The federation was established in 1957, as a loose body bringing together the South African Federation of Trade Unions, the Co-ordinating Council of South African Trade Unions, the Federal Consultative Council of South African Railways and Harbours Staff Associations, and the Trade Union Council of South Africa (TUCSA).
TUCSA withdrew in 1958, and the remaining federation was broadly supportive of apartheid.
[1] In 1968, the federation decided to permit individual unions to affiliate.
These unions gradually came to operate on an equal footing to the remaining affiliated federations, and this led the Federal Consultative Council to disaffiliate in 1975, although all but one of its own affiliates decided to sign up individually to SACOL.
In 1980, it expelled the South African Technical Officials' Association, after it permitted coloured workers to join, and this led some other affiliates to resign in order to expand their own membership.