Federation of Labor
The American, an alliance of international and other trade unions. The term international is used to include Canadian and other North American locals. The convention of 1909 was held at Toronto. The present organization grew out of an older federation. It took the present form in 1886. Friction had existed for some time between the Knights of Labor and the stronger trades unions. The American Federation was organized on the plan of leaving to each trade the direction of its own affairs and the organization of its own union. The iron molders, for instance, have many local unions; these form the International Iron Molders Union, which, in turn, is a member of the American Federation of Labor. New unions of iron workers are chartered by the International Union, not by the Federation. Rules and regulations for the iron workers are made by their own organization, not by the Federation.
Similar relations exist between the Federation and national or international unions of cigarmakers, carpenters, painters, printers, bakers, and over a hundred other trades. The American Federation of Labor favors the "local trade union compose of members following a single vocation and attached to a national trade union." In fact, the Federation is a creation of the national and international trade unions and is what they make it. Where the workmen of a given trade are too few to form a local union, the Federation organizes a mixed labor union, the members of which are encouraged to form trade unions as soon as their numbers warrant such a step. There were in 1906 664 of these local unions, affiliated, not with international unions, but with the Federation of Labor direct.
In 1909 the American Federation included 116 national and international unions, representing a paid membership of 1,540,000. There were also 38 state branches, 587 city central unions, and the 664 locals already mentioned. The international unions pay the Federation a tax of six cents a year per member. City and state organizations pay on a somewhat different basis. The income of the Federation for 1905 was $207,417. The central office of the Federation is at Washington, D. C. In 1909 the President, Samuel J. Gompers, salary $3,000, and the secretary, Frank Morrison, salary $2,500, lived here.
An annual convention is held. The national and international organizations are entitled to one delegate for each 4,000 members or fraction thereof. Other organizations are allotted one delegate each. The official organ is the American federationist edited by President Gompers. The affiliated unions publish about 250 weeklies and monthlies devoted to trade interests and the cause of labor.
In 1905, the Federation decided that "Party politics, whether they be Democratic, Republican, Socialistic, Populistic, Prohibition, or any other, shall have no place in the conventions of American Federation of Labor." The following are a few of the declarations upon which the American Federation of Labor appeals to all working people to organize, unite, federate, and cooperate to cement the bonds of fraternity:
1. The abolition of all forms of involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime. 2. Free schools, free text-books, and compulsory education. 3. Unrelenting protest against the issuance and abuse of injunction process in labor disputes. 4. A workday of not more than eight hours in the twenty-four hour day. 5. A strict recognition of not over eight hours per day on all federal, state, or municipal work, and at not less than the prevailing per diem wage rate of the class of employment in the vicinity where the work is performed. 6. Release from employment one day in seven. 7. The abolition of the contract system on public work. 8. The municipal ownership of public utilities. 9. The abolition of the sweat-shop system. 10. Sanitary inspection of factory, workshop, mine, and home. 11. Liability of employers, for injury to body or loss of life. 12. The nationalization of telegraph and telephone. 13. The passage of anti-child labor laws in states where they do not exist and rigid defense of them where they have been enacted into law. 14. Woman suffrage coequal with man suffrage. 15. Suitable and plentiful playgrounds for children in all cities. 16. The initiative and referendum and the imperative mandate and right of recall. 17. Continued agitation for the public bath system in all cities. 18. Qualifications in permits to build, of all cities and towns, that there shall be bathrooms and bathroom attachments in all houses or compartments used for habitation. 19. A system of finance whereby money shall be issued exclusively by the government, with such regulations and restrictions as will protect it from manipulation by the banking interests for their own private gain. 20. A system of United States government postal savings banks.
The conventions from year to year pass resolutions calling for needed legislation. Legislative committees of the Federation have aided in securing the passage of the national eight-hour law, Chinese exclusion, the state initiative and referendum, antitrust legislation, anti-injunction laws, and the abolition of convict and imported contract labor. Much of the success of the Federation has been due to the retention of trusted officials, refraining from interference with the internal affairs of the various trade unions, and not attempting to do the impossible.