AFL-CIO. King County Labor Council of Washington

The King County Labor Council of Washington has long been the communal decision-making body of the various union locals in King County. From the mid-1920s until the reunification of the AFL and CIO in 1955, only AFL-affiliated unions were represented on the Council. At other times, however, the vast majority of King County's locals had a voice on the Council.

The Council has passed through at least four distinct periods in its history. The Council originally began in 1888 as the Western Central Labor Union. This body changed its name to the Central Labor Council of Seattle and Vicinity in 1905. These groups occasionally joined coalitions with Populists and other reform groups in local and state politics. Nonetheless, much of the early Council's energy was spent simply trying to survive. The second phase of the Council's history began roughly in 1914 with the labor shortage that allowed unions to organize much of Seattle. The Council grew increasingly radical in this period and became the dominant force in Seattle's powerful progressive coalition. The loss of the Council's power began with the mass layoffs of shipyard workers after World War I. These layoffs led the Council to call the Seattle General Strike of 1919, the only truly city-wide general strike in American history. Employers responded to the failed strike with an open shop drive that de-unionized most of King County. A series of internal power struggles plagued the Council after the strike. The Council voted to expel members of the Industrial Workers of the World in late 1919 and Communist Party members in 1925.

The growing conservative influence in the Council was solidified when Dave Beck and his Teamsters came to dominate the group in the late 1920s. The third phase of the Council's history was thus business unionism, Beck-style. Dave Beck began his career as a driver for the Council's cooperative laundry but rapidly rose to become the chief Teamster organizer west of the Rockies. Beck used the strategic position of truck drivers in the economy to start rebuilding the strength of organized labor in Seattle. If the Council declared a firm to be "unfair to labor," he could often prevent the firm from trucking its goods to market. Despite Beck's occasionally ruthless tactics, he believed that businesses had a right to make a profit. When the Great Depression spurred widespread organizing drives, many firms concluded that they would much rather deal with the avowedly anti-radical Beck than with a CIO union. The Council routinely backed Beck in his jurisdictional disputes with CIO and independent unions. Thus, by the end of World War II, Seattle was largely a closed-shop AFL town. Under Beck's reign, the Council stayed fairly aloof from politics, endorsing moderate pro-labor Democrats and spurning the leftist coalitions that fought for local and state offices.

The fourth stage of the Council's history, its reentry into local politics, began with the merger of the AFL and CIO in 1955. The expanded Council was quickly put on the defensive by statewide right-to-work proposals in Initiative 198 in 1956 and Initiative 202 in 1958. The Council played a leading role in the campaigns that defeated these measures. After these victories, the Council went on the offensive. It started a pro-labor public relations campaign in 1959 that included donating money to charities and promoting radio and television appearances by labor leaders. Beginning in 1964, the Council's Committee on Political Education launched major voter registration drives before elections. The growth of public sector unions in the 1950s and 1960s, coupled with the addition of progressive CIO unions, led the Council to endorse expanded social services and public housing in this period. The Council also supported the efforts of Seattle civil rights groups during the 1960s. Nonetheless, the Council retained some traces of business unionism. It gave a no-strike pledge during the 1962 World's Fair and often helped the Chamber of Commerce lobby for subsidies for local businesses.

During the latter years of the 20th century, the period documented in Accession 1940-2, the council's executive secretaries were, in succession: James K. Bender, Dan Bickford, Ron Judd, and Steve Williamson.

From the guide to the King County Labor Council of Washington Records, 1889-2008, (University of Washington Libraries Special Collections)