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Lapse in Appropriations

For workplace safety and health, please call 800-321-6742; for mine safety and health, please call 800-746-1553; for Job Corps, please call 800-733-5627 and for Wage and Hour, please call 1-866-487-9243 (1 866-4-US-WAGE).  This website is currently not being updated due to the suspension of Federal government services. The last update to the site was 10/1/2025.  Updates to the site will start again when the Federal government resumes operations.

Samuel Gompers

"To be free, the workers must have choice. To have choice they must retain in their own hands the right to determine under what conditions they will work."

Samuel Gompers was a cigarmaker who, in 1886, became the first president of the newly-formed American Federation of Labor. He favored indigenous approaches to workers' problems, preferring to operate within American institutions rather than in opposition to them.