SUBVERSION IN UNIONS

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27402, 15 July 1954, Page 11

SUBVERSION IN UNIONS

Inquiry Planned In U.S. (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 10 p.m.) WASHINGTON, July 13. The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee rebuffed the Eisenhower Administration today by rejecting two of its anti-subversive bills and voting instead to set up a special commission to study security in United States industry. The rejected bills, requested by the Attorney-General (Mr Herbert Brownell) would have urged the Government to bar suspected subversives from factories producing defence equipment and supplies, and to ’dissolve any organisation—such as a labour union or business “infiltrated” by Commtmists. The proposal to set up a commission was sponsored by Mr Francis Walter (Democrat, Pennsylvania). It parallels closely a proposal wh>h Mr George Meany, president of the American Federation of Labour (A.F.I ) and Mr Walter Reuther, president of the Congress of Industrial Organisations (C. 5.0. submitted today in letters to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. Mr Walter’s plan would set up a 12member commission, with four members each from labour, industry and “the public,” to bring down a report to the President. The commission would “study the prevailing practices and conditions in all branches of industry in the United States pertaining to security from sabotage, espionage and other activities designed to injure the interests of the United States, the efficient functioning of industry, and the good relations between labour and management.” In suggesting that the President should appoint a representative commission to study the problem, Mr Meany wrote that unions had made considerable progress on their own in ousting Communists. Mr Reuther wrote: “It is our hope that such a commission would devise and recommend enactment of a programme, which, while respecting individual rights and liberties, would provide every needed protection of our national security. Such a programme would have the support of every patriotic American.” Both the A.F.L. and the C. 1.0. had earlier expressed apprehension about Mr Brownell’s plans to permit the dissolution of unions.