U.S. unions link up
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• A "Conference of transportation unions" has been established in the United States by about 40 unions concerned with all branches of transport. Ultimately, at least 60 transport industry unions are expected to join.
The new grouping was authorized last December in Miami by the AFL-CIO council which established a general board to run the organization. Each member union has one scat on the general board.
Mr. Lester C. Dennis, president of the Brotherhood of Railway and Air Line Clerks, is to be the permanent chairman of the new body, with Mr. William Moody, of the Maritime Trades Dept. of AFL-CIO, secretary-treasurer.
Six chairmen will be named by the general board to head the following sections: general intermodal, air, highway and transit, marine, non-operating rail, and operating rail.
Mr. Dennis said the conference was prompted by the "diversification of transportation management" which made necessary a new approach by labour "to provide common ground on which all transportation labour could stand and work together day by day to improve the total industry". It was intended to serve as a "clearinghouse for ideas and a forum for exchange of views". It could, ultimately, evolve into a "constitutional department of transportation ... within the national AFL-CIO".
This development may be of great significance. If as many as 40 transport trade unions can work together in the general interest in the United States, pressures to establish a similar body in Britain will grow. Transport trade union leaders here have many informal meetings but inter-union rivalries have so far prevented the setting up of any formal co-ordinating authority. Perhaps Mr. Marsh should have a quiet word with his TUC friends.