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George Meany, President of the AFL-CIO, is interviewed on this program by Dr. John Schwarzwalder, general manager of KTCA-TV, St. Paul. Mr. Meany talks of the fight to make labor recognized by management as an entity, worthy of consideration. Once this was accomplished, two of the chief aims of trade unionism were to encourage and work for greater free public education, and to raise the standard of living in the United States. There is still much to be done in the area of family problems, but first and foremost, labor’s most important task is to get its workers and their children a fair share, Mr. Meany says. On automation, Mr. Meany states that the trade union movement wholeheartedly accepts the validity of the attempt to lighten the burden of human labor. Labor, however, claims it is necessary that the economy expand sufficiently to offset the resulting unemployment caused by automation. If the economy does not sufficiently expand, Mr. Meany says a shorter work week is the only answer to the labor problems posed by automation. He considers the most important piece of labor legislation in the past fifty years was the Wagner Act of 1935, which gave labor the right to organize. He adds that he considers the Taft-Hartley legislation the most damaging piece of labor legislation. Is American labor pricing itself out of the world market? Mr. Meany says labor must bring the rest of the world up to the standards of the United States rather than cut American standards down to those of the rest of the world.
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