Perkins: CIO union ignores Dewey’s presence in same hotel
Already committed to Roosevelt, office workers weren’t interested in speech
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania –
The United Office and Professional Workers of America (CIO) resumed its sessions today with hardly a ripple to show that for more than 10 hours the 300 delegates had lived under the same hotel roof with the Republican nominee for President, Governor Dewey.
The Dewey entourage was on the ninth floor of the Bellevue-Stratford. The CIO unionists were meeting on the 18th but there was no communication between the two despite the fact that both are interested in politics.
The reason is, the union is already committed, like all other CIO unions, in its presidential choice. The Office Workers did not wait to see whether the Republican nominee, in his opening campaign speech last night might make some statement or display an ability indicating his fitness for the Presidency.
Declared for Roosevelt
Following the lead of CIO leaders who turned an early thumb down on any Republican who might be named for the high office, they declared for a fourth Roosevelt term early in this week’s convention. They also announced a plan to raise $50,000 for political expenditures by the CIO Political Action Committee.
In his speech here, Governor Dewey promised to discuss the labor question in detail during the campaign and he asserted.
Of course, the rights of labor to organize and bargain collectively and fundamental. My party blazed the trail in that field by passage of the Railway Labor Act in 1926.
One of several unions
The Office and Professional Workers Union is one of several labor organizations cultivating the white-collar workers who are generally described as “including but not limited to office workers, typists, stenographers, clerks, salespersons, bookkeepers and accountants, attorneys, draftsmen, engineers and agents.”
Among all the groups, the Office and Professional Workers Union is regarded as most leftish and its president, Lewis Merrill, has drawn charges of Communistic sympathies from Congressman Martin Dies.
A principal accomplishment of the convention is authority for its officers to proceed with plans to try to induce Congress to legislate a “national white-collar commission” which would be a part of the War Labor Board, with exclusive jurisdiction over salaries including those now under control of the Treasury Department. A general increase of 35 percent is sought in white-collar pay levels, and to this end the white-collar union has endorsed the efforts of other CIO unions to break WLB’s Little Steel wage formula.