INDUSTRIAL TRUCE DISTURBED

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 19945, 1 November 1934, Page 9

INDUSTRIAL TRUCE DISTURBED

LABOUR UNREST IN AMERICA

SINISTER INFLUENCES AT WORK United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyrlgnt (Received October 31, 8.25 p.m.) WASHINGTON, October 30. President Roosevelt’s industrial truce was seriously threatened to-day by the action of the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, operators of a nation-wide chain of grocery stores, in closing its 300 stores in Cleveland (Ohio) as a protest against attempts to “unionise” the employees of the company.

Officials charge the union with intimidation, and declare that they are definitely withdrawing their entire business, with an estimated annual turnover of 20,000,000 dollars, from Cleveland, thus rendering 2500 unemployed. The Socialist Party has announced plans to boycott all the company's stores, and there is a possibility that the American Federation of Labour may take a similar stand.

In a radio broadcast speech to the American nation on September 30, President Roosevelt proposed an armistice between capital and labour, while the newly organised N.R.A. evolved legislation intended permanently to safeguard the rights of each. Within the month, the President planned to confer wdth representatives of labour and capital, seeking their cooperation in establishing a specific trial period of industrial peace. From those willing to join in establishing this hoped for peace period, the President said that he would seek assurances regarding the making and maintenance of agreements which could be mutually lived up to and under which wages, hours and working conditions might be determined. Any later adjustments could be made by agreement, or mediation, or arbitrations of the State or Federal agencies. Employers and employees would not be asked permanently to give up weapons common to industrial war, but both groups would be asked to give a fair trial to peaceful methods of adjusting their conflicts of opinion and interests. While industrial recovery had been retarded by strikes, their extent and severity had been far less than for any comparable period.