Boot and Shoe Workers' Union
On February 23, 1889, Henry J. Skeffington led a dissident faction of shoemakers who were part of National Trade Assembly 216 of the Knights of Labor, to split off to establish a new organization called the Boot and Shoe Workers International Union.[3] In an effort to retain ties with these workers, the BSWU published a section in each issue of its monthly journal in the French language.To thoroughly organize our craft; to regulate wages and conditions of employment; to establish uniform wages for the same class of work, regardless of sex; to control apprentices; to reduce the hours of labor; to abolish convict and contract labor; to abolish child labor, prohibiting the employment of children under the age of sixteen; to promote the use of our "Union Stamp" as the sole and only guarantee of "Union Made" footwear; to support the Union Labels of all other bona fide trade unions, and to assist them in every other way to the full extent of our power.[5]The Boot and Shoe Workers' Union was regarded as a "radical" union in its earliest days, with John F. Tobin, the General President of the BSWU from its foundation until his death in 1919, regarded as a socialist and an opponent of conservative AF of L President Samuel Gompers.[8] The magazine was irregularly produced, twice suspending publication for protracted periods during the Great Depression – from the start of 1934 through March 1935 and again from July 1937 through the end of 1940.