The Pittsburgh Press (October 27, 1944)
Carpenters’ head blasts Democrats
Hutcheson charges ‘labor runaround’
New York (UP) –
William L. Hutcheson, president of the AFL United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, asserted last night that a “decisive percentage of labor voters are seriously considering casting their votes for Thomas E. Dewey,” because of the “dismal record of labor runarounds” of the Roosevelt administration.
Mr. Hutcheson, one of Mr. Dewey’s strongest supporters in the ranks of labor, charged that the Democratic Party “has persistently evaded a head-on facing of any of the fundamental domestic issues which will confront post-war America.”
He said labor, before it votes, wants an answer on six specific questions:
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Will the next President take the “straightjackets off collective bargaining and restore it to its former free status?”
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Will he get md of the incompetent “bureaucrats” who are “now staffing the federal agencies dealing with labor?”
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Will he halt the “dismantling of the Department of Labor” and restore it to its intended importanceship under male leadership?
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Will be put a stop to political “one-man rule” over labor policies?
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Will he end favoritism for particular unions and discontinue personal interference in internal affairs of organized labor?
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Will he pledge himself to “general economic policies which will assure labor and the returning servicemen an after-war job at adequate and progressive wage levels, in private industry?”