Since the founding of the AFL in 1886, the AFL-CIO and its predecessor bodies have been the dominant labor federation (at least in terms of the number of member workers, if not influence) in the United States.
[5][7][8] Many unions,[5][7][8] particularly those in the construction industry and affiliated building trades,[9] disaffiliated from the AFL for a variety of reasons.
[12] The battle between the craft and industrial union philosophies led to a major membership loss for the AFL in 1935.
[14] The group met informally for three years, and lost a number of jurisdictional battles over potential or newly organized workers.
[12][13] On September 10, 1936, the AFL suspended all 10 CIO unions (two more had joined in the previous year) and their four million members.
[12] Both the AFL and CIO would form new unions to compete with those they had expelled, with varying degrees of success.
[12] In 1955, the AFL and CIO merged to forming a new entity known as the American Federation of Labor–Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL–CIO).
[5][8] Theoretically, violation of Article 20 could lead to expulsion, but corruption soon became much more important than jurisdictional issues.
After hearings by the Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management led to major revelations regarding the dominance of several AFL-CIO unions by organized crime, new rules were enacted by the AFL–CIO's Executive Council that provided for the removal of vice presidents engaged in corruption as well as the ejection of unions considered corrupt.
[18] Membership changes continued, albeit at a markedly lower level, throughout the last four decades of the 20th century.
The United Auto Workers (UAW) disaffiliated from the AFL-CIO on July 1, 1968, after UAW President Walter Reuther and AFL–CIO President George Meany could not come to agreement on a wide range of national public policy issues or on reforms regarding AFL–CIO governance.
The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America disaffiliated from the AFL–CIO on March 29, 2001, disagreeing with the labor federation's rapid expansion in spending.
[40] Section 7 provides for the expulsion of member unions if they are "officered, controlled or dominated by persons whose policies and activities are consistently directed toward the achievement of the program or purposes of authoritarianism, totalitarianism, terrorism and other forces that suppress individual liberties and freedom of association".