. The organization was founded by labor leaders and former members of the Socialist Party (SP) who had established themselves as the Social Democratic Federation (SDF). The party was intended to parallel the role of the British Labour Party, serving as an umbrella organization to unite New York social democrats of the SDF with trade unionists who would otherwise support candidates of the Republican and Democratic parties.

History

Establishing the ALP

In 1934, the factional war which had dominated the life of the Socialist Party of Americahad reached a turning point. After beating back a challenge to their position and authority in 1932, the New York-based “Old Guard” of the party had been resoundingly defeated at the 1934 National Convention of the Socialist Party. A coalition of radical pacifists surrounding the charismatic former preacher Norman Thomas and a growing body of young Marxists known as the Militant faction had won control of the organization’s governing National Executive Committee and passed a provocative Declaration of Principles, which the Old Guard regarded as a direct call to insurrection. Further galling, from the perspective of the Old Guard, was the eagerness of Thomas and the Militants to build what they called an “all-inclusive party,” bringing radical intellectuals into party ranks from various oppositional communist orbits and working with the Communist Party USA in united front actions.

The New York Old Guard returned home to organize themselves as the Committee for the Preservation of the Socialist Party, raising funds, selecting a “Provisional Executive Committee,” building a mailing list, and maintaining an office in New York City. The Old Guard, headed by former New York State Assemblyman Louis Waldman, also took steps to lock up the ownership and funds of various party-affiliated institutions, including the Jewish Daily Forward, the English weekly “The New Leader,” and the Rand School of Social Science.

A year and a half of bitter factional warfare ensued. Finally, in January 1936, the governing National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party revoked the charter of its dissident New York state organization. The New York Old Guard and their cothinkers exited the Socialist Party and reorganized themselves as the Social Democratic Federation of America (SDF).

The SDF sought to build close relations with the existing trade union movement and disliked, distrusted, and disavowed many of their former Socialist Party comrades and their pretensions to electoral office. In the New York municipal elections of 1935, the Socialists had polled nearly 200,000 votes, a showing which threatened to be a “spoiler” for the chances of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the forthcoming 1936 presidential elections. This view was shared with the Social Democrats by many in the New York trade union movement, who sought to bolster Roosevelt’s chances in some way.

On April 1, 1936, Sidney Hillman, John L. Lewis, and other officials of the unions of the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations established Labor’s Non-Partisan League (LNPL), an organization akin to the modern political action committee, designed to channel money and manpower to the campaigns of Roosevelt and others standing strongly for the declared interests of organized labor.

During the summer of 1936, the New York state organization of LNPL transformed itself into an independent political party in an effort to bolster Roosevelt’s electoral chances in the state by providing him access on a second ballot line. The opportunity to pull the lever for the new American Labor Party, it was hoped, would siphon away a good percentage of the nearly 200,000 votes cast in 1932 for Norman Thomas and the Socialists.

The ALP in the elections from 1936 to 1940

The ALP’s most common strategy was to co-endorse the candidate of one or the other of the two major parties, based upon the perceive favorability of each to the cause of labor. It also nominated its own candidates for some positions, offering competition when neither of the two old party candidates passed muster. Although the organization was founded primarily as a vehicle to help assure Roosevelt’s victory in New York in the 1936 campaign, in that election one of its candidates, Herbert Lehman, had polled over 50,000 votes on the ALP line. Under New York state law, this meant that the ALP was henceforth qualified to register voters and conduct primary elections, thus insuring the organization’s continued existence as a political party in the state.

The organization was largely funded by the rather conservative needle trades unions of the state. The ALP found itself $50,000 in debt at the end of the 1936 campaign, but substantial contributions from labor groups erased the red ink. The ILGWU itself contributed nearly $142,000 to the 1936 campaign, a relatively huge sum for a third party campaign, given that only $26,000 from all sources had been raised and spent by Norman Thomas’ Socialist campaign in the previous presidential election. Party decision-making in the first year was handled by ILGWU executive secretary Fred Umhey, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union’s Jacob Potofsky, and Alex Rose of the Milliners’.

The success of the ALP in its initial campaign was a beacon for other radical organizations. Although its constitution specifically barred Communists from the organization, there was no enforcement for this provision and large numbers flocked to registration as ALP members from the Communist-led United Electrical Workers, Transport Workers, and State, County, and Municipal Workers.

The chief race in 1937 was that for Mayor of New York, pitting pro-Roosevelt progressive Republican Fiorello LaGuardia against a Democratic state supreme court justice, Jeremiah Mahoney. As LaGuardia was on excellent terms with the New York needle trades unions and was a leading spirit in the formation of the ALP, he was a natural choice for the organization’s nomination. Democrat Mahoney countered by red-baiting LaGuardia for his ALP connections, calling the new political organization an “active adjunct of the Communist Party.” This would come to be a common theme in the political discourse about the new party. Also in the 1937 election the ALP tapped Republican special prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey as its nominee for New York District Attorney. Dewey anticipated a probable loss in his race, owing to a wide advantage for the Democratic Party in voter registrations, a number approaching a ratio of 5-to-1. However, on election day, LaGuardia, Dewey, and the ALP emerged victorious. Of LaGuardia’s nearly 1.35 million votes, some 483,000 were registered on the ALP line, while Dewey was elected with nearly 60 percent of the vote.[10]

In 1936, 1940, and 1944, the ALP endorsed Franklin D. Roosevelt for President of the United States. In 1941, American Laborite Joseph V. O’Leary was appointed New York State Comptroller by Governor Herbert H. Lehman both to recognize the ALP’s previous and to maintain the party’s future support. In 1948, rather than support Harry Truman, it backed Progressive Party candidate Henry A. Wallace. By the 1950s, the ALP had lost much of its support to the rival Liberal Party of New York, in part because of accusations of communist influence in the ALP. In 1952, the party nominated lawyer Vincent Hallinan for president, but he attracted little support. Corliss Lamont made an unsuccessful run under the party’s banner for the U.S. Senate, also in 1952. After a disappointing campaign for governor in 1954, the ALP lost access to the ballot, and in 1956, it voted itself out of existence.

Demise of the organization

In the 1954 election, the ALP failed to garner 50,000 votes for any of its candidates and it lost its place on the New York ballot.

In 1956 the party was terminated by its New York state committee.

[Composed in large part by Tim Davenport]