LABOUR SPLIT

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 394, 30 March 1937, Page 5

LABOUR SPLIT

SIT-DOWN STRIKES “MUST BE DISAVOWED.” View of American Federation Press Association—Copyright. Washington, March 28. Mr. William Green, president of tha American Federation of Labour, Issued a statement to-day in which he said that sit-down strikes were illegal and must be disavowed by thinking men and women in the Labour movement.

Public opinion was against sit-down strikes, and Labour must be supported by public opinion. Sit-down strikes, despite their temporary advantages, finally Injured permanently the Labour movement, Mr. Green said.

He predicted that if they continued State and Federal laws would be passed, which would compel the inpotporation of unions to force arbitration in disputes, which would be a severe blow to Labour.

BREACH IN FEDERATION.

Insurgents Led by Committee for Industrial Organisation.

Mr John L. Lewis, chetrman of the Committee for Industrial Organisation, announced on March 10 that the C. 1.0. was organising State labour federations and city and central labour bodies as rivals to similar bodies existing within the American Federation of Labour, thus making a final break with the federation. He also announced that C. 1.0. would soon start the organisation Of drives to enrol most of the 2,250,000 workers in the textile and oil-refining Industries. Mr William Green, president of the -federation, said the action of the .C. 1.0. was only what he predicted a

year ago. Last year the federation ordered the suspension of unions headed by Mr. Lewis unless he dissolved the Committee tor Industrial Organisation.

The dispute centres round the old argument of craft versus industrial unions, with the federation favouring the former. Speaking at a mass meeting in New Jersey recently, Mr. Homer Martin, president of the United A utomobile Workers of America, which union has joined the C. 1.0., declared (hat a job was “a property right and aiay be defended by a ‘sit-down* strike” He defended the principle of new methods in the struggle for better labour conditions. Mr. Martin claimed that the “sitdown” strike was a legal and orderly development of labour’s Methods of maintaining its rights. The courts and legislatures, he declared, would soon recognise the right of the worker to protect his job by occupying his place of employment. Mr. Green was elected president of the American Federation of Labour tn 1924. He has served as a member of the advisory council of the National Recovery Administration, and in 1930 was awarded the* gold medal of honour by the Roosevelt Memorial Association for distinguished service in the promotion of industrial peace. Ho is a member of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.