Rochester Central Trades and Labor Council

Category: Organizations - historic

From 1903 to 1932, when it was torn down, the old Reynolds Arcade housed the Rochester Central Trades and Labor Council at this site. The RCTLC, organized in 1900, was preceded by the Workingmen's Assembly of Rochester, formed by 1863 (perhaps as early as 1855, according to local directories), and the Rochester Trades Assembly, founded in 1888. At its inception the RCTLC represented 13,000 workers in 103 unions. A number of these unions had offices in the Reynolds Arcade – street and railway employees, carpenters, machinists, cigarmakers, bricklayers and masons – as well as an independent merchant who dealt only in union label goods.