ABSTRACT
The measurement of international influences on domestic labor movements presents inherent difficulties. The issue is not whether points of contact between domestic and international organizations can be established. Ample documents exist to do so. Efforts to forge a Latin Americanwide labor confederation go back to World War I. In 1918 the Pan American Federation of Labor was established, with AFL president Samuel Gompers as chairman. The architect of the new confederation, the Confederacion de Trabajadores de America Latina, was Vicente Lombardo Toledano, president of the Confederation de Trabajadores de Mexico. The inspirations for Costa Rica's Catholic labor confederation were various and owed much to theological and political influences. The most direct inspiration for the Costa Rican Catholic movement were the papal encyclicals of 1899 and 1931 and the writings of theologians Cardinal Mercier and Jacques Maritain.
