Quotations ~ Samuel Gompers (1850 - 1924)
hat does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures,"
Samuel Gompers(1850 - 1924)
Samuel Gompers
Founder of the American
Federation of Labor (AFL)
amuel Gompers emigrated from London, England with his family at the age of 13 in 1863. The following year he took up his father's trade as a cigarmaker and became involved in the Cigar Makers' International Union.
In 1881 Gompers helped found the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions which was reorganized in 1886 and renamed the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The AFL united the various trade unions of skilled workers and set up a heirachical system where each trade was represented by one union where the national organization would preside over the local chapters.
Gompers also initiated a philosophy for labor unions to achieve economic goals for workers without political action or political affiliation of the unions. The resulting procedures led to the devolopment of what became known as collective bargaining supported with contracts between labor and management.
Devoting 38 years to the AFL, Samuel Gompers was president for all but two of those years, working tirelessly to promote the unity of labor through education and through support of striking locals. He was a powerful orator with a strong ability to be persuasive. He was appointed by President Wilson to the Council of National Defense during World War I and was a labor adviser at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Samuel Gompers died in 1925 in San Antonio TX.