The Labor Month in Review

WITH EXPULSION FROM the national AFL-CIO of -the Teamsters, Bakers, and Laundry Workers effected, a followup order in mid-December was sent to local and State councils and federations to remove from their rolls all affiliates of the three international unions. The Maine, MarylandDistrict of Columbia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, and Wisconsin federations by mid-January had already taken action. The practical consequences of the directive could be felt most severely by the Teamsters. Numerically they are seven times the size of the other two combined, and scores of Teamster members serve as officers of the city, county, and State groups. However, there are important instances of such individuals taking out membership in other unions in order to retain official status. There has been no intimation that such actions would be proscribed by the AFLCIO, and they have been encouraged by the Teamsters union.

In the case of the Bakers Union, the AFL-CIO chartered a new organization to compete with the expelled group-the American Bakery and Confectionery Workers International Union. Its nucleus was the locals unfriendly to James G. Cross, president of the ousted union. Cross is under indictment in Illinois for embezzlement of union funds. Plans were also made for chartering laundry locals.

December was a rugged month for Teamster union presidents-lame duck and elect. In Seattle, Dave Beck was convicted of stealing $1.900 belonging to the Western Conference of Teamsters. Sentence was deferred pending motion for new trial. (In April he faces trial in Federal Court on income tax evasion.) In New York, a retrial of James R. Hoffa and two other union officers for conspiring to tap conversations bid on union telephones was to begin on February 3. The jury in the first trial in December could Lot agree. Hoffa is also on trial in Washington on

charges by 13 rank-and-file teamsters that his election to the presidency of the Teamsters last October was fraudulent.

Johnny Dio, a friend of Hoffa mentioned prominently in the wiretap case, was sentenced in New York on January 8 to a 15-to-20 year term for extorting funds from two employers.

Major interest in hearings of the Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field (following an appearance of officials of the Operating Engineers) lay in the forthcoming inquiry into the United Automobile Workers' 4-year-old strike and subsequent boycott activities against the Kohler Co. Actions of a committee employee collecting information on the strike in Sheboygan, Wis., and Detroit evoked a strong protest from the UAW, which charged that he had made statements drawing conclusions concerning the matter prior to "proper hearings."

Last April the UAW established a public review board of prominent citizens to act, on a member's option, as a final court of appeal from administrative rulings affecting individual members and to review the union's general deportment and ethical practices. The board late in December announced its first case findings. Five international union representatives and five local union officers, who had variously refused to answer questions concerning Communist associations or membership before a Congressional committee, were ruled eligible to retain their jobs.

AS A CURTAIN RAISER to its special convention January 22-24, the UAW Executive Board on January 13 announced its 1958 bargaining objectives. Abandoning the shorter workweek "temporarily" in the face of what it termed the need for "expanding purchasing power," the union proposed, among other items, a profit-sharing plan. Profits above 10 percent on net capital before taxes Iwould be divided as follows: One-half to stockholders; one-quarter to wage and salary workers; and one-quarter to car purchasers in the form of rebates. The union also listed a wage increase which "accurately reflects" productivity improvement; correction of inter-skill wage inequities; increases and extensions in supplemental unemployment benefits and introduction of underemployment benefits; improvements in pensions; transfer and moving allowances; severance pay; and a voice