Word: afl-cio
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Dates: during 1955-1955
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...conclusion of last week's AFL-CIO unity meeting in New York, one pundit called the merger "the miracle on Thirty-Fourth Street." Few people, remembering the rancorous night when John L. Lewis pulled his Committee of Industrial Organizations out of the American Federation of Labor, could imagine the new labor group as anything except a battleground for rival bigwigs. When Mike Quill and some of the more militant CIO leaders protested the merger heatedly, observers predicted that the miraculous enterprise would shortly founder...
...amazement of many, however, the first formal conclave of the new united organization was marked by a serene meeting of minds between the former heads of the AFL and CIO. Both George Meany and Walter Reuther spoke of the internal amity and potential of the newly-built AFL-CIO. More significantly, both agreed fully on the important subject of labor's future in politics. They attacked the recent statement of Arizona's Senator Barry Goldwater, that the AFL-CIO had "no right to endorse a political nominee" and his suggestion that labor be "politically disfranchised." Reuther replied to Goldwater directly...
...AFL-CIO promises, on the basis of Reuther's and Meany's statements, to extend this political action even farther. There are, however, numerous stumbling blocks to organized labor as a political force. Many professional politicians, while openly welcoming the prestige and financial support that goes with big labor's support, privately deprecate AFL and CIO endorsement as a "kiss of death" in many campaigns. They point to the Ohio Senatorial election of 1950 where the CIO tried to make the Taft-Hartley Act a major issue. The attempt failed miserably; Bob Taft, the Act's sponsor, won by thumping...
...that unions also cannot rally their own members to any political standard they choose. The reasons for this lie in the non-Marxian sociology of the American workingman. Its implications point a warning to the leaders of the new labor federation. While Meany and Reuther may visualize the AFL-CIO as a vast new political fulcrum which can make politicians tremble and cause labor policies to be transformed into political action, the task ahead may be much more difficult than either of them realizes. And, in making the attempt to influence political currents, the AFL-CIO chiefs may be risking...