Boot and Shoe Workers' Union

The Boot and Shoe Workers' Union was a North American trade union of workers in the footwear manufacturing industry which was established in 1895. The union was affiliated with the American Federation of Labor.

In 1889 a dissident 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), a federative organization which united many specialized craft unions into a single entity.

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 Montréal, Québec. 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 promoted the use of our 'Union Stamp' as the sold 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."

...
Wikipedia