GOMPERS, SAMUEL
Samuel Gompers, a founding member and longtime president of the AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR (AFL), was instrumental in broadening the goals of the labor movement in the United States.
He used his gifts as an organizer and speaker to
consolidate numerous unions into one umbrella
organization that lobbied successfully for
improved working conditions for all tradesmen.
The son of Dutch immigrants, Gompers was
born in London on January 26, 1850. He
attended school briefly but began working at age
10. Initially apprenticed to a shoemaker, he
chose instead to become a cigarmaker like his
father. The family moved to New York in 1863,
and within a year Gompers had joined the Cigar
Makers’ National Union.
At around this time many trades were begin-
ning to form unions, but their power was limited
because as small, individual groups they had lit-
tle clout. By the 1880s, leaders of the various
unions decided that by uniting in common cause
they would make for a stronger political force.
Late in 1881, several unions joined together to
form the Federation of Organized Trades and
Labor Unions (FOTLU). Gompers, who had
proven himself an able leader in the cigarmakers’
union, was elected an officer of FOTLU.
FOTLU was a first step for organizing
unions but it was too loosely connected to have
any real influence. In 1886, FOTLU was restruc-
tured into the American Federation of Labor
(AFL), and Gompers was elected president.
Except for a one-year hiatus in 1895, Gompers
remained AFL president for the rest of his life.
As AFL president, Gompers steered the
organization toward practical goals. He was
interested in securing living wages for union
members, an eight-hour work day, comprehen-
sive CHILD LABOR LAWS, equal pay for women
and men, and compulsory school attendance for
children. To that end, he lobbied tirelessly for
these and other improvements for working men
and women.
Gompers steered clear of political issues
(although in 1899 the AFL did endorse women’s
suffrage). Many left-wing labor leaders thought
that Gompers was too timid and ineffective, too
tied to the mainstream. Anarchist EMMA GOLD-
MAN wrote that the AFL had not “grasped the
social abyss which separates labor from its mas-
ters, an abyss which can never be bridged by the
struggle for mere material gains.” But under
Gompers’s leadership, labor made significant
sustainable gains at the state and federal level.
Workers’ compensation laws were enacted to
