<P> Forty - three invitations were mailed, which drew the attendance of 20 delegates and letters of approval from 12 other unions . At this preliminary gathering, held in Donaldson Hall on the corner of Broad and Filbert Streets, the K of L was charged with conspiring with anti-union bosses to provide labor at below going union rates and with making use of individuals who had crossed picket lines or defaulted on payment of union dues . The body authored a "treaty" to be presented to the forthcoming May 24, 1886, convention of the Knights of Labor, which demanded that the K of L cease attempting to organize members of International Unions into its own assemblies without permission of the unions involved and that K of L organizers violating this provision should suffer immediate suspension . </P> <P> For its part, the Knights of Labor considered the demand for the parcelling of the labor movement into narrow craft - based fiefdoms to be anathema, a violation of the principle of solidarity of all workers across craft lines . Negotiations with the dissident craft unions were nipped in the bud by the governing General Assembly of the K of L, however, with the organization's Grand Master Workman, Terence V. Powderly refusing to enter into serious discussions on the matter . The actions of the New York District Assembly of the K of L were upheld . </P> <P> Convinced that no accommodation with the leadership of the Knights of Labor was possible, the heads of the five labor organizations which issued the call for the April 1886 conference issued a new call for a convention to be held December 8, 1886 in Columbus, Ohio in order to construct "an American federation of alliance of all national and international trade unions ." Forty - two delegates representing 13 national unions and various other local labor organizations responded to the call, agreeing to form themselves into an American Federation of Labor . </P> <P> Revenue for the new organization was to be raised on the basis of a "per - capita tax" of its member organizations, set at the rate of one - half cent per member per month (i.e. six cents per year). Governance of the organization was to be by annual conventions, with one delegate allocated for every 4,000 members of each affiliated union . The founding convention voted to make the President of the new federation a full - time official at a salary of $1,000 per year, and Samuel Gompers of the Cigar Makers' International Union was elected to the position . Gompers would ultimately be re-elected to the position by annual conventions of the organization for every year save one until his death nearly four decades later . </P>

When did the american federation of labor start