MEANY. PREPARES - By CHARLES WEIR EPRESENTATIVES of the Brates of the Inter- € Trad hal Confederation of ili € Unions, representing ae Union members in 96 8, are scheduled to meet om yongress i m July ; a : = Amsterdam Ae batletines for the strug- ady om Congress have al- Onths N drawn, For many the Ree Meany, president Ning @L°ClO, has been threa- tion Withdraw his organi- ; ae mainstay Sand eye” Since its inception Ven pe Y World os rhaps sponsor a kany. are these demands that LCio ay his hand-picked ae €legation will present gress? Simply that the Ne g Vaud to its original pur- ®ing solely a labor front Ing Pentagon policies € throats of as many by wound the world as it *'Y can. few Months ago Meany felt a8ly about the luke-warm- the ICFTU’s anti-Com- hat he publicly casti- oh top brass and further- atte, fared its Brussels head- and “homosexuals”. (At the time, an official spokesman for the Canadian Labor Congress commented that we in Canada are not bound to follow the AFL- GIO’s position on the ICFTU). The AFL-CIO News of June 12 carried an article by Meany, set- ting out in no uncertain terms his programatic demands on the July 7 convention. The article was reportedly ghost-written by Jay Lovestone, who, it has often been charged but never denied, is the “CIA man in labor”, doubling for years as head of the AFL-CIO’s department of foreign affairs. In this article Meany makes it quite clear what in his opinion the ICFTU should be: “‘it is a major task of the ICFTU to fight against Communism,” “the anti- Communist campaign should be stepped up in all fields of activi- ty.” He winds up by proposing a specific anti-Communist de- partment in the ICFTU. Meany complains bitterly that some sections of the movement have wandered from this anti- Communist road and, in trying to do something useful for their affiliated workers, have even committed the heresy of co- ‘operating on specific projects with affiliates of the peace-and- of Trade Unions. He points the accusing finger: “The special efforts made by the WFTU to penetrate the inter- national trade secretariats of the ICFTU have not been entirely unsuccessful. For example, the ICFTU Mineworkers Trade Sec- “yetariat has been manoeuvered into cooperating with the WFTU’s so-called miners trade union international. The Inter- national. Graphical Federation (ICFTU trade secretariat) has decided to recommend that its forthcoming congress accept the application for affiliation by the Communist-d 9minated CGT printing workers organization. Such actions hurt free trade un- ionism everywhere and cannot be countenanced by the ICFTU. They are in crass violation of the decision of the ICFTU executive board (Dec. 1964) that “it is the policy of the ICFTU to refuse to cooperate in any way with any ITS (international trade secre- tariat) which may admit into affiliation any organization di- rectly or indirectly affiliated to the WFTU.” Having thus set out the terms “for his war against Communism and thrown down the gauntlet to anyone in ICFTU who under any unions that may in turn asso- ciate with unions from socialist lJands—Meany goes on to com- plain against those ICFTUers who refuse to fight all out for Pentagon and CIA domination over unions in the developing countries of Africa, Latin Amer- ica, etc. The ultimatum Meany lays down is that if the ICFTU is in- capable or reluctant to impose this U.S. domination over the young union movements in such lands, then the AFL-CIO de-: mands the right to step in direct- ly and, with the help of CIA agents and funds, do the job it- self. This demand he couches in these terms: “There is no reason why the. experience, personnel, means and facilities of national centers should not be put at the disposal of the trade unions of the de- veloping countries. In addition, national centres are able to win financial support for undertak- . ings from public agencies in their country which would other- wise not be granted. The sound- ness of this approach is con- firmed by the AFL-CIO relation- ship with ORIT. Through the AFL-CIO American Institute for Free Labor Development, it has been possible to obtain union 1 hatchet-job on world union unity and training programs in Latin America.” Anyone who wonders how far George Meany (and the AFL- CIO executive council) are pre- pared to go at Amsterdam to achieve the objectives of the Pentagon and CIA need only re- call the above. These are not idle words. Al- ready during the past year the - AFL-CIO leaders have diverted a considerable amount of the so-called solidarity contributions from the ICFTU to “direct” avenues. Now they are going to the Amsterdam congress to legi- timize that practice—unless of course they whip the ICFTU back totally under the Pentagon line of “war against communism in every corner of the world” and nothing else. While Meany may be prepared to accept a “free hand for. the AFL-CIO” compromise, for the moment he still has the big stick of “we'll leave the ICFTU and launch an- other world trade union centre” with which to beat down any opposition from British, Swedish and other delegates there. It remains to be seen whether the Canadian Labor Congress will join Meany’s plot against world unionism or play an inde- pendent and constructive role at * as being full of “fairies” unity-minded World Federation - circumstances cooperates with and public funds for projects ‘Urope first saw the opera, Rise and Fall of the City of of penny, by two German artists and € left, the composer Kurt Weill © the playwright Bertolt Brecht. : €se years, Mahagonny is given ing wth American production, join- 8 the re oi Festival, pertoire of the Stratford Bat : t ‘is a good choice, as music, as “atre, as social criticism, as poli- Cal protest, ti thethagonny is a city founded by Ves underworld characters, fugiti- ta Tom the law. In this city “you ib 4 do anything—rob, steal, rape, Bars € interest of order, for the wel- a Of the city, for the future of kind and for the sake of your Well-being.” aa this city you eat like a pig and Ww buddies applaud your gorging a Without pause, you rape and “Ce without conscience, you fight kill for sheer fun and money, Ao for the first time and after’ u . "til you drop dead of gluttony. You he THEATRE you exploit God until he offends you, then you lynch him, you gamble and cheat and betray. This is the society of the jungle. Anything goes. Discipline? Ethics? Social responsibility? To hell with that! The first law is Me First—the law of capitalism. In this society “the greatest of crimes in the world we live in is to be without money.” In this society you “do nothing for love. You do it for gain.” Kill, disturb the peace, sing for- bidden songs, and you get a few days or a few years in prison. But fail to pay your tavern bills — go broke—and you die in the electric chair. In this city the state is the ma- chine of the combined forces of the underworld, of finance, of govern- ment. The Madame, whose business is prostitution, is also the judge. (Somehow she underlines for us Mr. Justice Dorion’s comments on our own morality.) Jean Gascon, who directed Maha* gonny, considers Brecht “anarchistic . removed from the Marxist doc- trine.” It is not surprising, he says, - Mahagonny — good Stratford choice that “Mahagonny was never per- ~ formed behind the Iron Curtain.” I don’t know whether or not the opera has been seen in socialist East Europe, but if it has not been pro- duced there, I cannot fathom why. Certainly it is easy to understand why it has not been seen in our own part of the world. : Brecht considered himself a Com- munist and declared himself such. His plays, explicitly or by implica- tion, reject capitalism. : Mahagonny is not a play, it is an opera. It suffers from some of the operatic conventions but admirably masters the problems of joining dia- logue, declamation, song and action. It is musically powerful, theatrically vivid, intellectually stimulating. Louis Applebaum’s musical direc- tion has a driving, emotional inten- sity that combines with Kurt Weill’s music to stir and excite. His singers have strong impact, but too often the lyrics do not come through dis- tinctly, and too often they are drowned out by. the players of the ~ National Festival Orchestra. . Mr. Gascon uses the proscenium stage of the Avon Théatre as dyna- Amsterdam. : Z. mically as a platform stage. In the context of Brian Jackson’s skeletal setting of ramps and scaffolds,” Mr. Gascon stresses the theatre elements of opera, underlines characteriza- tions and introduces imaginative ex- tensions of the authors’ plotting. Mahagonny has a_ well-balanced company, ineluding outstanding singers from Toronto and Montreal, Muriel Greenspon of New York (a rough, tough, domineering madame) and the fascinating Martha Schlamme who, especially in the last act, rises to a peak of bitterness, emotional violence and cynicism as she renounces her lover when he declares himself broke. In the last scene the people of _ the doomed city, trapped by their way of life, silently parade around the stage with picket signs of pro- test. The signs declare: ’ “Eternal Vulgarity! Anarchy! For the Exploitation of Others! For an Unjust Distribution of Wealth!. Let the Strong Overcome the Weak! To Survive We Must Have Corruption! Freedom for the Rich! Every Man for Himself! Long Live the Assas- sins! Money Is the Only Law!” —Martin Stone , July 16, 1965—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 5