- Person
- Samuel Gompers
- Lived
- 1850–1924
- Field
- Labour movement
- From
- British-born American
The story
When the First World War ended, the leaders meeting at the Paris Peace Conference agreed that the peace treaty should include protections for workers and that a permanent international labour body should be created. President Woodrow Wilson appointed Samuel Gompers, who had chaired the wartime Labor Advisory Board of the Council of National Defense, as an official adviser on labour issues.
The conference set up a Commission on International Labour Legislation to draft these proposals. It met for the first time on 1 February 1919, and Gompers was elected its chairman. Two plans competed. The British proposed an international parliament whose labour laws member countries would have to adopt. Gompers, worried that such rules might weaken protections American workers had already won, argued that the new body should make recommendations instead, and his approach was adopted.
Gompers also set the agenda for a charter of workers' rights. Several American proposals were adopted, including the principles that labour should not be treated as a commodity, that workers had the right to a wage sufficient to live on, and that women should receive equal pay for equal work. The charter also supported freedom of association, limits on child labour and the eight-hour working day. The commission reported on 4 March 1919, and the peace conference adopted its report without amendment on 11 April. It became Part XIII of the Treaty of Versailles.
That treaty created the International Labour Organization, which brings together representatives of governments, employers and workers, and which held its first conference in Washington in October 1919. In July 1919 Gompers also chaired the American labour delegates at the first conference of the International Federation of Trade Unions in Amsterdam.
It was a striking achievement for a man who had started rolling cigars at the age of ten. The ILO he helped design is now a United Nations agency with 187 member states, and it still sets international labour standards on working hours, child labour and safety.
Why it matters
The labour charter Gompers helped write into the Treaty of Versailles led to the International Labour Organization, which still sets worldwide standards for workers' rights.
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 founded the American Federation of LaborSamuel Gompers helped found the American Federation of Labor in 1886 and led it as president, except for one year, until his death in 1924.
- 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 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
- International Labour Organization Wikipedia
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.