Samuel Gompers: A Labor Union Leader

Samuel Gompers was a labor union leader, and a very influential figure in US History. He was the founder of the AFL, the American Federation of Labor, and served as its president for many years. Through this organization he hoped to fight against corporations for the rights of its workers. Some of the things that he fought for were shorter hours and higher wages. This is because a lot of factory workers were working a ridiculous amount of hours while not receiving that much pay, which is most certainly unfair. When Gompers was young, he followed in the footsteps of his father and worked in cigar manufacturing. While he was doing that, he joined a union, and that is how he became an advocate of unions. Unions were looked down upon by corporations,
In order to preserve the land for the people for years to come, Teddy Roosevelt established five national parks. In terms of controlling corporations and protecting customers, Teddy Roosevelt did a fairly good job, and earned the nickname “The Trust Buster”. But, doing the things that he did did not come easily. In order to take away power from companies with monopolies like railroad companies, laws had to be passed. Obviously, the legal process is not a short one, so it took a while for laws to be passed such as the Elkins Act and the Hepburn Act. Both of those limited power of railroad companies. Teddy Roosevelt, as President, had a job to protect his nation, and the majority of the nation was comprised of the lower class and the lower middle class. These two classes were the majority of the people working for corporations or in factories, and they were also the majority of the consumers for those companies. That is why Roosevelt needed to do something to protect them from the possible abuse of power of the corporations. Also, this trust busting helped small businesses grow. Of course, as well as the long process of getting laws approved, there was more standing against what Roosevelt set out to do. Corporations with trusts did not support this of course, or at least the higher ups, because it would be
Teddy was looking to take power away from corporations who were abusing it, and he also looked to help consumers. Samuel Gompers was head of the American Federation of Labor, which united unions and helped a lot of workers, also impeding the profits of large corporations. Both of these men fought for those who were being taken advantage of by big companies that potentially had monopolies. Also, quite predictably, these men received resistance from the industries and companies that they sought to fight against. Also, Teddy’s approach was a little different, since he became president. He had to go through the law-making process whereas Gompers had to go through the bargaining that labor unions have to do. Overall though, these men had somewhat similar goals, and accomplished a fair amount of what they set out to