Peter J. McGuire, known as the “father” of Labor Day and May Day, founded the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America and became one of the most important figures in the American labor movement. He did more than almost anyone else to convince locally focused union activists that a national labor federation was both necessary and possible. Without his tireless energy and practical leadership, the creation of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), and its survival in its early years, would have been difficult to imagine.
McGuire was born on July 6, 1852, into a poor Irish Catholic family in New York City. After his father joined the Union Army, McGuire left school at age 11 to work.
He was a political activist before he became a trade unionist. He became a member in 1873 of a body known as the Committee for Public Safety, which was agitating for unemployment benefits. McGuire was arrested while occupying the office of the city’s Police Commissioner, who had refused to grant them a parade permit. Shortly thereafter, he joined with Adolph Strasser, later president of the Cigar Makers’ Union, to found the Social-Democratic Workingmen’s Party of North America, an organization that proposed to achieve socialism through organization of a socialist party and the organization of trade unions. During the 1870s, McGuire worked as a carpenter, edited a socialist newspaper called The Toiler, and toured the United States as a socialist party lecturer.
In 1881, he founded the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America , a union that continues today in the United States and Canada. That same year, he joined Samuel Gompers in founding the American Federation of Labor(AFL) and served for many years as its secretary. Through the AFL and the Carpenters, McGuire helped lead the major strikes of 1886 and 1890, bringing the eight-hour workday to national attention.
For much of the Carpenters’ first two decades, McGuire was not only its leader but also the driving force behind much of its work, often paying union expenses from his own pocket. By the early twentieth century, however, opposition to his leadership had grown because of his conciliatory approach toward rival unions and questions about the union’s finances. An audit found that about ten thousand dollars could not be accounted for. McGuire was arrested for embezzlement in 1901 and voted out of office in 1902.
Poor health and alcoholism forced McGuire to resign from the AFL in 1900. In 1902, growing opposition to his leadership of the UBC led to his expulsion on what supporters described as trumped-up embezzlement charges. He died on February 18, 1906, buried in Arlington Cemetery in Pennsauken Township, New Jersey.
