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Archive 1

Infobox Union

I added the Union infobox. It is has been created as part of WikiProject Organized Labour. This is only the second article it has been added to, as development has not been finalized. Please feel free to comment on both the content fields and style of the infobox on the template disscusion page at {{Infobox Union}}. There is a (fairly arbitrary) date of March 1st as an aim for a more general usage of this infobox, and any input would be appreciated. Cheers.--Bookandcoffee 23:57, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

This uncommented edit by User:Jacrosse dropped a bunch of "see also" links, which looked to me like a listing of portions of the AFL-CIO. Jacrosse: were these wrong, or did you just decide they aren't important? - Jmabel | Talk 05:31, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

merge Metal Trades Department of the AFL-CIO

I don't think these two should be merged. At 5 million members the MTD is a large organization on its own, and a seperate article is reasonable.--Bookandcoffee 22:48, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree: The departments of the AFL-CIO are largely autonomous, and each has a great deal of control over its jurisdictional areas. For example: The disaffiliation of the Carpenters union in 2000 led to a major dispute within the Building Trades Dept. in which the larger AFL-CIO was unable to participate or resolve. The dispute led, in part, to the larger debate over the role of the AFL-CIO in 2004-2005. The disaffiliation of the Operating Engineers from the Building Trades in 2006 continues to reverberate, and may well impact the entire AFL-CIO as well as the Change to Win labor organization. Additionally, these departments establish major contractual, jurisdictional and organizationl structures which have a significant impact on American industry. Merging them would be akin to merging Library of Congress into an article on Congress. Tim1965 18:03, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Agree. We need more articles on labor-related entities that are significant in their own right, not fewer. - Jmabel | Talk 00:58, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

It's been over ten days - I'm going to remove the merge tag. Bookandcoffee 00:08, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Expansion request

I have added this notice after reading CSB and seeing a request to improve this article. The AFL-CIO is one of America's most important and influencial lobby groups, and deserves a much larger article on its achievements in government, legislation and union work. Harro5 09:00, May 23, 2005 (UTC)

  • Inserted Attention and Hist-stub towards the same goal. The article looks nice, but it is drastically short of materials on this long storied and colorful American institution with a checkered and influential past. FrankB 01:14, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure how far to go on this. I have a really good 'short' history, but it runs to 33 typewritten pages. Far too long for a Wikipedia article. Some of it (Haymarket riot, 'Battle of the Bridge,' Samuel Gompers bio, Walter Reuther bio, etc.) can be chopped out, but it's still too lengthy. Tim1965 02:06, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Removed "International Relations" Section

This section isn't really well explained and the articles given are very biased. I think that until we have more general iformation about AFL-CIO policies, these claims should be removed.

==Role in Destabilizing Democratically elected Venezuelan government== ===2002=== In Venezuela, the AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center worked with and funded what it called the "flagship organizations" behind illegal, company-initiated lockouts of oil workers and the failed coup against the democratically elected government of Hugo Chavez. See www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?sectionID=19&itemID=8268 and http://www.counterpunch.org/barahona10222005.html Role in Destabilizing Democratically elected Haitian government ===2004=== In June 2006 an American Labor Magazine, Labor Notes, documented the role that the ORIT, ICFTU, ILO, and the AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center played in supporting a destabilization campaign waged against Haiti's elected Aristide government. The Solidarity Center ignored and failed to investigate massive labor persecution against public sector workers and trade unionist supporters of the ousted government throughout 2004, 2005, and 2006. See http://labornotes.org/archives/2006/06/articles/f.shtml --Trabisnikof 06:26, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Under "See also" is Organizing Institute, is this meant to Interest Group? Can anyone help with this? --24.7.194.240 07:58, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

The AFL-CIO's Organizing Institute ([1]) is an organizer training program. Perhaps it shouldn't be linked though - removing. Fcendejas 05:18, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Teamsters

I thought the Teamsters was the largest Union. No? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.12.161.181 (talk) 18:40, 10 March 2007 (UTC).

Removed "Food and Allied Service Trade Department, AFL-CIO"

FAST was dissolved as a constitutional department of the AFL-CIO following the disaffiliation of UFCW and UNITE-HERE and subsequent creation of Change to Win. It now operates as a non-profit called FAST-RAA and does the same work for the same people (both Change to Win and AFL-CIO unions). I changed the number of constitutionally mandated number to six from seven, although i can't vouch for that number. --Poppopbang 21:22, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

NNOC

NNOC is merely a union affiliated with the California Nurses Association. The list of AFL-CIO unions does not also list affiliates of unions; that would be for the union's page or (if the list is large) a list page. The rare exception is when an affiliate union is autonomous (such as RWDSU within UFCW). Another exception is when several small unions have joined together in a federation and that federation has affiliated with the AFL-CIO (such as the actors' unions). NNOC is a unique organization no doubt (it is a combination of "movement union" akin to SEIU's "Purple Ocean" or the AFL-CIO's Working America, and traditional organizing project), but it is not autonomous within CNA and did not affiliate separately with the AFL-CIO (as the actors' unions did, as did their federation). Absent additional information on either the CNA or NNOC pages, I would argue NNOC should come off this list. And it has. - Tim1965 13:59, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think NNOC should be absent from this list, since it is a national organization, but I see where you're going with your edit. I edited the union's designation to "California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee," and created the redirect to the CNA page.Tony Clothes 02:44, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
There are plenty of "national organizations" which unions have (for example, UFCW's "Hotel Workers Rising" or AFT's "AFT Healthcare" or CWA's "Nurses United"). My test is not whether it's national or not; my test is whether NNOC is the collective bargaining agent (it currently is not), whether it is incorporated separately from the parent union (I did some cursory research, and did not find any separate incorporation), and whether any affiliation agreement exists between the parent and subdivision (there is none). In cases where NNOC has been active (only Arizona and Illinois so far), it has acted like an organizing project rather than a union and not met these criteria. NNOC is not like SAG, which is affiliated under the umbrella "Actors and Artistes". Your solution works well enough, but I'd still press for its elimination until there is evidence to the contrary. - Tim1965 (talk) 23:27, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

"Canadian" AFL-CIO?

I want to raise an issue with tagging this as an article about Canada. I think the infobox is incorrect. While international unions may have members in Canada, the international does not (as far as I can determine) pay dues on these Canadian members to the AFL-CIO. Rather, the dues are paid to the Canadian Labour Congress. I don't think the AFL-CIO counts a single Canadian as a member. For example: International unions based in the U.S. may claim they represent "1.1 million members," but the AFL-CIO recognizes only the 750,000 based in the U.S. Can anyone else confirm this? - Tim1965 (talk) 23:34, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Is Victor Bussie really of enough importance to merit a "see also" here? And isn't "Louisiana labor legend" rather POV? - Jmabel | Talk 00:45, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Louisiana has traditionally been the most unionized state in the South, and Victor Bussie dominated state government from the 1950s-1970s.Billy Hathorn (talk) 23:20, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Conversely, Organizing Institute and Union Summer were both recently removed (presumably because the articles don't yet exist). I can't argue with the logic, but they are both articles that someone should write. - Jmabel | Talk 06:37, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

This article appears to be suffering from chronic vandalism. Anyone with experience and time to make a revert, please help! And is there a way to block the users who keep messing with this? Cotixan (talk) 13:07, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

US or international?

So is the AFL-CIO an international organization or is a US organization? The article is confusing and seemingly contradictory about this. The first sentence (after my copy-edits) says that the AFL-CIO is "the largest federation of unions in the United States", but then says "made up of 53 national and international unions" and later the article says "The AFL-CIO is a federation of international labor unions". -Pgan002 07:05, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

The AFL-CIO is not a truly internaional organization. 'International unions' in America are really large American unions that have locals in Canada. As a national labour federation, the AFL-CIO only has influence over the American unions, but the American unions often have varying degrees of control over the Canadian sections. Canada also has a national labour fed, the Canadian Labour Congress, which most of the unions affiliate with as well. If I remember, I'll wikify the mention of international and write up a quickie explanation page. --Crigaux 16:14, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
"International" is a standard term in the North American labor movement to describe what is essentially the national union, compared to a Local, Joint Council or regional body. Yes, most of the "international" unions only have membership in Canada and Puerto Rico, and although that does technically makes them international, it is something of a misnomer. It's a standard term in the community nonetheless, and to use anything else would be a bit revisionist. --Poppopbang 13:12, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

The link "Teamster's Disaffiliation letter to John Sweeney, President AFL-CIO 2005" goes to the Teamster's webpage, which does a tag word search of some sort, but comes up with nothingKnosisophile (talk) 08:04, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

CIA funding

There is no mention or discussion of the funding support that the AFL-CIO received from the CIA on either this page or any of the pages for the AFL or CIO as mentioned on http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/going-highbrow-at-the-cia-11249 . Can anyone confirm or deny this? 72.203.157.85 (talk) 17:27, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Mother lode of free images

I came across a great resource for union and political images at AFL-CIO's flickr page.--Blargh29 (talk) 04:53, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

List of members

I moved the list of AFL-CIO members into its own article: List of unions affiliated with the AFL-CIO. The list was just too long, this article was getting unwieldy, and membership lists and criteria deserved their own article anyway. - Tim1965 (talk) 17:46, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

AFL-CIO's attempt to ban home computer work

In 1984-1985 the AFL-CIO attempted to have the Federal Government ban people form doing work on home computers. This was quite controversial in the day. That seems like it would be a good addition to this article. JettaMann (talk) 19:27, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Ah, but I doubt it'll find its way in with all these union thugs. Richard Trumka has seen that no negative material will find its way onto the AFL-CIO article. Might as well forget trying to criticize the union....they ran screaming into a capitol last time someone did. No, I believe this article is heavily biased and that we must change it from a union brochure to a neutral article.Nbarile18 (talk) 04:12, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
WP:AOBF. Although the assumption of good faith is dictated by Wikipedia policy, there is no corresponding policy requiring editors to act in good faith. Thus accusations of bad faith serve no purpose. JettaMann, do you have a source that can verify this (or multiple sources)? - SudoGhost (talk) 19:22, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

public sector

A large majority of these unions represent mainly or exclusively workers in the government sector, or in receipt of massive corporate welfare payments, such as UAW or those in agriculture. The phrase 'public sector' is not even used in the article, but this seems a significant fact about unions in the US today. Anyone got an figures on this? Qlangley (talk) 22:52, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

the term "federation"

"Federation" is applicable at many levels -- such as in AFL, state federations, CtW Federation -- and is sometimes referred to as "fed." Copy editing with this in mind could improve clarity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.186.89.58 (talk) 15:32, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

imperialism section?

"US labour movement, once the paradigm of union bureaucracy and labour imperialism overseas...sees itself going back to basics, asking itself about its purpose, its representativity, its strategy and its organisation. While remaining staunchly pro market in many ways, the AFL CIO has realised the limitations of a Washington based lobbying approach and is rediscovering its roots as a vigorous, campaigning social movement." (Munck, Globalisation and Labour, 2002, p, 191). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.84.68.252 (talk) 02:28, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Who is the union for? The workers?

i need help because i have to know this for a project so who are the unions for? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.74.247.117 (talk) 16:02, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (non-admin closure) Calidum Talk To Me 21:56, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

AFL–CIO → American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations – Much more clear and easy to understand. Mr P. Kopee (talk) 06:08, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Challenge and remove unsourced material

The authorization to remove unsourced material has been there for almost 7 years now. I am beginning the process of removing unsourced statements. As we all know, it is non-negotiable Wikipedia policy that all material must be supported by WP:RS. Posting material without providing RS citations amounts to OR & POV, so the rules are clear. If anyone wants to restore deleted material, that is fine, PROVIDED it is properly sourced. If it is not, I will remove that too. EditorASC (talk) 03:35, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

I note that my removal of unsourced material has been reverted. The rationale given in the edit summary was that "'challenge' means asserting it's false or misleading." That is not the case here. It was challenged and removed because there was no RS sourcing of the statements, AND the notice which authorizes removal of unsourced statements, has been there for almost 7 years. I call your attention to these Wiki rules of editing, which are NON-NEGOTIABLE:
"NPOV is a fundamental principle of Wikipedia and of other Wikimedia projects. It is also one of Wikipedia's three core content policies; the other two are "Verifiability" and "No original research". These policies jointly determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in Wikipedia articles, and because they work in harmony, they should not be interpreted in isolation from one another. Editors are strongly encouraged to familiarize themselves with all three."
"This policy is nonnegotiable, and the principles upon which it is based cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, or by editor consensus." [[2]]
"Any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged must be supported by a reliable source. Material for which no reliable source can be found is considered original research. The only way you can show your edit is not original research is to cite a reliable published source that contains the same material. Even with well-sourced material, if you use it out of context, or to reach or imply a conclusion not directly and explicitly supported by the source, you are engaging in original research." [[3]]
"All material in Wikipedia mainspace, including everything in articles, lists and captions, must be verifiable. All quotations, and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation that directly supports the material. Any material that needs a source but does not have one may be removed." [[4]]
I will continue to remove all material in this article that remains unsourced. If no one has been able to find valid WP:RS cites to support the statements, even though they have had almost SEVEN YEARS to do so, then that alone is good reason to doubt there are any valid RS souces out there to support such statements.
Reverting my deletions, without adding valid WP:RS sources, if and when such statements are restored to the article, violates these fundamental Wiki editing rules. If any other editor wants the material to remain, then provide valid WP:RS for the statements. It's that simple. EditorASC (talk) 20:55, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
let us start at the beginning-- does EditorASC believe that the material in question is false and misleading? if not, the proper solution is to put a tag and requesting a citation. The racing another editors hard work is bad editing policy. Rjensen (talk) 20:57, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

I seriously doubt much of the material can be sourced with valid WP:RS cites. If it can be, then why wasn't that done during the last seven years, after the notice -- authorizing removal of unsourced statements -- was first posted? I have not been able to find any valid sources myself.

There is only one way to find out if there are valid WP:RS sources: For some other editor to begin providing them. I will wait a few days, to allow time for some other editors to get cracking. But, if statements remain, without the required sourcing, then I will continue to remove them. That is Wikipedia policy, when there is a dispute about NPOV and OR. EditorASC (talk) 21:23, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

We do not have to wait so long, I added a series of citations and links that should do the job. There never has been any dispute about NPOV or OR. Everyone knows that the AFL-CIO has a governance system, the question is how best to provide documentations to help readers follow up on the matter. Rjensen (talk) 21:26, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
@Rjensen: note by the way that there was another big block of uncited (or poorly cited??) information removed prior to the one you reverted. Unsure if you missed this...if so there may be information in it worth recovering, not necessarily all of it. Thanks for adding sources where possible too! :) djr13 (talk) 22:00, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
OK, I added some back, with fresh sourves. Rjensen (talk) 23:06, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

The plagiarism and copyright violations in this article are massive:

This Wikipedia article on the AFL-CIO, [[5]] is composed largely by rank plagiarism and copyright violation. The following sections are word-for-word copy & paste plagiarism from this copyrighted site: http://www.iaff2740.org/?zone=/unionactive/view_article.cfm&HomeID=109487&page=Union20101


Governance

Executive council

Executive committee

General Board

State and local bodies

Constitutional departments

Constituency groups

Allied organizations

Allied groups

Programs

International policy

History

New Unity Partnership

=

I made a comparison at: http://tools.wmflabs.org/dupdet/ and, here are the results: Comparing documents for duplicated text: [[6]] [[7]]

Downloaded document from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFL%E2%80%93CIO (134783 characters, 5593 words) Downloaded document from http://www.iaff2740.org/?zone=/unionactive/view_article.cfm&HomeID=109487&page=Union20101 (306310 characters (UTF8), 11671 words) Total match candidates found: 27292 (before eliminating redundant matches)

In other words, the amount of word-for-word plagiarism, from a copyrighted site, is MASSIVE.

Frankly, I doubt it would be a good idea to delete all the plagaized material, and try to save the rest of it. That would take an awful lot of time, and the article will be so massively devastated, that I think it better to allow interested editors to start over again with an entirely new article that follows Wiki rules. EditorASC (talk) 01:26, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Woah there partner, hold your horses. You seem really eager to lay down the law, but please put the badge away and holster the six-shooter. A little research would show that, apparently, the article on the external website is actually ripped from Wikipedia, rather than the other way around! Some links for your kind consideration:
Also notice that on the external website, all (or most) of the links in the article are to other Wikipedia articles. There may be a copyvio, but it appears to only be in the fact that the external website forgot to give credit to us Wikipedia editors. djr13 (talk) 02:51, 16 January 2015 (UTC)


That page is from late 2008, and this page dates to 2003 - even if there's been copyright infringement, there are pre-copyvio versions to revert to. G12 is inapplicable, consider Wikipedia:Copyright Investigations for ambiguous/complicated cases like this. WilyD 10:18, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
The Governance section appears here on 6th Decembre, 2008 link, 8 days before the external page was posted. Most likely, it's all copied from here to there, but a deeper investigation may be worthwhile . WilyD 10:31, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
I posted the template that seemed to be closest to this situation. I don't think it fair to accuse me of trying to lay down the law, when the Wiki instructions seemed to indicate I should do as I did, after discovering what appeared to be massive copyright violation.
One point you seem to be overlooking, is that for almost 7 years, no one seemed to want to provide the required WP:RS citations, even with that "can be challenged and removed" tag there for that long. THAT increased the suspicion because if they had plagiarized it from some other site, they wouldn't want that revealed by posting links to that site.
You are the one who is to make the decision, once lowly editors like me post the template, which requests you to look at it and decide what should be done. Isn't that why only Admins have the power to take that kind of action? Because most editors don't have the kind of experience and knowledge that you do? All we can do is ask for some admin to look at it, and that is what I did. I did that in good ("assume") faith, so hard to understand your caustic language.
Anyway, thanks for all that additional info. Helps me to understand the process a bit better. As to a deeper investigation, is that automatic now? Or do I have to post some other template to request that process? If so, can I do that without getting my head bit off? EditorASC (talk) 14:08, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
Ah, crap, the link I gave before was broken. Wikipedia:Copyright problems has instructions on dealing with more complicated copyright infringement cases. Nothing happens automatically. You don't need to be an admin to decline speedy deletion requests - anyone can do so (except the creator of the article), but mostly admins process requests, because we're the only ones with the technical ability to delete pages; doesn't make sense to investigate the requests if you can't process 'em all. Before doing anything, I'd recommend making sure there's really reason to believe there's a problem. Given http://www.iaff2740.org/ copied at least part of the content there from Wikipedia, I think it's overwhelmingly likely that all the duplicated copy comes from here, and they're infringing the copyright of the authors here, not the other way around - there's information here on websites that copy content from here (but the short of it is you usually can't do much unless you're the author, since individual authors own their own content, and Wikipedia has no dog in the fight). WilyD 14:43, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

organized crime

why isn't the violent and criminal past of the AFL-CIO groups discussed here. Mountains of material exists detailing AFL-CIO corruption and the violent activity to form the unions. Would it make sense to have a section on it? 24.112.184.42 (talk) 23:32, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

annual meetings From 1951 to 1996

There is a long section on dates, hotels, room rates and local squabbles regarding the annual meetings from 1951 to 1996. It's all based on OR -- No reliable secondary sources are cited. This very old trivia is not of encyclopedic interest. Rjensen (talk) 02:36, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't see how it it WP:OR. I see 8 sources cited in the section on annual meetings. Based on the reliable secondary sources, it appears the location of the union's annual meeting has been the source of notable controversy through the years. I see no reason to strike it from the article. Safehaven86 (talk) 01:54, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
The section fails the Wikipedia rule on wp:RS It does not use any RS = reliable secondary sources. It only uses primary sources (eg local newspaper stories). The "controversies" were never notable enough to come to the attention of any scholar, --they were talking about how much the hotel room rate cost! You fill the article with low-quality information, and the high quality material gets lost from sight. Rjensen (talk) 02:01, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
Newspaper articles are generally secondary sources, per WP:WPNOTRS. United Press International and the Associated Press are also not local newspapers, but major international news distribution networks. And I didn't add this information to the article, in any event, so I don't think I'm "filling the article with low-quality information," just making sure well-sourced information isn't removed for non policy-based reasons. Safehaven86 (talk) 02:14, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
the facts are not in dispute. It's their importance. No reliable secondary source is given that says these old small episodes are historically important. that is, the stories are not encyclopedic. Rjensen (talk) 07:06, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Funding

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/sep/30/labor-unions-awarded-millions-from-federal-agencie/

Receives public funding. Benjamin (talk) 01:02, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

The source doesn't support the claim that the national AFL-CIO "receives public funding" — rather, if there are individual union organizations that have received federal grants for job training, health care programs, etc., they could be mentioned individually in each of those unions' articles, if there's consensus that it's relevant. Lots of organizations "receive public funding" by taking federal grants to do particular things, and I'm not sure we have to point out in each of those individual cases where the funding for those things comes from. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 01:21, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
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