The Labor Month in Review

THE President's State of the Union message on - January 10, leaving to later messages specific recommendations for labor legislation, had this general admonition concerning wage-price relationships: ". . . I urge leaders in business and in labor to think well on their responsibility to all the American people . . . They can powerfully help counteract or accentuate such [inflationary] tendencies by their wage and price policies.

"Business . . . should avoid unnecessary price increases, especially at a time like the present And... increases in wages and other labor benefits, negotiated by labor and management, must be reasonably related to improvements in productivity. . . . Wage negotiations should also take cognizance of the right of the public generally to share in the benefits of improvements in technology."

Early in January, two Presidential appointments to labor posts in the Federal Government were announced. James T. O'Connell, 50-year-old former New Jersey industrial relations executive, was named Under Secretary of Labor to succeed Arthur Larson. Kenneth C. McGuiness, 41, associate general counsel of the Board, was selected general counsel in an interim appointment, pending nomination of a permanent successor to replace Theophil C. Kammholz, who resigned.

Shortly before Congress convened, the AFLCIO announced it would seek action in 14 fields of legislation, including Federal aid to education, minimum wages, welfare funds, the Taft-Hartley Act revision, aid for depressed areas, civil rights, social security, public housing, immigration, and foreign aid.

Legislative interests of the AFL-CIO in the 85th Congress will be managed by Andrew J. Biemiller, former Wisconsin Congressman, who recently was appointed head of the organization's Department of Legislation.

UNTIL the end of January, however, much atten

tion of the AFL-CIO leadership was directed to the quarterly Executive Council meeting scheduled in Miami beginning January 28. Prominent on the agenda was a report of the Ethical Practices Committee with respect to three international unions-Distillery, Laundry, and Allied Industrial Workers-in connection with alleged mismanagement of union welfare funds. (The Laundry Workers subsequently suspended its secretary-treasurer and took other steps to bring its welfare fund activities within the operational code established by the AFL-CIO.) Meanwhile, George Meany, president of the Federation, removed the financial officers and placed two federal labor unions under trusteeships for failure to observe the same AFL-CIO standards. (Organizations chartered directly by the AFL-CIO and not part of any autonomous affiliate are known as federal labor unions.) The two ousted officers are Paul Dorfman, of the Chicago Waste Material Handlers, and Charles Naddeo, of the Philadelphia Can Workers.

(The Plumbers and Pipefitters Union, after an exhaustive study of the more than 100 health and welfare plans operated by its locals, published a code of operation to guide administration of the plans. The union emphasized that none of its locals had been involved in maladministration of welfare plans.)

Another item due for consideration at the Miami meeting was the lack of attention given at the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions' Executive Board meeting in Brussels last November to AFL-CIO program recommendations.

Earlier, President Meany had issued an appeal to the American labor movement to assist in the resettlement of Hungarian refugees in the United States. He asked all AFL-CIO unions "to waive the usual rules and regulations" and admit Hungarian workers to membership without initiation fees, providing they held union cards in Hungary. (In mid-January, the Hungarian Government imposed the dealth penalty for striking in an effort to halt the strikes which have been the basis for the revolt against the Communist regime.)

In a report to the American Republics Division of the Department of State, the AFL-CIO leader urged that more full-time labor attachés be appointed to Latin America and that the trade union exchange program be expanded.