A jazz quartet played “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and a crowd of union members and politicians paid tribute Monday at the unveiling of a bronze statue honoring Samuel Gompers, the first president of the American Federation of Labor and a figure of mythic proportions in organized labor.
“If it wasn’t for the leadership and vision [Gompers] had, we wouldn’t have a 40-hour week, we wouldn’t have an 8-hour day and we wouldn’t have a Labor Day,” said Chicago Federation of Labor President Dennis Gannon, who attended the statue’s dedication in Gompers Park at Pulaski Road and Foster Avenue on Chicago’s Northwest Side.
In a short ceremony before the statue’s unveiling, Gompers quotations were recited, his battles against big business were recalled and his accomplishments were celebrated.
“It gives me strength and hope,” said Jerry Rankins, 49, an organizer and negotiator for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 21 who attended the event.
Some employers today act much like those in Gompers’ day, he said. “Predatory [practices], power and control, greed — that’s what he had to contend with,” Rankins said.
Gompers was born in 1850 in London and went to school for a few years before being pulled out by his father to make cigars and earn money for his family. He and his family moved to New York in 1863. At age 36 he helped establish the AFL and was the union organization’s first president, a post he held for 38 years until his death in 1924, according to the AFL-CIO’s Web site.
Taking a note from Gompers, who argued against hard-and-fast allegiance to any one political party, Gannon warned leaders from all levels of government not to take union support for granted.
“His political philosophy was reward your friends and punish your enemies,” Gannon said. “The people that stand with organized labor should get our support. The people who don’t shouldn’t get our support.”
That premise was evident earlier this year in city elections. Amid long-growing tensions with City Hall, Gannon joined with other disenchanted labor leaders in backing challengers to some of Mayor Richard Daley’s City Council allies.
Relations between labor and the mayor appear to have thawed in recent weeks after the city struck tentative 10-year contract agreements with 33 trade unions that represent 8,000 city workers and five-year deals with unions whose members include 10,000 Chicago public school employees.
Officials at Gompers Park said the sculpture was the result of years of raising funds for the project. The statue itself cost about $100,000, about 60 percent of which was raised by unions, said Nick Kaleba, a CFL spokesman.
About $300,000 in state funding was procured to improve the area of the park where the statue stands, said state Rep. John D’Amico (D-Chicago).
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alwang@tribune.com
