The supreme authority of the American Federation is its Annual Convention composed of delegates chosen from national and international unions, from state, central, and local trade unions, and from fraternal organizations.Experience has evolved a few simple rules by which the convention is safeguarded against political and factional debate and against the interruptions of "soreheads." Besides attending to the necessary routine, the Convention elects the eleven national officers who form the executive council which guides the administrative details of the organization.The funds of the Federation are derived from a per capita tax on the membership.The official organ is the American Federationist.It is interesting to note in passing that over two hundred and forty labor periodicals together with a continual stream of circulars and pamphlets issue from the trades union press.
The Federation is divided into five departments, representing the most important groups of labor: the Building Trades, the Metal Trades, Mining, Railroad Employees, and the Union Label Trades.*Each of these departments has its own autonomous sphere of action, its own set of officers, its own financial arrangements, its own administrative details.Each holds an annual convention, in the same place and week, as the Federation.Each is made up of affiliated unions only and confines itself solely to the interest of its own trades.This suborganization serves as an admirable clearing house and shock-absorber and succeeds in eliminating much of the friction which occurs between the several unions.
* There is in the Federation, however, a group of unions not affiliated with any of these departments.
There are also forty-three state branches of the Federation, each with its own separate organization.There are annual state conventions whose membership, however, is not always restricted to unions affiliated with the American Federation.Some of these state organizations antedate the Federation.
There remain the local unions, into personal touch with which each member comes.There were in 1916 as many as 647 "city centrals," the term used to designate the affiliation of the unions of a city.The city centrals are smaller replicas of the state federations and are made up of delegates elected by the individual unions.They meet at stated intervals and freely discuss questions relating to the welfare of organized labor in general as well as to local labor conditions in every trade.
Indeed, vigilance seems to be the watchword of the Central.
Organization, wages, trade agreements, and the attitude of public officials and city councils which even remotely might affect labor rarely escape their scrutiny.This oldest of all the groups of labor organizations remains the most vital part of the Federation.The success of the American Federation of Labor is due in large measure to the crafty generalship of its President, Samuel Gompers, one of the most astute labor leaders developed by American economic conditions.He helped organize the Federation, carefully nursed it through its tender years, and boldly and unhesitatingly used its great power in the days of its maturity.In fact, in a very real sense the Federation is Gompers, and Gompers is the Federation.Born in London of Dutch-Jewish lineage, on January 27, 1850, the son of a cigarmaker, Samuel Gompers was early apprenticed to that craft.
At the age of thirteen he went to New York City, where in the following year he joined the first cigar-makers' union organized in that city.He enlisted all his boyish ardor in the cause of the trade union and, after he arrived at maturity, was elected successively secretary and president of his union.The local unions were, at that time, gingerly feeling their way towards state and national organization, and in these early attempts young Gompers was active.In 1887, he was one of the delegates to a national meeting which constituted the nucleus of what is now the Cigar-makers' International Union.
The local cigar-makers' union in which Gompers received his necessary preliminary training was one of the most enlightened and compactly organized groups of American labor.It was one of the first American Unions to adopt in an efficient manner the British system of benefits in the case of sickness, death, or unemployment.It is one of the few American unions that persistently encourages skill in its craft and intelligence in its membership.It has been a pioneer in collective bargaining and in arbitration.It has been conservatively and yet enthusiastically led and has generally succeeded in enlisting the respect and cooperation of employers.This union has been the kindergarten and preparatory school of Samuel Gompers, who, during all the years of his wide activities as the head of the Federation of Labor, has retained his membership in his old local and has acted as first vice-president of the Cigar-makers'
International.These early experiences, precedents, and enthusiasms Gompers carried with him into the Federation of Labor.He was one of the original group of trade union representatives who organized the Federation in 1881.In the following year he was its President.Since 1885 he has, with the exception of a single year, been annually chosen as President.
