Conventional wisdom has long proclaimed that moss clumps grow on the north side of a tree, but this is only partially true. In the northern hemisphere, the Sun shines from the south, which means the north side of a tree trunk is typically the shadiest.
The Teamsters joined the Service Employees International Union, the largest AFL-CIO affiliate with 1.8 million members, in bolting. The SEIU is a union that AFL-CIO President John Sweeney once headed. They said they were forming a competing labor coalition designed to reverse laborâs long decline in union membership.
The CIO failed to change AFL policy from within. On September 10, 1936, the AFL suspended all 10 CIO unions (two more had joined in the previous year). In 1938, these unions formed the Congress of Industrial Organizations as a rival labor federation.