Page "Craft unionism" Paragraph 18

The AFL's response to the challenge from the CIO was twofold: both fighting a rearguard action before the National Labor Relations Board to preserve its right to represent the skilled trades in many of the plants that the CIO was organizing, and attempting to emulate it.

Thus, within a decade of the founding of the CIO, unions that had been primarily craft unions, such as the International Association of Machinists, originally a railroad union with much of its membership in the construction industry, began to make serious efforts to organize on an industrial basis as well.

Even the Carpenters took in sawmill workers who had organized on an industrial basis, although the union continued to treat them as second-class members until they seceded to form the International Woodworkers of America in 1937.