See. 34.66 P. L. A R.
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Charlotte. N. C.
Permit No. 628
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Editor’s Note: The following is a summary of the year’s news
highlights in both the A.F.L and C.I.O, starting with September,
1952 SUMMARY
BY LABOR PRESS ASSOCIATED
SEPTEMBER: The AFL convention, for the first time in history,
- endorsed a presidential candidate, Democratic Nominee Adlai Steven
son. The convention acted after hearing both Stevenson and Eisen
hower. LLPE Director McDevitt urged the delegates to put political
action ahead of everything but emergency union work until after the
November election.
The convention also: re-elected Green and other top officers,
renewed its unity bid to the CIO and UMW, and called for effective
price controls, rent controls where necessary, public housing, extension
of social security, federal FEPC and national health insurance.
Meeting prior to the convention were the AFL Metal Trades, Building
Trades and Union Label Departments and the International Labor
Press of America which presented 30 plaques to outstanding AFL
publications.
Added to the list of unions indorsing Stevenson and Sparkman
were the AFL Machinists, CIO Oil Workers, CIO Rubber Workers,
California AFL, CIO Amalgamated Clothing Workers, CIO Textile
Workers, CIO Woodworkers and CIO Paperworkers.
A strike of 38,000 IAM members at Lockheed and Douglas air
craft plants in California was called off Sept. 29 at the request of
President Truman. Negotiations were moved to Washington for White
House and federal mediation assistance.
A soft coal strike was averted when Lewis signed contracts with
Northern and Southern coal operators calling for a $1.90 a day wage
hike and 10-cent a ton increase in welfare fund payments. Hard coal
operators agreed to a 20-cent a ton increase in welfare payments,
with a wage raise to be settled after soft coal negotiations. UMW’s
millionth medical benefit check paid the hospital and doctor bill for
the birth of twin sons of a West Virginia miner. Lewis answered the
AFL’s unity call by a proposal for a conference to effect immediate
unity.
Westinghouse settled with IUE for wage boosts of 7.5 to 13
cents an hour for 45,000 employes, but General Electric refused to
make an acceptable offer for its 71,000 employes, represented by IUE.
A strike against GE set for Sept. 20 was canceled to allow for a meet
ing of the IUE-GE conference board which had power to set a new
strike date.
Eastern railroads nnaiiy graniea me union »nop u uwrv|ia>
a ting rail unions. Settlement of 68 grievances, Mme two years old,
canceled strike action against the New York Central Railroad by the
Engineers, Conductors and Firemen. An increase in the cost of living
for tfce sixth straight month brought a 2-cent an hour pay increase
for 1,260,000 rail workers.
UAW-CIO asked General Motors to revise the wage scales and
minimum pension provided in the 6-year contract increases which
runs until 1966. UAW also won Wage Stabilisation Board approval
of substantial increases at three North American aviation plants, on
the ground that aircraft pay should equal that in the auto industry.
A $1 million damage suit was filed by UAW against International
Harvester for violation of the vacation clause of the Melrose Park,
111., contract. A contract granting a full union shop and 10-eent an hour
wage hike ended a strike of 18,000 URW members against Goodrich.
The NLRB asked the US Supreme Court to overrule a lower
court ruling which would force union members to cross picket lines or
be fired. David Cole, veteran arbiter, replaced Cyrus Ching as head
of the Federal Mediation Service. Harry Bridges’ 1960 perjury con
viction and deportation order was upheld by a federal appeals court
in San Francisco. •
Eisenhower and Taft, labor’s No. 1 enemy, made up after con
ference at Columbia University and Taft announced that he and Ike
see eye-to-eye on Taft-Hartley. Stevenson, in his Labor Day address
in Detroit and in his spebeh at the AFL convention, called for repeal
of T-H.
The ITU started publication in Charleston, W. Va., of Labor’s
Daily, only daily labor newspaper in the US. SIU opened the first
union-owned and operated night dub in Brooklyn. The New Jersey
CIO won a 10-year fight for on-the-job voter registration at several
large industrial plants in Middlesex County, but GOP election officials
blocked attempts to extend in-plant. registration to other counties.
OCTOBER: Political action was the theme of the month. Stevenson
got additional endorsements from the AFL Teamsters, United Mine
Workers, CIO Electrical Workers, Ohio AFL, CIO Chemical Workers,
CIO Marine Workers, Chicago AFL and others. *
Philip Murray declared an Eisenhower victory would bring a
"blitzkrieg against labor” and Walter Reuther told a UAW veterans
conference in Washington that the real fifth column in America is the
Wall Street gang that wants to turn the clock back to the 1920’s.
PAC reported CIO voter registration at an all-time high and PAC
Director Jack Kroll, who correctly predicted Truman’s 1948 victory,
said the next president would be Stevenson, both houses of Congress
would be Democratic and Die would get a maximum of 160 electoral
votes.
Sen. Wayne Morse (R. Ore.) announced he was disillusioned with
Eisenhower’s alliance with the reactionary wing of the GOP and
would campaign for Stevenson. A few days later he resigned from
the GOP. j.
Some 350,000 soft coal minors struck in protest against a WSB
decision cutting 40 cents from the fl.90 a day wage boost negotiated
by UMW. WSB labor members voted against the cut, pointing out
that the miners do not have certain fringe benefits enjoyed by other
unions. At the request of President Truman, Lewis asked the miners
to return to work, pending an appeal to W8B to restore the cut.
Dan Tobin retired after 46 years as president of tbs Teamsters,
And was succeeded by executiye vice-president Dave Beck. AFL Textile
Workers the CIO Textile Workers 7889—278 in an NLRB
election for bargaining rights for 11JW employes of Dan River Mills
in Virginia. James S. KiUen, AFL Pulp-Sulphite vice-president, was
(Continued ea Page 2) .*****»»***
MR. GOMPERS
Samuel Gompers, a founder and
first president of the AFL. He
held the AFL’. top post for 37
years until his death in 1M4.
1 --- j
Sam Gompers
Million Dollar
Executive Type 4.
WASHINGTON <LPA) — The
man could have had a guarantee
of a million dollars in 10 years
as president of an insurance com
pany. He could have held high
political posts. He could have
heeii the 3&0,000-a-year head of a
land development company.
But Samuel Gompers, founder
and for 37 years president of the
Ataeriesa Federation of Labor,
turned down all such offers, a
little baffled that anyone should
think he was interested in any
career other than the one he had
chosen.
He gave his life so wholeheart
edly to the union movement that,
as President Coolidge put it, Mhis
name was almost synonomous with
the cause he represented.” His
influence was so indelibly stamped
or the AFL that its policies
often were regarded to as “Gora
ptrsism.” He provided the indis
pensibte leadership that welded
the feeble, disorganized union
movement of the late 19th cen
tury into a powerful labor fed
eration that brought raised living
standards and new dignity to
working people.
uompers was Dorn into a pov
erty-stricken neighborhood on
London's crowded east Bide on
January 27, 1850. At 10 he was
appprenticed to a cobbler, but he
didn't like the work and soon
switched to his father's trade,
cigar-nuking. His family came
to America in 1863 and two years
later, at 15, Gompers got his first
union card in the cigar-makers
union. He handled his first griev
ance case at 15 and won.
At 26, he was president of his
union and at 27 he was a delegate
to the national convention. It was
at this time, in 1877, that the
cigarmakars lost a long and bitter
strike and Gompers was black
listed and out of work for months.
His family almost starved. Bat
his wife Sophia, a tobacco strip
per whom he had married when
he was 17, had a courage to
match her husband’s. With four
children and a fifth coming, she
kept the family alive on a diet
that sometimes was no more than
soup made of water, flour, salt
and pepper.
In.his autobiography. Gompers
records a memorable incident from
this period. He reports that one
night when he came home, Sophia
told him a caller had ofllpred her
930 a week for three months U
Gompers would quit the union.
“Well, what did you tell him?’’
Gompers demanded.
“My wife, indignant at tbs
question," Gompers wrote, “ah
swered: ‘What do you suppose
I told him with one child dying
and another coming? Of course,
john McBride
John McBride “unknown” sec
ond president of the A FI., who
defeated Samuel Gompers for the
1894-9? term. Also second presi
dent of the United Mine Workers. |
he died in Arizona in 1917, where
he went into the cigar-making
business and entered politics.
AFL’s 2nd Chief
Little Known;
Was UMW Head
COLUMBUS, 0. (LPA)—A for.
gotten 'grave in this city is the
final resting place of the “un
known” second president of the
AFL.
News stories following the
death of William Green id No
| vnmber. 1962, described Green as
the second president of the AFL,
the only man other than the great
Samuel Gompers, who had held
that office.
There is no disputing the fact
that Green succeeded Gompers to
the AFL presidency after the lat
ter’s death in 1924. But SO years
earlier, an Ohio minor hold tho
AFL’s highest office for one year.
He served from 1894 to 1895 and
was the only man ever to defeat
Gompers for the AFL position.
The man was John McBride,
also second president of the
United Mine Workers and at one
time a member of the Ohio legis
lature.
When Gompers was re-elected
by the AFL in 1895, McBride,
suffering from poor health, took
his family to Phoenix, Arts. Oaa
of the first things he did after
arriving there was to engage a
contractor to build a home for
him. The contractor had never
before used union labor, but Mc
Bride insisted that his home be
an all-union job. It probably waa
the first home in Pheonix built
on that basis.
Shortly after, McBride and a
man named Beavers formed a
partnership to manufacture cigars.
(Ceutlaaed on Page 2)
WILLIAM GREEN
Thir$ AFL President
Wm Green Held
Top AFL Position
Twenty-Eight Years
Washington—(LPA)—When the
AFL convention opens later this
month, it will be the first time in
28 years that the man wielding
the presiding officer's gavel will
not be William Green, the Ohio
miner whose early ambition was
to be a minister, bat who became
AFL President instead.
His death on November 20,
1952, marked the end of long
years of devotion to the advance
ment of the working man that
began when he entered the mines
as a breaker boy when he was IS.
Green gave up his plans to be
came a minister when poverty
forced him oat of school at 14
and into a job as a waterboy on
a railroad construction project.
Bat the personal qualities which
had turned him toward that pro
fession shaped the principles he
followed throughout his life.
His hometown friends, labor as
sociates, public officials and busi
nessmen remember him as a mild
mannered man whose method was
to counsel the middle road rather
than extreme measures as he
worked to make a reality of his
vision of a better life for the
world’s little people.
Born March 8, 1870, into a
miner’s family in Coshocton, Ohio,
Green joined the Coshocton Miners
Union—later to become Local 272
.of the United Mine Workers—at
the same time he joined his
father in the mines.
It wasn’t long until he was
raising his voice at union meet
ings against the squalor of com
pafiy towns, wretched wages, and
primitive working conditions that
resulted in mine accidents that
maimed and killed and left the
families of the victims without
any means of livelihood.
He was particularly incensed by
the use of the mine screen through
(Caathraed on Page •>
Labor Day Statement
By DAVID A. MORSE. Director-General
« International Labor Office
GENEVA.—On this Labor Dsy of 1953, the men and women
whose resourcefulness sad energy hare made the United States
the most sbundant land in history will recapitulate their achieve
ments and demonstrate anew their resolution to attain peace
and continuing prosperity for themselves and their children.
But at the ««me time they will recognise that this goal is
not to be easily achieved—that its attainment will require unity
of effort, clearsightedness and a calm yet resolute approach to
the many difficuult problems which this country and the world
community must face and solve.
We live today in a dynamic age in which vast forces must bo
understood and mastered if we are to avoid disaster and pro
vide assurance to mankind of the possibility of fulfilling its
great potentialities. Dangers face us on every side. The rela
tions between nations continue to imperil peace. The world
economy remains distorted. Misery and need exist side by side
with 'waste and unused resources.
These circumstances give rise to grave problems in whose
solution American labor has the highest stake. They are how
ever. problems which I am, confident can be solved—perhaps
slowly but nevertheless certainly—with the help of existing
international institutions and provided we tackle them with
persistence.
I believe also that the American labor movement, uniting its
efforts with those of the workers of other lands and employing
to the full the means available in the International Labor
Organisation, can contribute significantly to tbeir solution. Hie
ILO for its part stands ready, to meet any demand that may
be made upon it to thf end that fear sad want may be abolished
and peace made' lastingly secure.
Peace, Freedom'And
Prosperity Goals Of
World Free Labor
Fourth AFL PmWwit
President Meany’s
Labor Day Address
By GEORGE MEANY
President, Aatricu Federation of
In behalf of the free workers
of America, it ia my privilege on
this Labor Day to extend frater
nal greetings to their fellow
uwrkers throughout the world.
From its inception, the American
labor movement has maintained
close and friendly relations with
free labor in other nations, For
very practical reasons we spurned
isolationism and sought to extend
our international friendships.
We realised that when the free
dom of workers in one land was
expunged, the freedom of work
ers in all lands was threatened.
We understood that when the
prosperity of workers in one na
tion was undermined, the welfare
of workers everywhere became in
secure. The experiences we have j
undergone in two world wars have
nerved only to confirm these basic
truths.
WORLD-WIDE CHALLENGE
Today free labor facet a world
wide challenge from the forces of
dictatorship, its inveterate enemy.
Almost a generation ago, Musso
lini and Hitler found they first
had to destroy the freedom of la
bor before they could climb into
power. Today Franco and Peron
are following their example.
Their sphere of influence is
limited. The big threat to the
peace of the world and the free
dom of workers at this moment
comes from the Kremlin. The
Communist dictatorship has en
slaved millions upon millions of
workers behind the Iron Curtain.
It had ground these workers down
with a merciless oppression that
is a throwback to the days of
This year we saw some of those
workers rise. Through the win
dow of Berlin—the only window
left open in the Iron Curtain, we
saw men and women in Eastern
Europe out of sheer desperation
defy Soviet tanks and machine
guns with their bare fists. Spon
taneously, without plan,, without
weapons and without hope, they
quit their jobs and marched
through the streets, gaining the
support of whole communities as
they voiced their protests.
CRACKED UNDER STRAIN
We had been told that the Com
munist dictatorship was too
strong, too overpowering, too In
vincible for an iasuraaetion to suc
ceed. Yet ft cracked under the
strain of this mass uprising. The
courage of the workers of East
Berlin, East Germany, Csecho
slovakia, Hungary and Poland,
confounded and confused their
Communist overlords. '
Even when the Red commissars
PETER J. McGUIRE
First Labor Day celebration
was held la Now York ta IMS
after Peter J. McGuire (above)
arced the iafaat New York Cea
tral Labor Uaieo to sponsor a
holiday koaeriac workiag peoi)a>
McGuire had founded the Carpen
ters Ualoa the year before aad
was aae of the found ere of the
AFL ia IBM (LPA).
Birth Of Labor
Day Dream Of
N.Y. Carpenter
. By PETER J. McGUIRE
Father of Labor Day
On this day the hosts of labor
shout their Hosannahs! From a
thousand groves and hillsides, by
rippling brooks and gurgling
streams, conies the glad acclaim.
No festival of martial glory or
warrior's renown ia this; no pag
eant pomp of warlike conquest
no glory of fratricidal strife at- ,
tend this day.
It is dedicated to Peace, Civili
sation and the Triumphs of In
dustry. It is a demonstration of
fraternity and the harbinger of
a better age—a more chivalrous
thne when labor shall bo boot hon
ored aad well rewarded.
Pagan feasts and Christian ob
servances haw come down to *1
through the long ages. But it
was reserved for this century, and
for the American people, to give
birth to Labor Day. In this they
honor the toilers of the earth, and
pay homage to those who from
rude nature have delved and
carved all the comfort and gran
due r we behold.
More than all, the thought, the
conception, yea the very inspira
tion of this holiday came from
men in the ranks of the working
people — men active in uplifting
their fellows, and leading them
to better conditions. It came from
a little group in New York City,
the Central Labor Union, which
had Just been formed and which
in later years attained widespread
influence.
On May 8, 1882, the writer
made the proposition.. He urged
the propriety of setting aside one
day in the year to be designated
as “Labor Day,” and to be estab
lished as a general holiday for
the laboring classes. He advised
the day should first be celebrated
by a street parade, which would
publicly show the strength end
esprit de corps of the trade end
labor organisations. Next the
parade should be followed by a
picnic or festival in some grove,
end the proceeds of the same be
divided on this semi-co-operative
ften, eta.: J
Each union or organisation
y " (Continued an Pnge •>