Trainman News

New Hopes for
TLC and CCL
Unity Seen

New hopes for some form of unity between Canada's two larger central labor organizations—the Trades and Labor Congress of Canada and the Canadian Congress of Labor—have been aroused by the position taken by delegates to the recent TLC convention in Ottawa.

From a realistic viewpoint there has not been enough to justify any expectation of immediate organic unity, but there is an improved atmosphere, reports Jack Williams, TRAINMAN NEWS Canadian correspondent.

In the past peace overtures have come mainly from CCL which is the younger and smaller organization—370,000 to 550,000—and they have been viewed with some suspicion by many in the TLC.

Follows U. S. Plan

Trade union organization in Canada follows closely that of the United States with the AFL unions belonging to the TLC and the CIO unions to the CCL. In addition both Canadian bodies do some organizing on their own.

The split between them dates back to the division on craft and industrial unions in the United States, and so far efforts to heal it have shown little success.

There is still a strong belief that no permanent alliance will be reached in Canada until some form of agreement is realized between the CIO and the AFL.

Up to the August convention of TLC, the closest the two Canadian bodies came was in early 1951 on the matter of price controls. Inflation was rampant and workers throughout Canada were feeling the squeeze of high prices.

There was strong public demand for a return to price controls and union members, as the heads of wage-earning families, were naturally in the forefront of this demand. With a common interest senior officials of both the TLC and CCL, together with representatives of the Railway Running Trades and the Canadian and Catholic Confederation of Labor, met and mapped out a joint program urging the government to restore controls. It was the first occasion on which the leaders of these groups had coordinated their efforts to this extent.

Possibility Shattered

Some people held hopes that from this development might come a continuing working alliance on matters of common interest; but that possibility was shattered when, later in the year, the TLC announced it was pulling out of the committee on the ground that the younger CCL was taking advantage of its new relationship with the TLC. This action followed closely on a widening breach between the AFL and the CIO.

Now the 1953 TLC convention has given practically unanimous support to a resolution seeking a no-raiding pact between the two bodies. Obviously the effectiveness of the desire expressed by the convention delegates will depend on the position taken by individual unions; but at the very least it is indicative of a growing measure of support for some form of cooperation.

Peculiar Parallel

Entirely apart from the close alliance of the two bodies with organized labor in the United States there is a peculiar parallel in conditions in the two countries. Both William Green, late AFL president and Philip Murray, late CIO president were aging before their recent untimely deaths. So, in Canada, Percy Bengough, recently reelected president of TLC, and A. R. Mosher, president of CCL, are well advanced in age.

This naturally reduces the problem of maintaining the personal position of senior officers. In fact