The AFL Canadian: Labor, National Identity, and Transnational Discourse

The AFL Canadian: Labor, National Identity, and Transnational Discourse 1936-1955 â€Å"The American Federation of Labor is an American organization,† declared William Green, president of the AFL, in his 1947 keynote speech, â€Å"It believe[d] in American, the fundamental law of the United States, the Constitution, freedom, liberty and democracy. We will have nothing to do with Communism in any shape, or form ... This sixty-sixth convention will redeclare its opposition to Communism and to Communist philosophy, and ... to [those who would] attempt to establish it among the organized labor of our country.† Though Green declared â€Å"Communism abhorrent to American labor† not all the members of the AFL were American. Indeed, Canadians and their unions had been part of the AFL since its inception in 1881. Craft unions in Canada were primarily organized under the Trades and Labor Congress of Canada (TLC), which had been a subdivision of the AFL since 1910. However the power relation between these two groups had been hotly contested over that time. Should the Trades and Labor Congress be able to act independently of the AFL leadership? After all, as Green said in his 1947 speech, â€Å"The American Federation of Labor is an American organization.† Canada was a sovereign state, yet its labor organizations were dominated by a foreign power. At the 1939 American Federation of Labor convention in Atlantic City, NJ, this issue of Canadian labor sovereignty in regards to the AFL came to the fore. The executive council of the AFL recommended giving the Trades and Labor Congress sole authority to grant central labor body charters. Although primarily an economically unimportant act, as central labor bodies did not arbitrate wages or work conditions,... ...f the AFL, I am well acquainted with the particularities of union research. Additionally, over the summer and continuing through this year, I have been working on a labor economics research project between the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Federal Reserve, and Columbia. Developing econometric models of wage variation between industries, I could perform statistical analysis of data, although the focus of my project will always be on the voices of the rank-and-file, not an aggregation of the quantifiable. As I am conversant in economic theory however, I can use my knowledge of international trade and labor economics to detail the backdrop against which the Toronto AFL story develops. I believe I can bring the voices of the Toronto rank-and-file into the Canadian historical conversation, which will bring greater detail to the Canadian historical narrative.