Born in Luxembourg in 1880 to Michael and Janette Woll, the Roman Catholic Wolls emigrated to the United States and settled in Chicago, Illinois. Matthew Woll attended public school until the age of 15, then became an apprentice photo-engraver. He entered the Kent College of Law (then part of Lake Forest University) in 1901. He took night courses, graduated and was admitted to the bar in 1904.
Early Trade Union Career
In 1906, Woll was elected president of the International Photo-Engravers Union of North America (IPEU). During his tenure, IPEU organized more than 90 percent of all photo-engravers in the United States and Canada. A firm believer in arbitration rather than the strike, Woll forced nearly all IPEU locals to agree to binding arbitration clauses in their collective bargaining agreements. Woll also campaigned heavily for the five-day work week, paid vacations and holidays, and health and welfare benefits. By the mid-1920s, IPEU had achieved most of these goals.
In 1919, Woll was elected to the executive council of the American Federation of Labor.
In 1924, when AFL president Samuel Gompers died, Woll was widely expected to take the reins of the organization. But John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers of America, wanted the presidency for himself. But Lewis was unable to muster enough support for his candidacy, and threw his weight behind Mine Worker secretary William Green in the mistaken belief that he could use Green as a puppet to control the AFL. But Green found a kindred anti-communist in Woll, and the two became close.
Over time, Woll took on a number of additional responsibilities—including becoming president of the AFL's union label department; director of the AFL's legal bureau; chairman of the AFL's standing committees on education, social security and international relations. He resigned as IPEU president in 1929 and became first vice-president of the union.
Woll is also noted for being the chief proponent of a union-owned insurance company. Woll believed that the purpose of such a company would be "to sell insurance to individual workers without profit, to sell insurance to whole organizations and, thus, weaken the hold of employers on their workers through group insurance." Woll convinced the AFL to provide the start-up money for such an organization. The Union Labor Life Insurance Company (ULLICO) opened its doors on May 1, 1925. Woll was president of the company from 1925 to 1955, and then its general executive chairman from 1955 until his death.
In the mid-1920s, Woll became acting president of the National Civic Federation. Woll pushed the federation to collaborate with a broad array of anti-communist organizations. He was forced to step down as acting president after coming under attack by Lewis at the 1935 AFL-CIO convention.
Woll published Our Next Step (Harper & Bros.), a treatise on economic policy, with William English Walling in 1934. The work called for federal policies which would encourage a shift from profits to wages in order to expand consumer purchasing power. In 1935, Woll published Labor, Industry and Government (D. Appleton-Century), a treatise on labor relations.
Woll believed, as had his mentor and friend, Samuel Gompers, that labor's best hope for survival lay in forging a labor-management entente. Subsequently, Woll advocated free-market positions, including strongly anti-regulatory views. This led Woll to oppose the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which Woll saw as merely more government intervention in the workplace.
Woll was elected a vice-president of the AFL-CIO after the two organizations merged in 1955.
Personal life
Matthew married Irene C. Kerwin in Chicago on April 4, 1900. Together they had three children: Margaret, Willard and Joseph Albert. Margaret died after one day. Willard and Joseph Albert were born while Matthew was studying law at Kent College. Willard attended MIT and worked as an engineer at Commonwealth Edison in Chicago. Joseph Albert was a successful lawyer in Chicago and Washington, DC.
Irene died in 1946. Later in 1946 Matthew married Celeanor Dugas, who was born in Saint Paul, MN in 1887 to Leopold Eli Dugas and Susan Coleman. Matthew Woll died in June 1956, Celeonor died eleven years later. They are buried together in Fort Lincoln Cemetery in Brentwood, Maryland.
Legacy
A lifelong Republican, Woll is considered one of the most conservative of all major American labor leaders. For example, at the AFL-CIO convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in 1935, Woll bitterly denounced the Wagner Act as a betrayal of the legacy of Samuel Gompers.
A staunch anti-communist, Woll eventually became a confidant of AFL president Samuel Gompers and other like-minded labor leaders such as William Green of the United Mine Workers of America. Green in particular relied heavily on Woll for advice and policy guidance during his term as president of the AFL. Woll also became a mentor to Jay Lovestone, the one-time Communist who was expelled from the party only to become a leading opponent of Communism, and an influential AFL-CIO foreign policy advisor. In 1944, the AFL-CIO established the Free Trade Union Committee (FTUC) to assist free trade unions abroad, particularly in Europe. Lovestone was named its secretary, reporting (in part) to Woll. Lovestone's mission was to eliminate pro-Communist unions and supplant them with unions which supported capitalism. The Central Intelligence Agency funneled millions of dollars through FTUC in support of American foreign policy goals.
Woll's influence on Green is difficult to understate. In many ways, Matthew Woll designed AFL-CIO policy through his relationship with Green and AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer George Meany.
Mild-mannered and courtly, Green strongly believed in an evangelical "Christian cooperation" worldview similar to the social gospel, in which men of good moral character would do right by one another if only they committed themselves to Christ. Green's views dovetailed with those of Woll, who advocated a cooperative rather than adversarial relationship with management.
Green's religious views also led him to adopt a virulently anti-Communist outlook. They effectively played on Green's Christian idealism and fears of "godless Communism" to neutralize Communist leaders and fellow travellers throughout the labor movement and seek their ouster.
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