Gompers, Samuel (1850-1924)

English-born US labour leader. His early career in the Cigarmakers' Union led him to found and lead the American Federation of Labor in 1886. Gompers advocated nonpolitical activity within the existing capitalist system to secure improved wages and working conditions for members.

He helped to found in 1881 the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, and spent three years as its president. When this organization merged with the American Federation of Labor in 1886, he was elected president of the new body and, with the exception of 1895, held this position for the remainder of his life.

Gompers was born in London but emigrated to the USA in 1863. In 1919 he was elected president of the International Commission on Labor Legislation of the Paris Peace Conference, and was later a member of the advisory committee to US delegates to the Disarmament Conference, Washington, DC. His autobiography Seventy Years of Life and Labor was published in 1925.