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 HISTORY AND POL SCI. 
 LIBRARY 
 
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 Labor's Role in 
 World Affairs 
 
 by BERNARD WIESMAN 
 
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 DEPARTMENT OF STATE 
 Publication 3994 
 
 International Organization 8t Conference Series IV, 
 International Labor Organizations 2 
 
 Released October 1950 
 
 DIVISION OF PUBLICATIONS 
 OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS 
 
 . 
 
 
JUL 25 1952 M ’ SM!TH 
 
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 LABOR'S ROLE IN WORLD AFFAIRS 
 
 by Bernard Wiesman 1 
 
 American labor is so important a segment of the 
 American population and so dynamic a force in 
 American economics and politics that it must play 
 a major part in the shaping of American diplo¬ 
 macy. Even if labor were to remain completely 
 silent, its very silence would influence American 
 policy and remove one of the most potent in¬ 
 fluences which now constitute America’s activity 
 in world affairs. 
 
 Labor’s role in world affairs is obviously that 
 of one section of the American people and pre¬ 
 supposes similar activity by other elements of 
 American life whether they be in industry or 
 agriculture, in religion or in education. 
 
 Labor is more than a numerical portion of the 
 American population so far as world affairs are 
 concerned. Labor has a special significance in 
 the production of essentials of national life and 
 of international trade. In addition, it has a par¬ 
 ticular importance in people-to-people relation¬ 
 ships. In the present phase of world progress, 
 working people are in the lead in what might be 
 described as a revolutionary development. In 
 some of the older industrial countries, labor has 
 come of age and has begun to exercise the duties 
 of the head of the family. In newer countries, 
 ^ there is an almost frantic haste to bridge within 
 months or years the experience of many centuries. 
 In such areas, working people are being invited 
 to take on roles of responsibility in the political, 
 social, and economic life of their country for which 
 they have lacked even the most elementary of the 
 three R’s. Whether this situation is good or bad 
 
 >4 
 
 1 This article is based on an address delivered before 
 the eight annual conference of the Labor Education As¬ 
 sociation at Swarthmore, Pa., on June 17. 
 
 is not the question. It is a fact, and we must try 
 as a nation to face facts and to build upon them 
 the structures which, in the long range, will be 
 in the best interests of all concerned. 
 
 Control of the organized labor movement of the 
 world is among the foremost objectives for which 
 the Kremlin is now waging its cold war. Labor’s 
 role in world affairs, therefore, becomes a matter 
 of major significance to our country as a whole. 
 Leaders in AFL, CIO, and Railway Brotherhoods 
 have a keen realization of that fact and have taken 
 effective steps aimed to checkmate the Comin- 
 form’s program as exemplified in the so-called 
 World Federation of Trade Unions (Wftu). 
 
 Labor's Role in Promoting Freedom 
 
 What organized labor can do to promote the 
 basic freedoms in the present world is a respon¬ 
 sibility for labor to decide. The Department of 
 State has no desire to dictate to labor what it 
 should do or to try to control what labor does. 
 We know that we neither have the right nor the 
 wisdom to manage the affairs of a free world labor 
 movement. The Department of State realizes the 
 fundamental truth in what President Truman re¬ 
 cently said concerning the effectiveness of Ameri¬ 
 can labor’s testimony among workers in other 
 lands. 
 
 The Department, therefore, asks the trade-union 
 leaders of this country to carry America’s message 
 abroad through all available channels and to see 
 that workers in other lands come to know what 
 our freedoms mean and to choose those freedoms 
 as their way of life. We want American trade 
 unionists to show other workers that the strength 
 of our nation is in its freedom, its friendliness, its 
 
 j: 
 
 54 
 
 Department of State Bulletin 
 
hope of helping others, its moral principles. We 
 want American trade unionists to show workers of 
 other lands that the American worker is about as 
 close as anyone can get to the average American 
 citizen, that he is a hard-working decent guy who 
 aims to earn his pay and get more of it, using it 
 for a comfortable living for his family, going to 
 church on Sunday, and sending his youngsters to 
 school and many of them to college. 
 
 If the masses of workers in other lands could 
 know American workers as they are, they would 
 reject instinctively the deceits of the Cominform, 
 which are predicated upon the thesis that Ameri¬ 
 can workers are either fools or knaves. The kind 
 of false propaganda which they peddle is based 
 upon the fiction that American labor leaders are 
 the tools of the State Department and that the 
 State Department is the tool of Wall Street. 
 
 The propagandists of the so-called World Fed¬ 
 eration of Trade Unions attack the new Inter¬ 
 national Confederation of Free Trade Unions as 
 a sort of Titoist deviationism and label it the 
 “Yellow Internationale.” They use that label in 
 countries outside of the Orient. In that area, they 
 presumably use a different adjective. 
 
 Labor's Contribution 
 to International Cooperation 
 
 The trade-union centers of this country, AFL, 
 CIO, and Railway Labor Executives, are actively 
 committed to a program of international co¬ 
 operation to advance free trade unionism and to 
 unmask and discredit the Wftu as the satellite 
 of the Cominform. The AFL, the CIO, and the 
 United Mine Workers all participated in the 
 founding, last December at London, of the In¬ 
 ternational Confederation of Free Trade Unions 
 (Icftu ). The Railway Labor Executives under¬ 
 standably make their international cooperation 
 through the IcFru-affiliated International Trans- 
 portworkers’ Federation (Itf). Credit should be 
 acknowledged to the part played by two great 
 American trade unionists in bringing about the 
 affiliation of the Railway Labor Executives with 
 the Itf at a time when it was the sole rallying 
 point of international opposition to the Wftu. 
 I refer to the late Bob Watt, of the AFL, and the 
 late Harry Frazer, of the Railway Labor Exec¬ 
 utives. 
 
 Membership in these world organizations is by 
 no means the only evidence of AFL or CIO ac¬ 
 tivity internationally. Both have standing in¬ 
 
 ternational committees composed of executive 
 council members and full-time international 
 representatives. Both devote an extensive por¬ 
 tion of the time of the annual conventions to in¬ 
 ternational affairs and the President and Secre¬ 
 tary-Treasurer of each take direct personal in¬ 
 terest in the international activity. 
 
 The Free Trade Union Committee of the AFL 
 has been an active and constructive force in Europe 
 and Asia. The Amalgamated Clothing Workers 
 is an example of international activity by one of 
 the great trade unions of the CIO. The UAW 
 is another CIO union which has shown initiative 
 in international activity. A further example, per¬ 
 haps the most dramatic because of its far-reaching 
 influence is the International Ladies Garment 
 Workers Union. 
 
 The specialized Latin American activities of the 
 AFL, and of the CIO, should also be noted espe¬ 
 cially in view of this country’s good-neighbor 
 policy. 
 
 Traditional ties with other countries have also 
 brought fraternal relations between the trade- 
 union movements. A half-century practice of ex¬ 
 changing fraternal delegates has knit a bond be¬ 
 tween the AFL and the British Trades Union Con¬ 
 gress, while both AFL and CIO have sent special 
 representatives to Italy and Israel to help the 
 trade-union movements there meet their postwar 
 problems. 
 
 Trade-union dollars are backing up the words 
 of convention resolutions, and day-to-day efforts 
 of trade-union leaders abroad are translating the 
 policies of international committees. 4 
 
 Activities of International Labor Organizations 
 
 The International Confederation of Free Trade 
 Unions is the trade-union center of the free world 
 to which belongs almost every major labor organi¬ 
 zation which is free to choose. Those affiliated 
 with the International Federation of Christian 
 Trade Unions and a small handful of others re¬ 
 main outside at present, for cogent national rea¬ 
 sons. American labor leaders have tried hard to 
 secure the affiliation of all trade-union centers of 
 the free world, but the Christian unions, which 
 are of great importance in certain European coun¬ 
 tries, have a long tradition of international col¬ 
 laboration to seek Christian ideals of employer- 
 worker relations as distinguished from the Social¬ 
 ist philosophy which permeates the thinking of 
 their major rivals. Italy now has a unified trade- 
 
 July 10, 1950 
 
 55 
 
union center of major non-Communist unions to 
 compete with the Communist-controlled Federa¬ 
 tion headed by Di Vittorio. 
 
 The International Confederation of Free Trade 
 Unions with headquarters at Brussels was cre¬ 
 ated only in December. Late in May, the Icftu 
 held its first Council meeting and gave evidence 
 that it has begun to function. Icftu is sending a 
 delegation of five members, including two Ameri¬ 
 cans, to make a 3-month survey of the situation in 
 Asian countries with a view to determining what, 
 if any, regional organization should be established. 
 Later in the year, the possibility of a Latin Amer¬ 
 ican regional set-up will be investigated. A re¬ 
 cent meeting at Dusseldorf, to consider the prob¬ 
 lems of the Ruhr, indicates the possible develop¬ 
 ment of a European unit. The Icftu is getting 
 under way as a nongovernmental organization with 
 category A consultative status with the Economic 
 and Social Council of the United Nations, the In¬ 
 ternational Labor Organization, etc. The Icftu 
 intends to be the voice of free world labor, sustain¬ 
 ing the cause of legitimate trade unions as essen¬ 
 tial in any economic democracy and as bulwarks 
 of any political democracy. All major American 
 trade unions have shown their support for the 
 Icftu, but it is to be expected that the unions ex¬ 
 pelled by the CIO for devotion to the Communist 
 Party will confirm that misguided zeal by affiliat¬ 
 ing with the Wftu. 
 
 The World Federation of Trade Unions wears 
 a respectable label, placed upon it by a great 
 American labor leader who had thought that 
 active participation in Wftu would contribute to 
 a democratic peace. He was eager to emphasize 
 that it should be a bona fide trade-union system, 
 rather than a political mechanism for labor, but 
 he has long since concluded that the ideals he 
 sought could not be achieved in a Wftu controlled 
 by the Kremlin. The Wftu was Moscow’s major 
 postwar front organization through which Mos¬ 
 cow sought to manipulate world opinion, to con¬ 
 trol the international policies of national trade- 
 union centers, and to infiltrate national centers. 
 It was founded in 1945, and, in 1949, the three 
 major free trade-union members withdrew. They 
 had decided that they could no longer associate 
 with a Wftu which in 1945 appealed for all pos¬ 
 sible aid for reconstruction of Europe and which 
 in 1947 refused even to publicize the Marshall 
 Plan. The Wftu, free of the restraining influ¬ 
 ence of the legitimate trade unionists from the 
 
 United States, United Kingdom, and Nether¬ 
 lands, has enrolled itself in the service of the Com- 
 inform even to the extent of denouncing the 
 Wftu Executive Council member from Yugo¬ 
 slavia severing ties with him as a Titoist, and of 
 divorcing the Yugoslav labor organization of 
 which he is Secretary General, from contact with 
 other members of.the Wftu. The color of the 
 Wftu was also shown by the pronounciamentos 
 at its Peiping meeting late last year. In language 
 of plainly incendiary character, it called upon the 
 workers of Asia to follow the example of China 
 and to overthrow their alleged exploiters in the 
 governments of the new and old nations of Asia. 
 The Wftu delegates at Peiping included a choice 
 collection of Asian representatives who have been 
 in process of education at Moscow for many years 
 and who are evidently being returned to their 
 native lands for subversive activities among the 
 workers in such countries as India, Indonesia, and 
 Malaya. 
 
 Perhaps, the best description of the Wftu of 
 today is that it is the company union for the Com- 
 inform in which membership ordinarily is com¬ 
 pulsory for Communist-dominated unions and 
 through which the Wftu management hopes to 
 sabotage and destroy legitimate, and hence free, 
 trade unionism. 
 
 In this hemisphere, the Confederation of Latin 
 American Workers predated the Wftu but rarely 
 has deviated from the master pattern. 
 
 AFL and CIO leaders are now working with 
 the Icftu leadership toward a legitimate demo¬ 
 cratic regional organization. The sponsors of the 
 Inter-American Confederation of Labor, estab¬ 
 lished only 2 or 3 years ago as a rallying point for 
 unions free of Communist control, are eager to 
 take such steps as will effectuate their original 
 intent in union with the Icftu. Similiar 
 strengthening of two other regional organizations 
 is expected through the Icftu. I refer to the 
 Asian Federation of Labor which held its first 
 regional meeting in Ceylon last January and to 
 the ERP-Trade Union Advisory Committee in 
 Europe. 
 
 Mention must be made of another form of inter¬ 
 national cooperation among workers. I refer to 
 the international trade secretariats or, as they 
 might be called, the international industrial or 
 craft federations. There are more than a dozen 
 of these affiliated with the Icftu in a cooperating 
 arrangement which preserves the essential auton- 
 
 56 
 
 Department of State Bulletin 
 
omy of these federations. This group includes 
 the International Federation of Transport work¬ 
 ers which combines national organizations repre¬ 
 senting between 4 and 5 million workers in marine, 
 rail, highway, and air transport in countries all 
 over the world. The International Metal Work¬ 
 ers, the Miners’ Federation, the Textile Workers 
 are among the next largest. Only one of these 
 groups has chosen to desert freedom and that one 
 is the journalists’ union where leadership was 
 secured on a narrow margin and the organization 
 perverted to Communist aims. Organizations 
 such as the Newspaper Guild have accordingly 
 left the group. 
 
 In Europe, most of these international trade 
 secretariats have functioned since early in this 
 century. They have supplied fraternal ties among 
 workers in the great industries, and those which 
 have enjoyed any substantial income have been im¬ 
 portant factors in the economic life of the Conti¬ 
 nent. They are not competitors of the Icftu. 
 They have their own financing through dues col¬ 
 lected from national affiliates such as the Railway 
 Labor Executives, the Machinists, the UAW-CIO, 
 the Mine Workers, etc. 
 
 The importance of their work is emphasized by 
 the energy with which the World Federation of 
 Trade Unions, having failed to capture the secre¬ 
 tariats, has undertaken to set up rival organiza¬ 
 tions. The Wftu program, originally, was to 
 transform the autonomous secretariats into indus¬ 
 trial departments of the Wftu. When the major 
 free unions left the Wftu, it undertook to estab¬ 
 lish international unions with the appearance of 
 autonomy which could invite the affiliation of out¬ 
 fits such as the International Longshoremen’s and 
 Warehousemen’s Union. There Wftu agencies 
 have sought to get the affiliation of any national 
 unions of like-minded leadership even when the 
 national trade-union center has repudiated the 
 Wftu itself and denounced all of its arms and 
 legs. 
 
 Labor’s role in world affairs is recognized in 
 the operations of the United Nations and its organs 
 and specialized agencies. On the one hand, many 
 national delegations include among their dele¬ 
 gates or advisers men and women from labor- 
 union leadership. On the other hand, as author¬ 
 ized in the Charter of the United Nations, 
 international nongovernmental organizations have 
 been accorded consultative status with the Eco¬ 
 nomic and Social Council and its commissions. 
 
 The Icftu and the Ifctu now are among the cate¬ 
 gory A consultants which also include the Wftu. 
 The Transport workers are in category B which 
 consists of the more specialized groups. Ameri¬ 
 can labor leaders have been among the United 
 States delegations to the International Trade Or¬ 
 ganization Preparatory Conference and to confer¬ 
 ences of the World Health Organization and of 
 the United Nations Educational, Scientific and 
 Cultural Organization as well as on the National 
 Commission for Unesco. 
 
 The Operation of the ILO 
 
 I have reserved mention of the International 
 Labor Organization until now. The Ilo is the 
 unique intergovernmental organization which, 
 since 1919, constitutionally includes in its confer¬ 
 ences and Governing Body, representatives of 
 employers and workers who jointly share author¬ 
 ity on a par with those of governments in formu¬ 
 lating international labor standard treaties. It 
 was created at the urgent demand of a few great 
 progressive leaders at Versailles. The Ilo is ded¬ 
 icated to the principle that enduring peace must 
 be founded on social justice and that the pro¬ 
 gressive improvement of conditions among work¬ 
 ers anywhere is essential to the well-being of 
 people everywhere. At Philadelphia, 6 years ago, 
 the principles of 1919 were reviewed by the repre¬ 
 sentatives of employers, workers, and governments 
 of member nations so that social progress could be 
 charted even while war was being desperately 
 waged. The solemn declaration of Philadelphia 
 has since been annexed to the Ilo Constitution and 
 demonstrates general acceptance of the facts that 
 “poverty anywhere constitutes a danger to pros¬ 
 perity everywhere,” that “labor is not a commod¬ 
 ity,” and that “freedom of expression and of 
 association are essential to sustained progress.” 
 
 Another quote from the declaration of Phila¬ 
 delphia expresses a concise and far-reaching phi¬ 
 losophy about labor’s role in world affairs: 
 
 The war against want requires to be carried on with 
 unrelenting vigour within each nation, and by continuous 
 and concerted international effort in which the represent¬ 
 atives of workers and employers, enjoying equal status 
 with those of Governments, join with them in free dis¬ 
 cussion and democratic decision with a view to the pro¬ 
 motion of the common welfare. 
 
 In the framing of that declaration, representa¬ 
 tives of the workers and employers of this coun¬ 
 try shared with representatives of this Govem- 
 
 July 10, 1950 
 
 57 
 
ment. The declaration itself was transmitted by 
 President Roosevelt to both Houses of the 
 Congress. 
 
 What is an objective estimate of Ilo’s contribu¬ 
 tion to the world? 
 
 The Ilo has substantially benefited the world by 
 building within the minds and consciences of gov¬ 
 ernments, employers, and workers a realization of 
 national duty and international responsibility, 
 progressively, to improve the conditions of life 
 among working people. Many tangible proofs 
 exist of Ilo service to member nations, but it has 
 most significantly served by causing responsible 
 leaders to recognize the need and to accept the 
 challenge that remedies must be found together. 
 
 Role of the Trade Unionists 
 
 In the State Department, the importance of 
 having expert knowledge of what labor is think¬ 
 ing and doing is evidenced in several ways. The 
 Department itself, under the reorganization of 
 1949, has a labor adviser in each of the four geo¬ 
 graphic areas, headed by Assistant Secretaries of 
 State, one in the German Affairs office, which has 
 equivalent status because of its operating respon¬ 
 sibilities, in addition to the Labor Adviser to the 
 Assistant Secretary for Economic Affairs, who 
 has active responsibility for relations extending 
 beyond the limits of any single area. Their duties 
 concern the activities and interests of national and 
 international labor organizations which extend 
 beyond the areas of any single geographic area and 
 involve political as well as economic matters. 
 
 The Department of State has trade-union con¬ 
 sultants from the AFL and the CIO who provide 
 valuable advice and liaison. 
 
 Top officers of the Department, beginning with 
 Secretary Acheson, have meetings with represen¬ 
 tative labor leaders from time to time. On some 
 matters, such as policy concerning relations with 
 Spain and the Argentine, trade unionists freely 
 criticize the Department’s policies after careful 
 considerations of general over-all character which 
 included American labor’s well-known views on 
 the subject. On most matters, however, American 
 trade unions stand firmly in support of American 
 foreign policy. 
 
 The Foreign Service of the United States now 
 includes about 30 labor attaches and labor re¬ 
 porting officers, including several trade unionists, 
 whose duties include knowing what the trade 
 unions are thinking and doing, advising Embassy 
 
 and Departmental officers of any significant de¬ 
 velopments and helping to transmit some under¬ 
 standing to trade unionists and government of¬ 
 ficials about what American labor is and does. 
 
 The Department of Labor also recognizes the 
 responsibility of our Government to promote 
 understanding and cooperation among the work¬ 
 ing people and the trade unions of all countries 
 accessible to us. Under the Assistant Secretary 
 of Labor, Philip Kaiser, there is an Office of In¬ 
 ternational Labor Affairs with which our office 
 works closely and cooperatively. The State De¬ 
 partment does not duplicate the technical services 
 of the Department of Labor in connection with 
 international labor standards. An interdepart¬ 
 mental committee on international social policy 
 provides the vehicle for formal cooperation among 
 the several departments concerned with specific 
 problems. Through that device, position papers 
 on labor matters which may arise at Ilo or United 
 Nations meetings are normally formulated. 
 
 The Labor Department has a trade union ad¬ 
 visory committee on international labor affairs 
 which has furnished a useful channel for con¬ 
 sultation and cooperation. 
 
 ECA, of course, has formalized labor’s partici¬ 
 pation in its top councils here and abroad. 
 
 Labor’s role in world affairs would be meaning¬ 
 less if economic isolation were to govern its poli¬ 
 cies. The Icfttj Constitution declares as one of 
 its aims to— 
 
 advocate with a view of raising the general level of pros¬ 
 perity, increased and properly planned economic coopera¬ 
 tion among the nations in such a way as will encourage 
 the development of wider economic units and freer ex¬ 
 change of commodities and to seek full participation of 
 workers’ representatives in official bodies dealing with 
 these questions. 
 
 The pressing need among free peoples is to 
 reduce, as rapidly as consistent with the general 
 welfare, such artificial barriers as lead to mis¬ 
 understanding, suspicion, or exploitation. It is 
 to be devoutly hoped that trade unionists in all 
 free countries, including our own, can lead in pro¬ 
 moting the brotherhood of peoples and finding 
 the ways to make the adjustments necessary to 
 prevent or minimize local repercussions. 
 
 Conclusion 
 
 My experience in 20 years of intimate collabora¬ 
 tion with the trade-union movement of the United 
 States and of considerable experience with the 
 
 58 
 
 Department of State Bulletin 
 
trade-union movements of other countries leads 
 me to assert that what is good for labor inter¬ 
 nationally is generally good for our country and 
 all other countries which share our basic beliefs. 
 Workers constitute around one third of the popu¬ 
 lation, and, in many countries, the trade-union 
 movement which speaks on their behalf includes in 
 its membership one out of every three or four 
 workers. 
 
 The chief area of controversy usually comes in 
 the exercise of judgments as to whether a specific 
 program is good for labor and for the general 
 public. Honest men of good will can differ objec¬ 
 tively in reaching a decision and, once taken, can 
 work to carry out that decision even if it does not 
 appear to any of them to be perfect. One of the 
 most unfortunate aspects of the trial by accusation 
 through which the Department is now passing is 
 that real common goals have been obscured by con¬ 
 troversy which should have been avoidable. 
 
 I refer to that controversy as I approach what 
 to me is perhaps the greatest contribution which 
 American labor can make in world affairs at this 
 time. Basic American foreign policy is, I hon¬ 
 estly believe, designed to accomplish goals which 
 are good for mankind and which are essential in 
 combating the threatened enslavement of the 
 minds and bodies of men. 
 
 If that objective is true, as I believe it to be, the 
 next problem is how to persuade the people of our 
 country and of the world that these goals are 
 their goals and that we should all work together 
 to attain them. It is my opinion—and one shared 
 widely within the Department of State—that the 
 American trade unions, in cooperation with the 
 International Confederation of Free Trade 
 Unions—can best convince the workers of other 
 lands that they should support these goals in their 
 own self-interest. 
 
 If I know’ trade unions at all, I know that they 
 must rest their first judgments on the credentials 
 a man carries. If he carries a card in a union, it 
 takes him as a brother unless he proves himself 
 to the contrary. If he carries a message to that 
 union, it goes on the assumption that it is designed 
 to be in its interest. So with American foreign 
 policy. If American trade unionists will take 
 these basic American foreign policies which they 
 
 July JO, 1950 
 
 believe are in the best interests of their brothers 
 and sisters of the Icftu and endorse them for the 
 consideration and support of associated free trade 
 unions around the world, they will strike a deadly 
 blow at the propaganda of the Cominform and the 
 Wftu. Labor’s endorsement is worth far more 
 than tons of newsprint or hours of radio time by 
 official spokesmen so far as convincing workers in 
 other lands that we are really their friends. 
 
 The essence of trade unionism, whether non- 
 denominational, or Socialist, or Christian, is to 
 be a good provider and to share its strength with 
 its brothers. It combines the patriotism of the 
 loyal citizen with the brotherhood among workers 
 which is truly international. With that combina¬ 
 tion Labor’s role in world affairs must be active 
 and should always be a firm foundation for the 
 building of a peace and social justice. 
 
 59