George Delaney papers

George Philip (Phil) Delaney was born in Washington, D.C., on February 20, 1909, to Agnes E. Connery and George Patrick Delaney.

Delaney was apprenticed in 1928 as a molder at the U.S. Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., where he worked for ten years as an apprentice and then as a journeyman molder. During that time, Delaney also attended Mount Saint Mary College in Newburgh, New York, for a year. From 1938 to 1942, Delaney served as an international representative for the International Molders and Foundry Workers Union of North America (a position he reprised briefly from 1947 to 1948). The latter years of World War II (1942 to 1945) found Delaney in the U.S. Navy on the U.S. warship "Delta," again working as a molder. After the war, he enrolled for a year in Harvard University's trade union program, where he majored in economics and labor law.

In 1948, Delaney was appointed by American Federation of Labor (APL) president William Green to the position of international representative for the federation. He worked in that capacity in the International Affairs Department of the APL and later of the merged American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). Delaney served as the workers' delegate from the United States to the International Labor Organization (ILO) and was a member of the ILO Governing Body. Delaney's responsibilities included speaking engagements to various groups on international trade union activities; meeting with foreign trade union teams visiting the U.S.; and representing the APL on various governmental agencies (most notably, the U.S. Department of Labor) and committees dealing with international labor issues and policies. During his tenure, Delaney helped to bring about passage of the ILO conventions on the reduction of hours of work and on the abolition of forced labor as an instrument of political oppression. He was also active in the formation of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU).

Delaney resigned from the AFL-CIO following his appointment in 1958 as director of Organization at the International Union of Operating Engineers. The following year, he was appointed special assistant to the assistant secretary for international labor affairs at the Department of Labor, joined the State Department in 1963, and in 1964 became the first director of the Office of Labor Affairs at the Agency for International Development. He also represented the United States on the ILO from 1963 to 1970. Delaney retired in 1971 and, after serving briefly as a legislative representative for the International Longshoremen's Association, died on February 9, 1972, in Washington, D.C. He is buried in Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Delaney's first marriage ended in divorce. He remarried in 1947 to Margaret D. Mulholland; the couple had four children.