AFL-CIO Merger Consolidates Labor Movement, But Cements Conservative Leadership

The American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merge on December 5, 1955, creating the AFL-CIO with 16 million members representing one-third of American workers. George Meany, the conservative plumber who led the AFL, becomes president, while the more progressive Walter Reuther of the UAW becomes vice president. The merger, occurring at labor’s peak strength with union density at 35 percent, is presented as consolidating worker power but actually entrenches a conservative, anti-communist leadership that prioritizes institutional stability over aggressive organizing.

The merger’s structure reflects Cold War politics more than worker interests. Meany’s fervent anti-communism leads the AFL-CIO to support U.S. foreign policy interventions, including the CIA-backed overthrow of democratically elected governments in Guatemala and Chile. The federation expels unions suspected of communist influence and abandons the CIO’s earlier commitment to organizing the unorganized, particularly in the South where Operation Dixie had failed in 1946. Meany openly expresses contempt for organizing efforts, famously asking “Why should we worry about organizing groups of people who do not want to be organized?”

Rather than launching aggressive campaigns to maintain union density, the merged federation becomes a bureaucratic institution focused on servicing existing contracts and lobbying in Washington. The AFL-CIO’s failure to organize the Sunbelt, resist Taft-Hartley’s restrictions, or adapt to deindustrialization leaves the labor movement vulnerable to the corporate counter-offensive that intensifies after the 1971 Powell Memo. By the time Reuther leads the UAW out of the AFL-CIO in 1968, frustrated by Meany’s conservatism, the strategic moment for labor expansion has passed, setting the stage for decades of declining membership and influence.