Archives West Finding Aid

By the mid-19th century, workers in crafts and trades formed unions across the country. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) became the first successful alliance of trade unions when it was organized in 1886. The AFL focused on organizing workers by trade or craft. By the 1930s, enough unions within the federation were unhappy with the AFL's unwillingness to organize workers industry-wide that they formed the Committee for Industrial Organization in 1935. Participating unions were expelled from the AFL and formed the Congress of Industrial Organizations in 1938. The two merged in 1955 to form the AFL-CIO. The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which was organized in 1905, sought to organize all workers into "one big union."

The National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, which gave workers the right to organize and bargain collectively, served as an impetus for union organizing in the 1930s and battles between AFL and CIO unions over representation of workers at industrial plants. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 controlled union organizing and other labor-relations issues and helped push the AFL and CIO toward merger.

Among the earliest Oregon trades organized were the cigarmakers, hod carriers, and typographers, all of them forming locals affiliated with the AFL. About 1920, AFL-affiliated unions built the Labor Temple at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Jefferson Street in Portland, Oregon. By the first decade of the 20th century, workers were organizing in the Pacific Northwest lumber industry and on Pacific Coast docks. In addition to organizing by the IWW, workers in the lumber industry organized the International Woodworkers of America at Portland, Oregon, in 1936. On the docks, local unions tended toward independence, but they eventually organized the International Longshoremen's Association and International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union on the West Coast.

Through collective bargaining, the pressure of work stoppages and strikes, and political action, the unions won many benefits for their members, including better wages and working conditions and eventually health and pension benefits. However, unions also encountered anti-union movements, organizations, and employer groups, who used political and governmental action against them. Some were caught up in the hunt for Communist conspiracies that followed World War I and World War II. Major political battles centered on "right-to-work" laws, which prevented "closed shops," where workers were required to join a union. Some unions also participated in and allied themselves with other advocates of various political and social causes.