MEANY, GEORGE

born Aug. 16, 1894, New York City died Jan. 10, 1980, Washington, D.C. U.S. labour leader, president of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) from the time of merger of the two unions in 1955 until 1979, when he retired. A plumber's son and a plumber himself by trade, Meany joined the United Association of Plumbers and Steam Fitters of the United States and Canada in 1915 and was elected business agent of a New York local in 1922. In 1932 he was elected a vice president of the New York State Federation of Labor and served as its president, 193439. In 1939 he was elected secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of Labor, and, upon the death of William Green in 1952, he became the AFL's president. One of Meany's greatest accomplishments was the merger of two competitive and dissimilar labour organizations (the AFL organized by crafts, the CIO by industries). Meany's long tenure as president of the combined AFL-CIO established him as the leading spokesman for U.S. labour, and he used his power vigorously. Overall he transformed U.S. labour from a basically radical movement to a conservative one. In 1957 he expelled the Teamsters Union, led by Jimmy Hoffa, from the AFL-CIO and, after disputes with its president Walter Reuther, lost the United Auto Workers in 1967. Though considered tardy in supporting equal job opportunities, the program that Meany eventually approved became the cornerstone of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Feisty and often dictatorial, Meany exerted considerable influence in the Democratic Party. In 1972, however, he opposed the presidential candidacy of George S. McGovern; he returned to the Democratic fold in 1976, during the campaign of Jimmy Carter. A fervent opponent of Communism, Meany helped to lead the United States out of the International Labor Organization in 1977 when it refused to criticize repressive Communist policies.