United States and Canada 1881

Synopsis

The Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada (FOTLU) was the predecessor of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), which was proclaimed in 1886. FOTLU replaced the National Labor Union (1866-1872), which had been pulled apart by the lure of divergent electoral strategies. FOTLU veered away from electoralism and sought more efficient organization and a more narrow focus than the more expansive labor reform group, the Knights of Labor. There were both socialists and nonsocialists among FOTLU's founding members, yet the Federation as a whole helped to consolidate the trend toward an increasingly nonradical "pure and simple" unionism in the U.S. labor movement.

First executive council of American Federation of Labor...