Lord Citrine Joined Tramps’ Union In U.S.

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30125, 8 May 1963, Page 20

Lord Citrine Joined Tramps’ Union In U.S.

(New Zealand Press Association,

WELLINGTON, May fi. The eminent Britisrf Labour figure, Lord Citrine, once joined ~ tramps’ union in the United States. He told the story on his arrival in the Athenic this morning with Lady Citrine to visit their son, Dr. Ronald Citrine, of Paihia, in the Bay of Islands. Lord Citrine said that when he was general secretary of the British Trade Union Congress, he was in America in lf>4l. “I was approached by a gent in a stetson and jodphurs who asked if I would join his movement,” he said. “I asked whether it was a trade union and he said it was, so I agreed to accept membership. “Having agreed, I found

it was the ‘hoboes’ of America—and was a union of tramps and down-and-outs.” Lord Citrine explained that in the old days, when there was a dispute between employers and trade unions, the employers would call on blackleg labour. If they could earn money moving goods or driving motors these tramps were alii out to get it, and so they were used as - strike breakers—which caused considerable concern to the unions. ' -

The American Federation of Labour then conceived the idea of organising them so that they would no longer be a menace either to the police or the unions and thus the union came into being, he said. “I took it as a joke at first, but afterwards realised that the union had a very laudable object in that it was virtually organising the unonganisable. ”

Lord Citrine, who was general secretary of the T.U.C. from U 26 to 1946, is president of the International Union of Producers and Distributors of Elecrtical Energy and chairman of Britain’s Central Electricity Authority. He is on his third visit to -New Zealand. Earlier ones were in 1930 and 1956 His Wellington engagements include lunch with the Minister of Labour (Mr Shand) and discussions with Electricity Department officials.