Sol Dollinger Archive | Trotskyist Writers Index | ETOL Main Page
From The Militant, Vol. 10 No. 28, 13 July 1946, p. 6.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
FLINT, Mich., July 3. – Twenty-one top officers of CIO and AFL unions here proposed at a joint meeting yesterday to request their internationals to reopen negotiations for wage increases to meet price rises and to revive the auto workers’ “flying squadrons” to prevent evictions of union members whose rents are being hiked by greedy landlords. They also called for a local rent control ordinance.
The joint meeting included representatives of the Greater Flint CIO Council, AFL Building Trades Council, and presidents of CIO United Auto Workers locals and the AFL carpenters, plumbers, steamfitters and truck drivers.
A mass meeting, arranged on 24 hour notice by the joint conference of union officials, was held here tonight. Jack Holt, UAW regional director, and F.H. Bancroft, AFL Building Trades Council president, were the co-chairmen.
Warm approval was expressed by the assembled workers to the announcement at the start of the meeting by Holt that the UAW is proposing a joint conference of the CIO, AFL and Railroad Brotherhoods in Washington and that the suggestion had been made for a one-day general strike to oppose the ending of price ceilings.
Several of the leaders spoke about organizing a “hunger strike”, but it was not clear what they had in mind. They did not think, however, that such an action would be successful because the ranks would not go for it. The workers feel there is no rerson why they should go more hungry to force down high prices of plentiful commodities. They want a more effective program.
A note of clarity was struck when a Buick worker proposed to combat the rising cost of living through the inclusion in every union contract of an escalator clause for a rising wage scale to keep pace with rising living costs.
This worker stated: “We seem to have forgotten that only a week ago prices were soaring with the OPA. Obviously merely fighting for a new OPA bill is not the solution.”
Good progress has been made in bringing the unions closer together. But unity in action will be cemented more firmly only as the leading committeemen and stewards on the job, who are close to the ranks, are enabled to participate in the joint conferences along with the top leaders.
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