The AFL-CIO is governed by a quadrennial convention at which all federation members are represented by elected delegates of our unions. Convention delegates set broad policies and goals for the union movement and every four years elect the AFL-CIO officers—the president, secretary-treasurer, executive vice president and 43 vice presidents. These officers make up the AFL-CIO Executive Council, which guides the daily work of the federation. An AFL-CIO General Board includes the Executive Council members, a chief officer of each affiliated union and the trade and industrial departments created by the AFL-CIO constitution and four regional representatives of the state federations. The General Board takes up matters referred to it by the Executive Council, which traditionally include endorsements of candidates for U.S. president and vice president.

At the state level, 51 state federations (including Puerto Rico's) coordinate with local unions and together give working families a voice in every state capital through political and legislative activity. The state federations are led by officers and boards elected by delegates from local unions and are chartered by the national AFL-CIO.

Also chartered by the AFL-CIO are nearly 543 central labor councils, which likewise give working families a voice in cities, towns and counties. Many central labor councils participate in Union Cities, an initiative to strengthen communities for working families and rebuild the union movement at the grassroots level. Union Cities mobilize union members to support workers trying to form unions, to enhance workers' political voice and to build stronger community alliances.

The day-to-day work of the federation is carried out by 12 programmatic departments:

• The Civil, Human and Women's Rights Department works to ensure the full participation of women, people of color and other minorities in the labor movement; to fight discrimination and inequality in the workplace and throughout our society through legislation, regulations, contract language and advocacy; and to create coalitions with our civil rights and community allies to build a broad movement for social and economic justice, including a voice at work for all workers through union membership. The department partners in this struggle with affiliates' civil rights directors and designees, the AFL-CIO constituency groups and civil rights organizations such as the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.
  
  
  
• The Collective Bargaining Department provides strategic, tactical and technical support and assistance to affiliate unions engaged in collective bargaining negotiations. The department also tracks all major negotiations, analyzes bargaining trends and identifies and disseminates bargaining best practices.
  
  
  
• The Field Mobilization Department links the work of the state federations, the central labor councils and the national AFL-CIO. Through a structure of four regions (Northeastern, Southern, Midwestern and Western), field staff members are responsible for working to build a unified labor movement through the Union Cities and New Alliance initiatives. They work with state and local central bodies, affiliated unions, constituency groups and coalition partners. Their mission is to implement key AFL-CIO priorities by mobilizing thousands of members across the country to support organizing and political action. The department also coordinates the AFL-CIO's Community Services program, which provides training, information and referral services to workers who face economic and other personal crises.
  
  
  
• The International Affairs Department promotes the federation's belief that the ultimate test of the global economy is whether it increases freedom, promotes democracy and helps to lift the poor from poverty. The AFL-CIO's Global Fairness campaign promotes democratic, equitable and sustainable development and enforceable rules in a global economy that values people, not just profit. The department works with unions throughout the world to strengthen our solidarity and promote freedom of association and collective bargaining. The American Center for International Labor Solidarity (Solidarity Center) supports independent unions through programs in more than 40 countries on child labor, worker rights’, building union capacity and corporate responsibility.
  
  
• The Office of Investment works to promote high-road investment strategies for workers' financial assets to support long-term value and economic security for working families and their communities. Union- and other worker-based pension, health and savings funds—are worth approximately $6 trillion. 
  
  
  
• The Organizing department facilitates the union movement's most important priority: enabling more workers to come together in unions to improve their lives and promote social and economic justice. The department staff assists unions as they dedicate additional resources to organizing and conducting strategic organizing campaigns. The department also includes the Center for Strategic Research, which supports affiliates' organizing campaigns by conducting and sharing research on corporations and industries; the Organizing Institute, which recruits and trains organizers and lead organizers; Union Summer, which provides internships in organizing campaigns for workers, students and other activists seeking workplace rights and justice in communities; and the Voice@Work campaign, which seeks to restore the freedom of workers to form unions in the United States, a fundamental right that is being routinely denied to workers due to persistent employer opposition and the existing contentious and delay-prone National Labor Relations Board process.
  
  
  
• The Political Department provides union members with opportunities to make their voices heard in the political arena, informs members about candidates' positions on important working family issues and conducts nonpartisan voter registration and get-out-the-vote activities. Union members, staff and leaders are trained to conduct similar efforts at the grassroots level through the department's National Labor Political Training Center. The Target 5000 program seeks to encourage union members to run for office at all levels of government.
  
  
  
• The voice of America's working families is carried to the media, to leaders and to the general public by the AFL-CIO Public Affairs Department. The department publishes the America@work magazine and Work in Progress, a weekly update on workers' efforts to form unions and other developments in the union movement, and produces educational print, Web-based and video materials. Public Affairs also conducts extensive opinion research to keep union leaders closely in touch with the concerns and priorities of members and nonunion workers.
  

• The AFL-CIO Legislative Department pursues an agenda for working families on Capitol Hill. Its priorities include creating more good jobs by investing tax dollars in schools, roads, bridges and airports; improving the lives of workers through education, job training and raising the minimum wage; keeping good jobs at home by reforming trade rules, reindustrializing the U.S. economy and redoubling efforts at worker protections in the global economy; strengthening Social Security and private pensions; making high-quality, affordable health care available to everyone; and holding corporations more accountable for their actions. Union members across America help determine specific platforms of the AFL-CIO by telling of their struggles and hopes at AFL-CIO issue forums and town meetings.
  
  
  
• The Public Policy Department analyzes and develops positions on domestic and international policy matters such as workplace standards and protections, social insurance programs, economic development and economic conditions, taxes and budgets and trade policy. The department's work helps develop the AFL-CIO issues agenda and mobilization effort.
  
  
• No worker should have to die, be injured or become ill for a job. The Safety and Health Department works with affiliate unions and with grassroots groups to preserve workplace safety and health laws, ensure that help is available for workers who are injured or made sick by their jobs and develop new protections as new threats—such as increasing repetitive strain injuries—emerge in changing work environments.
  
• The Office of General Counsel participates in appellate and Supreme Court cases on issues of major importance to affiliate unions; provides legal support for all major federation programs; advises AFL-CIO officers; assists in the internal dispute resolution procedure that governs organizing and jurisdictional conflicts among affiliates; and coordinates activities of the AFL-CIO's Lawyers Coordinating Committee, with its 1,800 union-side attorneys throughout the country.
  
• Administrative departments supporting the work of the federation include Information Technology, Support Services, Accounting, Human Resources, Meetings and Travel and Facility Management.

The AFL-CIO also has seven constitutionally established trade and industrial departments uniting unions with strong common interests and goals, including organizing, legislative and political work. They are the Building and Construction Trades Department, Food and Allied Service Trades Department, Maritime Trades Department, Metal Trades Department, Department for Professional Employees, Transportation Trades Department and Union Label and Service Trades Department. These departments have their own executive bodies, hold their own conventions and manage and finance their own affairs within the framework of the AFL-CIO constitution. With representatives at AFL-CIO conventions and on the General Board, they help shape federation policy in their specialized areas.

AFL-CIO constituency groups form a bridge between unions and diverse communities, creating and strengthening partnerships to enhance the standard of living for all workers and their families. These include the A. Philip Randolph Institute, the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement and Pride At Work.

Allied organizations further the AFL-CIO's mission in additional ways:

The Housing and Building Investment Trusts provide a wide range of real estate-related investment opportunities for Taft-Hartley and public employee pension plans through prudent investments in construction loans, mortgages and ownership of real property. With combined assets of $2.8 billion, they are committed to promoting affordable housing and community development projects while generating good union jobs.

The Union Privilege programs use the consumer buying power of more than 13 million members of AFL-CIO unions to provide a variety of money-saving benefits and services. These programs are available only to union members and their families. (Not all unions participate in all programs.)

The National Labor College (NLC), at the George Meany campus in Silver Spring, Md., began with George Meany's vision that labor should have its own college, a national center to provide continuous labor education for union activists. The center offers labor studies programs in organizing, negotiations, dispute resolution, health and safety, union building and leadership development. The NLC offers a Bachelor of Arts degree program and a new online Bachelor of Technical and Professional Studies degree. Twenty-five affiliate unions and 10 colleges and universities have partnered with the NLC, which hosts other educational institutions' graduate programs in public administration, organizational development and legal and ethical studies. The center also includes the George Meany Memorial Archives and the NLC library and an Educational Design Unit that provides curriculum development support for union educators. 

WORKING AMERICA is a community affiliate of the AFL-CIO for people who do not have the benefit of a union on the job. According to public opinion polls, 57 percent of workers who are not in unions say they would vote for a union tomorrow if they had the chance. Workers join WORKING AMERICA because they are motivated by such issues as protecting overtime pay, the export of U.S. jobs, living wage ordinances, affordable health care and retirement security. As a political and grassroots lobbying organization for working families, WORKING AMERICA advances the priorities its members choose every six months by popular vote.   

The AFL-CIO Working for America Institute (formerly the Human Resources Development Institute) has a broad mission to promote education, training and economic development to advance the interests of working families and their communities. The institute helps unions develop good training programs while connecting them to high-paying jobs. Working in partnership with employers, government and community groups, the institute fosters "high-road" approaches to worker training, technology development and job creation. Through its national, regional and state conferences, handbooks and publications, the Working for America Institute strengthens the ability of unions to develop worker-centered education and training programs and create sustainable, living wage jobs.

Allied organizations working in partnership with the AFL-CIO include the Alliance for Retired Americans, American Center for International Labor Solidarity, International Labor Communications Association, and the Working for America Institute.