AFL—CIO_ MIAMI CONVENTION War backing challenged — ; - By WILLIAM ALLAN “ag challenge was made here to the AFL-CIO’s top , , . leadership all-out backing of the Vietnam war, by Charles 6an, president of the Ameri- Can Federation of Teachers | Union, who called for the Fede- Tation remaining neutral on the | War, D gppelegate A. Toffoli, Colorado State Federation of Labor rose ' also in opposition to the Federa- ) tion resolution backing the Viet- | nam war and read into the offi- 2 Cial proceedings the statement - Of policy adopted by 523 labor 4 People in Chicago, Nov. 11-12, : Aeute under the auspices of f © Labor Leadership Assembly Or Peace, e The Teachers Union motion | {Or neutrality was also backed delegate Lon Davis, Retail : oa Wholesale who said... “I | believe the war is a tragic mis- ; an I believe that this great ) oor movement’ of ours in sup- / Porting this resolution (the Fede- ‘fation one, backing the war) is - Moving away from the road of Progress. We cannot see that i War is either for freedom /or democracy when the former :. oH 2 leader in South Vietnam former No. 1 leader in South 2 Vietnam had more in common e With Hitler than they did with d Jeffersonian democracy in the United States’, myth - je OY WILKINS, executive di- fore 1200 delegates to the Constitutional Convention Hof the AFL-CIO,' of whom not ee than 10 were Negro, and t the, delegates with hard facts lat “the rate of progress has €n far too slow” in bringing €gro into the ranks of or- meee labor, especially the illed sections, - lay the record on your lap,” le Said, “Cleveland is an exam- Of what is happening nation- ®, that after 11 years of ee with the International i. aed of Electrical Work- ve Ncluding suits and sit-ins, fe two Negroes have been ad- ted to the local there.” - Newark, N.J. he said, not & to any of the five iron- Workers locals despite a hard- : t agreement reached last Sas New construction in New- “1.2, Will be on the edge of the : eto next year. @ Vilkins asked “what will the Ms of Negroes be in New- When they learn that many af jobs will be closed to '€m,”? é He returned to talk of Cleve- raft Saying, “the five major ~ Unions there, according to ise oaled by the U.S. Com- Sion on Civil Rights, had ex- _four Negro apprentices. ay certainly in the words of te ‘S. Supreme Court, delibe- Speed.” He quoted from the August, en Teport of the U.S. Depart- Bs t of Labor entitled, “Man- . Automation, , Research adi fe St yeye tp rector, NAACP, stood be- - hgle Negro has been admit- | taken het yROo Ee a IDEA Delegate Davis said he saw no indication that a _ substantial section of the Vietnam people were for the war and that he felt for the AFL-CIO convention to back a resolution supporting the war in Vietnam would give the Administration (in Washing- ton) “an illusion that this con- vention is united on behalf of this policy . . . the facts will show, when the voting is done, that this nation is divided. Un- less there is a basic change in this approach, we stand in dan- ger of losing politically in the next election — if you do not appreciate the substantial divi- sion in our ranks on this issue.” Delegate Davis continued, “‘At least in my union where poor workers are involved, just re- cently organized hospital work- ers, they would like to see the wealth and images of our nation confirmed to dealing with the . .. problems of our country. We welcome here the report, the appropriation of one billion seven. hundred million to deal with the issue of the poor. How- ever we spend that in 20 days in Vietnam. What we spend on the entire poverty program is being blown to bits in 20 days in South and North Vietnam, for what ef- forts at least we cannot under- stand, for what purpose our members cannot understand.” Delegate A. Toffoli said- he Monograph No. 6” containing this significant sentence: “Indeed the 1960 census showed only 2,191 Negro ap- prentices in all the trades throughout the country. That figure was one more than had been recorded in the 1950 cen- sus 10 years ago.” Wilkins told how the Brother- hood of Railway and Steamship Clerks, which operated. segre- gated. locals in northern as well as southern cities, have changed all that now. They abolished several segregated local lodges, but they did this by reclassify- ing the traditional Negro job classifications and declaring them to be within the jurisdic- tion of the white locals, in prac- tice this meant that Negro freight handlers were replaced by less senior white workers who had been in the all-white baggage clerks seniority line. Wilkins commented bitterly, “in other words, we will abolish the segregated local but now everybody’s seniority will count, and the whites who had senior- ity over here in their separate local have more than Negroes that have been abolished and in, and they have no seniority in the white local, and therefore the jobs are out.” ' The Brotherhood of Locomo- tive Firemen — removed a Ne- gro exclusion clause from its constitution in 1964, after a rail- road ‘work rules’ arbitration had made it virtually certain that few if any, additional firemen would ever be hired on Ameri- can railroads, said Wilkins. to Iho. nolisse coisglsbd esw i Gites reves 2nWw 230 Sintiv was privileged to attend the con- vention two years ago in San Francisco and speak for two minutes “following Brother Ma- zey’s wonderful speech, and I’m very dissappointed he is not here today to speak.” | “We had at this conference (Chicago, SANE Peace meeting of unionists, Nov. 11-12) several very fine speakers that some of you are very well acquainted with; Senator Eugene McCarthy (boos) profesor John Galbraith (boos). Surely there must be someone here who has some respect for people of this cali- bre”. He then said he wanted to read the statement of policy adopted by the 500 odd union- ists in Chicago, but a chorus of “no’s” greeted him. President George Meany, presiding said, “the speaker has the floor and he can put it into the record if he wants to.” Delegate Toffoli then proceeded to read the Chicago policy statement into the official convention record, where it ap- peared the following day. Meany then turned loose the sabre rattlers from his own ranks who ranted, roared, screamed and threatened, brag- ged about their deeds. First came James Suffridge, Retail Clerks, an heir apparent to Meany’s throne who wanted the delegates to make backing the resolution on Vietnam, backing Discrimination he charged con- tinues, a decade after the AFL- CIO merger in paper and pulp manufacturing, chemicals, oil refining, skilled metal trades and others, he said. He then read the roll-call of Cleveland locals who besides the IBEW, Local 38, who with a total membership of 1,258 had two Negro members; Ironworkers Union, Local 17, with a total membership of 1,786 had no Negro members; Plumbers, Local 55, with a mem- bership of 1,482 had three Ne- gro members. Pipefitter, Local 36, member- ship 1,319 had one Negro mem- ber; Sheet Metal Workers Union, Local 65, membership 1,077 had 46 members. Recent data, he said, from the Census Bureau say there are more Negroes in the San Fran- cisco-Oakland East Bay area than there are in Birmingham, Alabama. The rate of long term unemployment among Negro males in Oakland exceeds the general rate of unemployment for the entire nation during the great depression of the 1930's. In every survey of the national scene, Oakland is listed as a “powder keg” city. But the Nov- ember, 1967, report of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights de- tails the exclusion of Negroes in union controlled. employment in the federally financed Bay Area Rapid Transit System (BART) construction which will employ 8,000 people at peak construc- tion time. This is a one billion dollar project. The ‘Office of Federal Contract Compliance re- ports that as of May, PRS As VN dt Jada if 1967, there. MSG OFS ad bouwps ai sons Jee the Johnson Administration; Joe Curran, posibly one of the most frenetic anti-Communists in this convention, who yelled his way through three solid pages of the convention proceedings; Mike Quill, the late president of the Transport Workers Union, must ‘have turned over in disgust listening to TWU delegate Kal- lin; shocking to many of the de- legates was the boast of dele- gate Harry R. Hasselgren, Long- shoremen who boasted, “we kept our muscles in shape all week- end in New York and we took care of those fellows who were burning their draft cards this past weekend in New York. Meany then recognized the Chair (himself) who centered a major part of his remarks seek- ing to downgrade the signifi- cance of the recent Labor Con- ference on peace in Chicago. Meany continued his down- grading of the Chicago meeting of trade unionists for peace... “so don’t let anyone tell you the meeting was representative of the trade union movement. That meeting was planned in Hanoi by a special committee that went there. And I read the Sunday Worker — I used to read the Daily Worker, but that is no more, I read the Sunday Worker and I tell you I have seen that resolution, every term. of it, every line of it in the Sunday ~ Negroes demand equal jobs was not a single Negro among the 106 electricians, ironworkers ~ and plumbers engaged on BART construction. AFL-CIO President George Meany, who likes to refer to the AFL-CIO “as the house of labor, with many mansions” sat up straight when Roy Wilkins said: ... “I would like to say that I lay this record in your lap be- cause the errant children of the AFL-CIO, the International Unions and their locals, are your children, they have thus far chosen to ignore the resolutions of convention . . . but the Negro citizen and the Negro children of this country are determined that employment doors shall be opened .. . the debating, back- ing and. filling days are over,” concluded Wilkins. Meany responded with the usual promises that the AFL- CIO leaders will “continue to apply themselves to this prob- lem.” He then repeated what he told the Building Trades Depart- ment sessions a few days before “that some unions were having trouble finding Negroes who can qualify as apprentices.” It was as if Meany didn’t know that exams call for a knowledge necessary for a high school graduate and many Negro youth can’t afford to stay that long, because of poverty, need for another breadwinner. Also the UAW some time ago complained the standards were needlessly too high. The auto workers have schools going to help youngsters get additional coaching to pass exams, but not Meany’s boys. f + 7% was S219VID dove TSsode Worker two weeks before the meeting was held in Chicago.” The amendment of Chas. Co- gen of the AFT, was then voted on to havé the Federation be neutral, and it received 10 votes. Then the resolution in support of the war in Vietnam passed with ten voting against. Later in the pressroom, report- ers asked this -reporter about Meany’s claim of the Sunday Worker carrying the policy statement of the Chicago trade unionists for peace meeting, two weeks before. We replied, it was carried one week after the con- ference. The impact of the Chicago peace conference was felt here and Meany’s special emphasis and redbaiting attack was of course to shoot it down, firstly that it did not represent labor and it was all a “plot” hatched “in Hanoi.” . : Meany’s accusation was de- nied by Emil Mazey, UAW sec- retary treasurer, reached in‘ De- troit by telephone by reporters. He said that the charges were “libelous and slanderous and just the kind of a statement you might expect from a senile old man.” CONTEMPT Contemp?, my lord! You wha signed the writ without regard for right or wrong, on prison walls. For all your precedents you have not cited this. Your measured words uphold not right, but privilege. ry tee our ity was apparent in those years ; you set your sordid stages for divorce, nor did the majesty of law recoil at farce. se ose or the trafficker in His victims served vat his prison terms. They all contributed to me career no less than to the campaign funds, the measure of your eminence that set you in authority to sit in judgement on your fellow men. Contempt, my lord! The right of which I speak was not wrested from the tyranny of wealth to moulder in corroded minds that only fear the wrath from which it sprang. To live, it see The right must still be writ on prison walls by those who hold you in contempt, my lord. —by Harold Griffin’ HimiDe: Qae Sane JANUARY 5; 1968—PACIFICTRIBUNES+R8age'5 JANUARY 5, 1968—PACIFIC IRIBUNE—Page