Minneapolis Spokesman

Hypocrisy In Organized Labor

Apparently all is not interracial sweetness and light in the organized labor movement, If we are to credit the charges made by NAACP's Roy Wilkins at a convention of the United Packinghouse Workers of America In New York City

Criticizing the AFL-CIO for admitting the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Engineers which bar Negro membership. he charged that in varying degrees there also was racial discrimination in locals of steel, paper and oil chemical unions, about which nothing is being done

There are some unions.' Wilkins stated. 'that pass resolutions for civil rights, hold conferences on civil rights, show movies on civil rights, but nevertheless stumble at the bargaining table

This is an evil which everybody familiar with organized labor knows about but concerning which very little is said.

The ballyhooed AFL-CIO drive to organize the South has been virtually abandoned because of massive resistance of a significant portion of the organized labor oligarchy. many of whom have been active In White Citizens Councils.

There must be more than lip service to civil rights if the Negroes are to be expected to retain confidence in the sincerity of organizations, groups and institutions that are liberal only in token form, if at all.

It seems to us that there has been ample time since the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations joined forces to use the great power at their command to enforce the principles they have professed.

Some unions have exemplary records, but others might as well be run by the Ku Klux Klan.-Pittsburgh Courier.