William Richter.
William Richter was a North American labor leader, and the founder of the Consolidated Laborers Federation.
Richter was a tobacco worker who organized his fellow tobacco workers into an industry-wide union in 1861. Following a labor war between the dockworkers union and the Mechanics National Union in 1869 as both attempted to organize dockworkers in New York City, representatives of various industrial unions met in Philadelphia to create the Consolidated Laborers Federation. Within four years, the C.L.F. had over 500,000 members.
The C.L.F. was more radical than the rival M.N.U. Its goals were to gain higher wages for workers by engaging in industry-wide bargaining, recognition as sole negotiating agent, and encouraging political activism among workers. Although many C.L.F. locals worked for Conservative Party candidates in the 1873 Grand Council elections, Richter himself was instrumental in organizing a branch of the People's Coalition in the Northern Confederation.
During the Coalition's national convention in New York in January 1878, the leadership of the C.L.F. entered the convention hall, and Richter himself pledged his support for the new party. During the 1878 Grand Council elections, the older parties responded to the growing popularity of the Coalition by directing a wave of political violence against it. Richter himself was kidnapped by unknown assailants and held incommunicado until after the election, while the C.L.F. was warned that "Your leader will die if the Coalition wins in the Northern Confederation." In spite of the threats and violence, the Coalition increased its share of the N.C.'s Council seats from 1 to 10, which helped to raise the P.C. caucus in the Grand Council from 10 seats to 39.
By the time the Coalition gained a plurality in the Grand Council in 1888 and was able to form a government, Richter had been replaced as president of the C.L.F. by Whitney Popper.
Sobel's source for William Richter's career is Howard Hopkins' Saints in Overalls: The Consolidated Laborers Federation in Confederation of North American History (London, 1955).