U.S.A. LABOUR SPLIT

Grey River Argus, 7 May 1942, Page 5

U.S.A. LABOUR SPLIT

C. 1.0. LEADER’S COMPLAINT. EX-LEADER LEWIS NOT HELPING. (Rec. 10.50). PITTSBURGH, May 6. Mr. Philip Murray, President of the Congress of Industrial Organisations, gave a ninety minutes’ address before the Pennsylvania Industrial Union Council of the C. 1.0. The President denounced internal Union warfare. He asserted: “There is only one war that I am interested in at this moment. That is the war to defeat Hitler and his Axis partners.” Mr. Murray also accused the former C. 1.0. President, Mr. J. H. Lewis, of failing to give him (Mr. Murray), the co-operation that Mr. Lewis had promised to give. He said Mr. Lewis promised to support him, right or wrong, in all of his acts. “I have not received that support, but I am going to keep on fighting,” Mr. Murray declared. He needed the backing of all of the C. 1.0. affiliated unions, because he was fighting with his back to the wall for wage increases and for Union security at a time when the hostile forces in Congress were endeavouring to strip labour of all of its gains. The atmosphere of the C. 1.0. Convention was electrified by the open rift between Mr. Lewis and President Murray. Guards were posted in corridors to prevent hostilities between the two factions. However, Mr. John O’Leary, who is reputed to be Mr. Lewis’s candidate to succeed Mr. Murray as C.I O. President, received a cut on the forehead from a Murray partisan in a corridor fist fight.