Samuel Gompers: The American Federation Of Labor

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The American Federation of Labor (AFL) was one of the largest and most powerful labor unions of its time. However, without the help of Samuel Gompers the AFL may have never been what it was. Samuel Gompers was born January 27, 1850 in London, England. Samuel's family was extremely poor, as a result he was forced to quit school and enter the workforce at the age of 10-years-old. In order to make it easier on his son, Samuel's father took him with him to work in the cigar factory. However, even with both Samuel, his mother, and his father working; they were unable to make ends meet and they decided to leave for America. The Gompers' arrived in New York City after a seven week ship ride. They moved into a tenement house on Houston Street. …show more content…
To achieve this, he advocated three principles. First, he wanted craft and trade unionism, this restricted union membership to wage earners and grouped workers into locals based on their trade or craft identification. This clashed strongly with the Knights of Labor philosophy, which favors a community-based union where members consist of wage earners and employers. Gomper's second principle stated that pure-and-simple unionism focused on economic reform, rather than political reform, was the best way to secure workers rights. However, his hopes were dashed when two laws regulating tenement production of Cigar workers were overturned by the New York Supreme Court. His third and final principle, Gompers felt that when political action was needed, and he came to see that it was increasingly needed, he urged the union to practice political nonpartisanship. He argued the best way to enhance the political leverage of Labor was to create an independent political agenda. With Gompers' election as president of the AFL in 1886, a position he would hold for the rest of his life (save one year), he immediately set out to build a national federation of trade unions dedicated to these …show more content…
This high point was highlighted by the election of Woodrow Wilson to the presidency. It was during his time as president that the AFL reached its true potential. Due to Gompers influence Wilson promoted him to the Council of Defense, it was in this position that he helped mobilize labor support for the war. Gompers also worked closely with Wilson in order to draft a wartime labor policy for the first time in American history. This wartime labor policy called for government support for independent trade unions and collective bargaining. All of this caused for labor unions to get large amounts of publicity and labor union membership soared into the millions. Gompers became known for his work and Wilson invited him to the Versailles Peace Conference where he was appointed to the Commission on Labor Legislation. It was at this conference where Gompers helped to create the International Labor Organization (ILO). Gompers would go on to do much more, but nothing as significant as the
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