New Zealand Must Decide On Withdrawal From World Federation Of Trade Unions

Wanganui Chronicle, 29 March 1949, Page 6

New Zealand Must Decide On Withdrawal From World Federation Of Trade Unions

WELLINGTON. Last Night (PAL-- Describing the rupture in the World Federation of Trade Unions, from which New Zealand unionists must now decide whether they will withdraw, the secretary of the New Zealand Federation of Labour. Air. I\. AL L. Baxter, has issued a statement to unions.

In this statement Mr. Baxter sa\s: •‘British and American trade unions stand for immediate relief, reconstruction and rehabilitation in Europe apart from political implications. It appears to be a question of U.S.A, surpluses or U.S.S.R. shortages, with different interpretations of political and economic consequences. For workers who produce goods and render services and who will go on doing so fo r a long time whether under ‘democracy’ or ‘dictatorship’ the struggle is on. In the language of the workers on the job, it would appear that the British trade union leaders say: ‘We are up to our knees in dirt. Let us struggle to make conditions tolerable,’ while the Eastern leaders say: ‘We cannot finalise the struggle to get out of the dirt till it is up to our necks. Let us make conditions more intolerable.’ ” Mr. Baxter outlined the history of the World Federation of Trade Unions i since its inception in 1945. He said] that before the rupture more than 70 trade union national centres were affiliated, covering 75,000,000 trade unionists. From the outset different conceptions existed as to the functions of trade unions. Ip Russia and countries under the influence of Russia economic and political systems were being moulded under different conditions and upon different lines, and trade unions had entirely different functions from those in the United

States of America, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. In Eastern Europe, under forms of dictatorship, trade unions were becoming more and more instruments of the State. When the World Federation was confronted with the problem of reconstruction the unions of Western Europe urged participation with co-operation in the administration of the Marshall Plan, but the Eastern European countries repudiated the Marshall Plan as a policy whereby European countries would be subjected to economic domination by the United States of America, with loss of national independence. The political parties of Eastern Europe instructed their trade unions’ representativs to transform the World Federation into a fighting organ, purged of “all reformists and influences inherited from the past,” to attack capitalism in the rear by Nationalist movements in colonial countries. This fundamental difference led to the withdrawal of the American, British and Dutch representatives from the W.F.T.U. on January 18 last. The remaining members of the executive committee decided to continue its activities. Mr. Baxter said that since February 1945, it had cost the New Zealand Federation of Labour £2870 in affiliation fees to the W.F.T.U. and it could cost from £5OO to £6OO to send a delegate to any W.F.T.U. Congress in Europe.