In Detroit, on May 25th, the foundation of Negro American Labor Council will take place, writes Joel Scidin in the N,¥. Herald Tribune (Paris) of February 15th. According to Seldin, there is ‘‘a widespread dissatisfaction among the federntion’s (AFL-CIO) nearly 1,500,000 Negro members with the general treatment of Negroes in unions’, Seventy years old A. Philips Randolph, head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, one of those who took the initiative to hold regional conferences in preparation of the founding conference of May 2Sth, called the effort “‘an authentic, basic, Fundamental revolution, bound to shake up the unions and the AFL-C10 as a whole’. The complaints of the dissatisfied Negroes are many'’, says Seldin in his article. ‘The primary one is segregation and discrimination which either keeps them ont of some unions and hence, some jobs, or else restricts them to nuskilled, low-paving jobs. Another is that they are borred froin apprenticeship programines that would lead te higher-paring jobs, “A third complamt is that, despite such exceptions as Mr. Randolph, negroes are barred from positions of policy-making leadership within the onions as well a5 in the federation, This criticiam is directed as much at the industrial unions stemming from the CTO as at the craft unions that came out of the ATL. ‘The movement, according to Mr. Randolph is ‘spreading like a prairie fire’. He said chapters have been set up in New York, Chicazo, Detroit, Voungstown and Cleveland, (hic,
Gary, Ind. and St. Louis, Other chapters are in the process of organisation im Philadelphia, Washington and along the West Coast.
“Mr, Randolph would not give the names of other leaders, because, he said, many have already been warned by their labor-leader ¢mplovers that their jobs in unions will be in jeopariy if they become active in the NALC. But he said they are in the unions with large Negro memberships, and mentioned the steel and auto unions, the building trades and the hotel and restaurant uiions.
The function of the NALC. Mr. Randolph said, will be to disseminate educational and propaganda material among Negro umionists and to provide trained organisers to help Negroes fight for “first class citizenship’ within unions. “The prospect of NALC organizers leading fights against established union leaders'’, Le against the white labor bureaucracy, ‘has not been looked on kindly within the AFL-CIO Already the movement has been charged with “raciam,’’ “dual unionism’? and a varicty of other epithets,” according to Seldin. He concludes:
“Mr. Randolph, however, looks on the NA LC not only as the ene cure for existing wrongs, but a5 the only safeguard against 4 serious, growing threat. Automation he pointed out, finds its first victims among the Negroes, who are doubly vulnerable
“In the first place, he said, Negroes are largely emploved in kinds of work that automation is most likely to eliminate. In the secend, becanse Negroes are barred from apprentice training, those displaced by automation have no other jobs to so ta,
“Por ns! he said, “this is & life-and-death struggle — a question of survival. Nothing can stop it’,