American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) began in 1932 when a group of white-collar professional state employees met in Madison, Wisconsin, and organized under the name the Wisconsin State Employees Union/Council 24. The AFSCME is the largest union member affiliated with AFL-CIO (the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organization), a voluntary federation of 56 national and international labor unions representing more than 11.5 million working women and men of every race and ethnicity. The AFL chartered AFSCME in September 1936. At that time, the primary focus of the union was to lobby to pass or strengthen civil service laws. After the AFL-CIO merger in 1955, the union began stressing public workers’ rights and collective bargaining as a means ...