U.S. HEADING FOR DEPRESSION: LABOUR VIEW

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 September 1947, Page 5

U.S. HEADING FOR DEPRESSION: LABOUR VIEW

NEW YORK, September 1

The president of the Congress of Industrial Organisations (Mr Philip Murray), in a broadcast Labour Day message, said that organised labour’s view that price controls should have been continued had been proved correct by the high prices and enormous profits of today. “I want to say most emphatically that the nation is heading toward another depression—a depression that could easily make the last one appear to be only a minor economic setback,” he said. “I am not saying that another depression is just around the corner; I am saying that the present trend of higher and higher profits and smaller and smaller purchasing power must be halted and reversed if we are to avoid economic chaos in'the future. Of this you can be certain.” Mr Murray added that the TaftHartley labour control law was designed to take away many of the gains labour had secured over the years through free, collective bargaining. Working rnen and women were in a fighting mood, and were determined that their uiyions would not be weakened or destroyed. They were also determined to change Congress’s anti-labour complexion.