Texas AFL-CIO

Conventions were held annually beginning in 1957 and biennially from 1965.

Formed by the merger of the Texas State Federation of Labor and the Texas State CIO Council on July 29, 1957. Originally formed as the Texas State AFL-CIO, the name was shortened in 1963 to Texas AFL-CIO. Texas AFL-CIO officers during the years represented by this collection included presidents H.S. Hank Brown, Roy R. Evans, and Harry Hubbard, and secretaries-treasurer Fred Schmidt, Sherman Fricks, and Joe D. Gunn. Conventions are held bienally.

Ralph W. Yarborough was born in 1903 in Chandler, Texas. He attended Sam Houston State Teachers' College for three years and graduated form the University of Texas Law School in 1927. He practiced law in El Paso, Texas, 1927-1931; was Assistant Attorney General of Texas under James V. Allred, 1931-1934; was in private practice in Austin, 1934-1936; was judge of the Third Judicial District, 1936-1941; served in the Armed Forces, 1941-1946; and was in private law practice, 1946-1957. He was an unsuccessful candidate for governor in 1952, 1954, and 1956. He was elected U.S. Senator in 1957, 1958, and 1964. He was defeated in the 1970 Senate race.

Formed by the merger of the Texas State Federation of Labor and the Texas State Industrial Union Council on July 29, 1957. Originally called the Texas State AFL-CIO, the name was changed in 1963 to Texas AFL-CIO.

Formed by the merger of the Texas State Federation of Labor and the Texas State CIO Council on July 29, 1957. Originally formed as the Texas State AFL-CIO, the name was shortened in 1963 to Texas AFL-CIO.

The outside law firm of Mullinax, Wells, Dallas, represented the Texas State Federation of Labor and later the Texas AFL-CIO, from the late 1940's until 1958 when Sam Houston Clinton, Jr., who had left Mullinax, Wells, took over as legal counsel. Winning favorable court determinations on issues important to the labor movement and keeping Texas unions up-to-date on rulings which affected organized labor is the legal counsel's primary function.

The Committee on Political Education is an official committee of the AFL-CIO and serves as its political arm. The committee is the result of the merger between the AFL's Labor's League for Political Education and the CIO's Political Action Committee on the national level in 1955 and in Texas in 1957.

Formed by the merger of the Texas State Federation of Labor and the Texas State Industrial Union Council on July 29, 1957. Originally called the Texas State AFL-CIO, the name was changed in 1963 to the Texas AFL-CIO.

The Texas AFL-CIO was formed by the merger of the Texas State Federation of Labor and the Texas State Industrial Union Council on July 29, 1957. Originally called the Texas State AFL-CIO, the name was changed in 1963 to Texas AFL-CIO.

The Texas State AFL-CIO resulted from the merger of the Texas Federation of Labor and the Texas State CIO Council on July 29, 1957. The Texas Federation of Labor dated from 1900, and the State CIO from 1937. Their merger followed that of the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations, who had joined in 1955 to form the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).

In November 1963, the Texas State AFL-CIO changed its name to the Texas AFL-CIO. Apparently this was done informally, as no evidence of formal action appears in the records that were examined (executive board minutes and attachments). When the meeting of November 23, 1963, began, the organization was calling itself the former name. By the time the minutes were written, its name was the Texas AFL-CIO.

The Texas AFL-CIO is an organization of organizations, including city and area central labor councils and local AFL-CIO unions and auxiliaries. It is the policy-making, educational, and legislative organization of AFL-CIO labor in Texas. It does not negotiate collective bargaining contracts for its members, but it does speak for all Texas AFL-CIO labor in the Texas Legislature and the United States Congress.

The Texas AFL-CIO is one of fifty state central bodies affiliated with the AFL-CIO. In addition to state central bodies, the AFL-CIO has national and international unions, local central bodies, directly-affiliated local unions, and trade and industrial departments.

The Texas Committee on Political Education (Texas COPE) is the political arm of the Texas AFL-CIO. It consists of the officers and members of the Executive Board of the Texas AFL-CIO, the State COPE Director, and the State Community Services/Volunteers Director.

Texas COPE's responsibilities include "get-out-the-vote" campaigns, candidate recruitment, political education of union members and families, endorsements in both primary and general elections, solicitation of voluntary contributions, and statewide voter identification programs. The organization also prepares recommendations to the State AFL-CIO convention after studying recommendations from local central bodies.

Texas COPE is a state-level organization of the Committee on Political Education (COPE), a committee of the AFL-CIO. The AFL-CIO has COPE organizations on the national, regional, state, and local levels. The regional organizations, or areas, coordinate work between the national and state COPE's.

The predecessor organizations of the AFL-CIO, the AFL and the CIO, had similar political organizations. The AFL's was Labor's League for Political Education (LLPE), and the CIO's was the Political Action Committee (PAC).

Funding for COPE comes from voluntary contributions from AFL-CIO members and their friends. State and federal laws prohibit using union dues to make direct contributions to candidates.

The Texas AFL-CIO officers who figure most prominently in this collection are identified below.