I have always thought the the American got screwed by Samuel Gompers….I know who?
Samuel Gompers (1850-1924) was the first president of the American Federation of Labor, the first enduring national labor union. He served as president from 1886 until his death in 1924, except for a single year, 1895. Born in London, he immigrated to the United States at the age of 13, and worked as a cigar-maker. He became the leader of the cigar-makers’ union, and transformed it into one of the country’s strongest unions.
Gompers believed that labor had the most to gain by organizing skilled craft workers, rather than attempting to organize all workers in an industry. He refused to form an alliance with the Knights of Labor. “Talk of harmony with the Knights of Labor,” he said, “is bosh. They are just as great enemies of trade unions as any employer can be.”
Gompers repudiated socialism and advocated a pragmatic “pure and simple” unionism that emphasized agreements with employees–which would spell out for a stipulated period the wages, hours of work, and the procedures for handling grievances. Gompers proposed that agreements contain clauses stipulating that employers hire only union members (the closed shop) and that any employee should be required to pay union dues. Employers advocated the open shop, which could employ non-union members.
https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm
He seemed to think that the worker should go for economic power instead of political power….I believe he shafted the workers.
Look at labor today….did the economic power work out for them? Maybe in the earlier days but now they are spinning their wheels and falling for any lame ass promise some random politician gives them.
We on the Left have been advocating a unified labor movement for many decades….this is from 1933 and the rise of fascism….
I agree that a functioning labor party would have and will make the workers the strongest subset in American politics….but from the shadows the corporate slugs and their minions in politics will do everything possible to prevent the workers from gaining any power at all.
This concept needs revisiting in these days of loss of income and livelihood….time to ask the important questions….but will we?
The real problems is that we do not elect more workers because the campaigns have gotten out of hand and the candidates owe too much to the fat cats that fund them.
But if one wants more information on that thought….
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/08/28/why-we-need-to-elect-more-workers-to-public-office
Educate, Agitate
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Daily Agitator 
chuq, you sure are a history nerd and I love it!
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist George Santayana
I am a progressive economic activist (as opposed to a liberal social activist) because in times of extreme inequality of wealth (like now) economic issues are much more politically dynamic factors than social issues. The labor movement gained momentum in response to the Gilded Age of the late 19th century, and it rose to power under FDR in reaction to the Great Depression. Socal issues did become politically prominent over slavery prior to the Civil War, over women’s rights prior to the enactment of the 19th Amendment in 1920, and over civil rights and opposition to the Vietnam War during the 1960s; however, those movements quickly subsided after political resolutions were achieved. Economic issues are more enduring because the filthy rich elite will never acquiesce to shared wealth and political power.
Today, populist angst over economic inequality is very strong and very broad; but, it is neither focused nor organized. America’s remaining and greatly weakened labor unions don’t seem up to the task of coalescing into a powerful political force to fill the gap left open by the Democratic Party which sold-out to big money decades ago. I’m cautioned to say this, but maybe we need a charismatic populist leader to pull our movement together.