BOOTS AND SHOE WORKERS LOCAL NO. 317

Union label.

BOOTS AND SHOE WORKERS LOCAL NO. 317. In 1889 a faction of shoemakers who were part of National Trade Assembly 216 of the KNIGHTS OF LABOR split off to establish a new organization called the Boot and Shoe Workers International Union. This new union affiliated almost immediately with the American Federation of Labor (AF of L). In an effort to avoid jurisdictional disputes with another member of the AF of L, the Lasters' Protective Union of America, the two shoe workers' unions joined forces in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1895, establishing the Boot and Shoe Workers' Union (BSWU).

The BSWU included members from both the United States of America and Canada, including French-speaking workers from the Canadian shoe producing center of Montreal, Quebec. 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.

According to the preamble of an early BSWU's constitution, the union was to be organized for the following purposes:

                   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 16; to promote the use of our 'Union Stamp' as the 
                   solo 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."

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.

In 1925 the 16th convention of the BSWU raised per capita dues from 25 cents to 35 cents per week. The organization also doubled its initiation fee to $2.00 at that time.

The official publication of the Boot and Shoe Workers' Union was a monthly magazine called The Shoe Workers' Journal. The periodical was launched in Boston on January 15, 1900, as the Union Boot and Shoe Worker, changing its name to the more familiar Shoe Workers' Journal effective with the July 1902 issue.

The magazine was irregularly produced, twice suspending publication for lengthy periods during the GREAT DEPRESSION — from the start of 1934 through March 1935 and again from July 1937 through the end of 1940. The publication continued into the decade of the 1970s.

The 1945 Dubuque City Directory listed 290 W. 4th.

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Source:

"Boot and Shoe Workers' Union," Wikipedia, Online: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boot_and_Shoe_Workers%27_Union