The approach of Labor Day - a holiday that celebrates the contributions of the American worker - offers us the opportunity to take a quick look back at the founding of the cornerstone of the largest union organization in the U.S., the American Federation Labor - Council of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).

And there's no separating the AFL-CIO from its founder and guiding hand, Samuel Gompers, who was nominated president of the fledgling federation of unions in 1886 and retained that position until his death in 1924. Following is a short history of Gompers, his views and his legacy.

Gompers was born in London, England, in 1850. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1863 and his family settled in New York. Gompers and his father worked as cigar makers. He became an active trade unionist and helped to reorganize the Cigarmakers' Union. In 1881 the Federation of Trades and Labor Unions was founded. Gompers became chairman of this new organization, and when it changed its name to the American Federation of Labor in 1886 he was elected its first president.

An intellectual and a skilled organizer and administrator, Gompers dedicated his life to the working class. He was a passionate advocate of shorter hours, higher wages, safe and sanitary working conditions, and workplace democracy.

"The ground-work principle of America's labor movement has been to recognize that first things must come first," Gompers said in 1911. "Our mission has been the protection of the worker, now; to increase his wages; to cut hours off the long workday, which was killing him; to improve the safety and the sanitary conditions of the workshop; to free him from the tyrannies, petty or otherwise, which served to make his existence a slavery."

Gompers believed that strong, well-financed trade unions would humanize industry, protect workers' interests, and in the process, create opportunities for workers to educate themselves and claim a larger role in industrial society.

When he became president of the AFL, Gompers became known as an advocate of what became known as "pure and simple trade unionism." This meant organizing workers into unions that would focus on struggles at the workplace, including higher wages, fewer hours of work, and improved working conditions.

But it will surprise many to learn that one of the labor giants in American history held what was then and now considered conservative political views.

Gompers opposed the creation of state health and unemployment insurance programs, welfare initiatives and minimum wage. He argued that welfare is "undemocratic" because it tends "to fix the citizens of the country into two classes, and a long established system would tend to make these classes rigid."

He acknowledged that "while our federation has thus been conservative, it has ever had its face turned toward whatever reforms, in politics or economics, could be of direct and obvious benefit to the working classes."

Gompers' endorsement agenda seemed very much independent - a far cry from today's political arena, where labor leaders lean toward Democrats as far and away the default choice for most of organized labor.

In the presidential election of 1892, in which the AFL did not take a position, Gompers suggested that there was a feeling of "dissatisfaction" and "antagonism" with both the Republican and Democratic parties among working class voters

Gompers wrote, "Broken promises to labor, insincere, half-hearted support and even antagonism of legislation in the interest of the toilers on the one hand, and the alacrity and devotion with which the interests of the corporations and the wealth-possessing class are nurtured, protected and advanced on the other, have had their effect, and the result is that many toilers have forever severed their connection with the old parties."

There are a lot of union members today who would maintain that things haven't changed much: many Democratic lawmakers continue to accept labor's money while offering "half-hearted support," while Republicans continue their devotion to "the interests of the corporations."

What has changed today is the partisanship of the political parties, with both parties nearly always defending their political turf without the give and take process. Although Democrats rarely stick their heads out for organized labor, most labor leaders maintain that Dems are the best hope workers have to maintain their standard of living.

Two days before his death in 1924, Gompers provided a few final words to live by to coming generations of union members. "Say to them that as I kept the faith I expect they will keep the faith. . . . Say to them that a union man carrying a card is not a good citizen unless he upholds the institutions of our great country, and a poor citizen . . . if he upholds the institutions of our country and forgets the obligations of his trade association."

Gompers once replied simply: "More."

"If a workingman gets a dollar and a half for ten hours' work, he lives up to that standard of a dollar and a half, and he knows that a dollar seventy-five would improve his standard of living and he naturally strives to get that dollar and seventy-five. After that he wants two dollars and more time for leisure, and he struggles to get it. Not satisfied with two dollars he wants more; not only two and a quarter, but a nine-hour workday. And so he will keep on getting more and more until he gets it all or the full value of all he produces."

"What does labor want?

"It wants the earth and the fullness thereof. There is nothing too precious; there is nothing too beautiful, too lofty, too ennobling, unless it is within the scope and comprehension of labor's aspirations and wants.

"We want more schoolhouses and less jails, more books and less arsenals, more learning and less vice, more constant work and less crime, more leisure and less greed, more justice and less revenge. In fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures, to make manhood more noble, womanhood more beautiful and childhood more happy and bright."