Correspondents' Correspondence West Meets East
SENIGALLIA, SILVIO F.
Correspondents' Correspondence BRIEF TAKEOUTS OF MORE THAN PERSONAL INTEREST FROM LETTERS AND OTHER COMMUNICATIONS RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS. West Meets East Geneva—When, at 10 a.m. on January 19,...
...It simply referred to a "meeting"—not a conference—of a number of European labor leaders...
...Silvio F. Senigallia...
...The communique that came out of the gathering was deliberately bland, to spare feelings and avoid semantic and procedural conflicts...
...Chancellor Willy Brandt's Oslpolitik could not fail to cause vast repercussions in the pan-German labor field...
...While attention here naturally focused on how all this was manifesting itself at the East-West meeting, it should be noted that at the same time Geneva was hosting another important labor gathering: the ILO's second regional conference, the first to be held since 1955...
...recommended the convocation of similar assemblies in the future...
...and announced a European labor conclave with an anodyne agenda to be held, "if possible," toward the end of 1974 under the auspices of the International Labor Organization (ILO...
...AFL-CIO President George Meany had written to Oscar Vetter, President of the German Confederation of Labor, on the dangers of the Geneva talks...
...The reaction was really a reflection of America's general loss of influence among its friends on the Continent...
...This was confirmed by Olaf Sunde of Norway, one of the four European worker-delegate members of the ILO's governing body...
...Nevertheless, a last-minute effort was needed to iron out objections on the Western side...
...The shift of emphasis to the industrialized nations of Europe is a development whose meaning was not lost on the labor experts who assembled at the Palais des Nations...
...This is especially noteworthy because the ILO, since 1948, has concentrated primarily on Third World countries...
...voiced confidence in the possibility of a common approach to mutual problems...
...Besides debating issues of social policy, employment and income security, the delegates passed resolutions on "regional action in Europe" and "labor freedom and professional relations in Europe...
...Similarly, the changes taking place among European trade unionists are in large measure the result of shifts in their governments' policies...
...L'Humanite, the daily of the French Communist party, was particularly euphoric...
...on January 19, the Continent's top trade unionists crossed the threshold of Conference Room 12 at the Palais des Nations, they perhaps signaled the start of a new phase in relations between East and West European labor organizations that may be considered one more controversial consequence of detente...
...This prompted several Western labor chiefs to argue that the Americans either should have stayed in the ICFTU and kept up their fight inside the organization against any rapprochement with the Communists, or else should assume a completely hands-off stance with regard to East-West European labor relations...
...Arrangements began as early as July 1973, and were very carefully worked out through a series of bilateral talks—including an unprecedented meeting between the general secretaries of the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) and the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU...
...The Communist ecstasy no doubt stemmed at least in part from the fact that the gathering also served to highlight the division existing between West European and American trade unionists since the AFL-CIO withdrew from the ICFTU in 1969...
...Not surprisingly, the parley was hailed in the Communist press as both a turning point in the history of Europe's working class and a personal success for Soviet labor boss Aleksandr Shelepin, who since 1969 has been pushing for an all-European trade union federation...
...But the Geneva session's significance can be seen from the planning that went into it...
...And in Italy, workers are naturally affected by their country's creeping neutralism, ambiguous pro-Arab stand and the slow progress being made toward a Christian Democrat-Communist modus vivendi...
Vol. 57 • March 1974 • No. 5
