AFSCME Office of the Secretary-Treasurer: Government and Civic Employees Organizing Committee Records

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In early 1950, the United Public Workers union was expelled from the CIO for alleged communist activities, leaving behind an anti-communist group called the Government Workers Union. In February of 1950, the CIO chartered the Government Workers Union as the Government and Civic Employees Organizing Committee (GCEOC) and gave the new committee jurisdiction over federal, state, and local employees. In the next five years, GCEOC aggressively attempted to reach full union status within the CIO but failed to do so before the AFL-CIO merger in December 1955. After the merger, GCEOC was absorbed by the AFL's AFSCME. Some of the GCEOC personnel and many of its locals transferred into AFSCME, but by the late 1950s almost all traces of the old GCEOC had disappeared.

These records detail the breakup of the United Public Workers and the formation of the Government Workers Union and the GCEOC. There is considerable documentation on GCEOC Local 1 in Washington, D.C., which became AFSCME Local 1, and of GCEOC organizing efforts in the 1950s in the United States, Canada, and Panama.

NOTE: A non-searchable subject and correspondents index is appended to the end of the guide.

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