GERMAN LABOUR

Grey River Argus, 1 February 1946, Page 5

GERMAN LABOUR

World T.U.C. Interest delegation arrives for A STUDY. (Rec. 11.30) BERLIN, Jan. 31. Sir W. Citrine (British I.U.L. Secretary) has arrived here by air with a World Federation of Trade Unions delegation. He said the delegation intended, firstly, to contact representatives of the four occupying Powers; and secondly to study the situation of the German trade union movement. The delegates wished to examine that movement with a view to advising the occupying Powers and a trade union movement. They also were directly interested in the laws regulating the conditions under which German labour was employed. They felt strongly that Germany could not escape responsibility for the war’s awful consequences, but they could not let German labour degenerate into slave labour. Sir Walter Citrine added that the delegation had received permission to visit all four of the zones, without restraint. Thereafter they would express their views to the occupying Powers, or submit a report to the W.F.T'.U. Executive, which was meeting at Faris in February. He added: “We represent sixtysix million workers who are deeply interested as to how a German trade union movement is to be re-created. We want to see it, under proper conditions and safeguards, recover its influence for the well-being of German workers, and to inculcate principles of democracy throughout the trade unions.”