Evening star., 1937-03-30
TEXTILE PARLEY
FINDS LABOR SPLIT
Germany Attending Geneva
Inspired Conference, Sees
A. F. L.-C. |. o. War.
BY BLAIR BOLLES,

The World Textile Conference, which
has lured Germany to & Geneva
arranged convention for the first time
in four years, threatened today to
invite conflict between the American
Federation of Labor and the Com
mittee for Industrial Organization.
The fight centers around the seec-
tion Of the workers delegate to the
conference, which opens here Friday
at the call of the International Labor
Office in Geneva. The difficulty lies in
the fact that the choice must be salts
factory to labor in general, which
means the faction led by John L. Lewis
as well as the conservative group
headed by William Green.
Although the United States Is en-
titled to representatives of the Gov
ernment and the employers as well as
of labor at the meeting, no repre-
sentatives at all have yet been chosen.
Men and women from the other con-
ferring countries are arriving daily
for the tWo-Week session at the De-
partmental Auditorium.
Rail Brotherhood May Serve.
Green has been this country's work.
ers' delegate to the International
Labor Office since the United States
voted to join the organization in
1884, but he always has been repre-
sented by proxy. One suggested way
out of the difficulty would be the
appointment of member # railroad
brotherhood, affiliated with neither
the Green A. F. of l.. nor the Lewis
c. I. o.
The Netherlands. whose organized
workers are split on religious grounds,
was confronted with a somewhat
similar difficulty. 1t named as its
labor delegate a member of the
Protestant union. but sent as advisers
one n4ember of the Catholic Union and
another Protestant union man. The
labor delegate is G. Rengelink, presi-
dent OF the Dutch Textile Workers
General Federation De Eendracht.
The Catholic adviser is A. van der
Mays, president Of the Catholic Tex
tile WORKERS Union st. Tambertus.
Seek Textile Solution.
Already IA countries, including the
leading textile producers of the world,
have signified their intention of at
tending what may be one of the most
important international conventions
in years from an economic stand
point. Its purpose is to standardize
working conditions in the textile in
dustry, which is more international
in its scope than almost any other
industry in the world.
The decision OF Germany to send
DR.. Walther Becker, commercial at
tache at the embassy here, as an
official observer" came as surprise,
for Berlin has avoided such confer
ences since her decision in 1888 to
resign simultaneously from the League
of Nations and the International La
Dor Office. A meeting called by the
I. L. O. last month on raw materials
was disrupted and Cancelled because
of Germany's refusal to attend.
The German census of 1888 shows
that l,117,583 men and women were
employed in the textile business in
that country. The only other coun-
tries with more workers dependent
on textiles are India, the United
States, Great Britain and Japan. Ger
many's textile market among her own
people is the largest in Europe out
side the United Kingdom and what
ever decision this conference inspires
would have considerable influence on
the German industry.
13 Decline Representation.
OF the 81 countries invited to the
conference, all the members of the
I. L. O.. 13, none Of them with inter-
ests in textiles, have declined, while
these have definitely decided to be
represented - the United Kingdom,
France, India, Belgium, Finland. Lat
via, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Japan,
Sweden, the United States, Mexico,
Uruguay and Guatemala.
The official languages of the meet
ing will be English and French. After
every English talk q translation will
be rendered from the platform in
French, and after every French talk
an interpreter will repeat it in Eng
lish. Delegates who speak other Ian
guages can listen by ear phones to
translations in Spanish, German, jap
anese, probably Portuguese and
Scandinavian language.