WORLD TRADE UNIONS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 69, Issue 79, 13 January 1949, Page 8

WORLD TRADE UNIONS

AMERICANS URGE NEW BODY

LONDON, January 11

The European representative of the American Federation of Labour lias demanded the formation of a new international trade union body to replace the World Federation of Trade Unions, says the Labour correspondent of the “Manchester Guardian.’ The American Federation of Labour has never belonged to the W.F.T.U., and had consistently opposed it since it was formed. The American demand said: “The year 1948 ended once for and all any illusions about the W.F.T.U. The time wasted in four years of fruitless debates, discussions and negotiations lhas merely confirmed beyond doubt that the W.F.T.U. remains an instrument for Russian domination. “The leaders of free labour must now determine where they go from here—or whether they go at all. That requires before anything else the interment of the W.F.T.U.’s corpse. The Cominform’s declaration of war against Western economic reconstruction leaves no alternative but to begin to forge an instrument of an international free trade union movement.

“The American Federation of Labour sees the European Recovery Programme’s Trade Union Committee as a nucleus for forming its proposed new international organisation, and wants discussions to begin as soon as possible.” “The Trades Unions Congress is not likely to rush straight from the funeral of the W.F.T.U.—if it is buried —into a new international movement, nor does it follow that if the T.U.C. withdraws from the W.F.T.U., other Western European trade union movements will do the same,” comments the correspondent of the “Manchester Guardian.” “The T.U.C. would not wish to embarrass old friends on-the Continent by rushing into a new organisation.”