Workers' Education Bureau of America or WEB or Bureau (1921–1951) was an organization established to assist labor colleges and other worker training centers involved in the American labor movement. The WEB was an important development in labor education in the 1920s. Founded in 1921, it served as an informational clearinghouse for labor education organizing forums around the country and assisting local programs.

History

The Workers' Education Bureau of America was founded in 1921 by a group of United States-based unionists and educators. WEB received financial, political, and consultative support from American Federation of Labor (AFL) leaders, including Samuel Gompers, William Green, and Matthew Woll, making it "the unofficial educational arm" of the AFL. The AFL slowly built a majority on the WEB board of directors. In 1929, the AFL assumed "complete financial and administrative control." The AFL then asserted a conservative influence on the organization's activities, which included withdrawing support from left-wing and progressive labor colleges and other training organizations as well as supporting only those curricula which supported the AFL's apolitical agenda and craft unionism. The WEB's first convention was held at the New School for Social Research in New York City. In the Report of Proceedings First National Conference on Workers Education in the United States, the Board adopted the following resolutions: <blockquote style="font-size:85%;"> In 1951, WEB formally integrated into the AFL (and later, after the merger with the Congress of Industrial Organizations, the AFL–CIO) as its Education Department. In 2003, the AFL-CIO transferred the duties and programs of the Education Department to the George Meany Center-National Labor College.

Officers

1921:

Institutional members

In 1922, WEB's second national convention listed the following as "trade union colleges, study classes, and workers' educational enterprises": <blockquote style="font-size:85%;">