After Boyce and Gompers clashed over electoral politics and the use of force, the WFM left the AFL in 1897 while expressing dissatisfaction with the AFL's conservatism. The State Trades and Labor Council of Montana issued its November 1897 proclamation which assessed the state of affairs between capital and labor, and called for a new western labor federation. In 1898, Boyce organized a rival federation called the Western Labor Union (WLU), which was intended as a class-conscious alternative. The WFM, which played a leadership role in the WLU, professed that the benefits of productivity gains belonged to labor and not to capital. But the WLU also zeroed in on the AFL, criticizing that federation for "dividing the skilled crafts from other workers and for proclaiming the identity of interests of capital and labor." The WLU also issued a manifesto which declared,