- Person
- Samuel Gompers
- Lived
- 1850–1924
- Field
- Labour movement
- From
- British-born American
The story
Samuel Gompers was born in 1850 in a London tenement to a Jewish family of Dutch origin and came to New York with his family in 1863. A cigar maker by trade, he rose through the Cigar Makers' International Union, where he became president of Local 144 in 1875, to become one of the most important figures in American labour history.
In 1881 he helped found the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada, chairing its constitutional committee. In 1886 conflict with the Knights of Labor, which had tried to undercut the cigar makers during a strike, pushed the craft unions to break away. On December 8, 1886, delegates representing 13 national unions met in Columbus, Ohio, and formed the American Federation of Labor. Gompers was elected its first president, a full-time post paid $1,000 a year.
Apart from the year 1895, when the miners' leader John McBride held the office, Gompers was re-elected every year until his death in 1924. From 1894 he also edited the federation's journal, The American Federationist. He believed solidarity could not be imposed from above, so the AFL respected the independence of its member unions while helping them support one another. He promoted harmony among the different craft unions and tried to minimise disputes between them.
Growth was slow at first: the federation passed 250,000 members only in 1892. But by 1900 the AFL had largely replaced the Knights of Labor as the leading voice of American workers, and its membership reached about 4 million by the end of 1919. Gompers served as labour's main spokesman before Congress, state legislatures and employers.
The Jewish Virtual Library calls him the dominant figure in the American labour movement for almost four decades. The federation he led still exists as the AFL-CIO, formed when the AFL merged with the Congress of Industrial Organizations in 1955 under George Meany, and it still speaks for millions of American workers.
Why it matters
The AFL that Gompers built gave millions of American workers an organised national voice in the fight for better wages, shorter hours and safer workplaces, and it continues today as the AFL-CIO.
About Samuel Gompers
London-born Jewish cigar maker who founded and led the American Federation of Labor for nearly four decades, making collective bargaining a fixture of American working life.
More about Samuel Gompers
- Samuel Gompers backed amnesty for political prisonersAlthough he strongly supported the First World War, Samuel Gompers later backed amnesty for people imprisoned under wartime emergency laws for their opinions.
- Samuel Gompers spoke for 25,000 jobless workers in 1893During the 1893 depression, Samuel Gompers addressed 25,000 unemployed workers in Chicago and argued that cutting wages hurt not only workers but the whole economy.
- Samuel Gompers championed collective bargainingSamuel Gompers built the AFL around collective bargaining for higher wages, shorter hours and safe working conditions, procedures between labour and management still used today.
- Samuel Gompers helped build Canada's union movementIn the 1890s and 1900s Samuel Gompers helped Canada's Trades and Labour Congress with money and organisers as part of his vision for an international federation of labour.
- Samuel Gompers chaired the 1919 labour commissionAt the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, Samuel Gompers chaired the Commission on International Labour Legislation, whose workers' rights charter was written into the Treaty of Versailles.
- Samuel Gompers gave union members sick and jobless benefitsAfter the cigar makers' union nearly collapsed in the 1870s, Samuel Gompers rebuilt it with sickness, accident, unemployment and death benefits that other unions copied.
Sources
- Samuel Gompers Wikipedia
- Samuel Gompers Jewish Virtual Library
- American Federation of Labor Wikipedia
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