The union times., 1948-06-05
Union Members SOlidIy Behind Their Leaders
AFL Says Vote Is More Representative Than Is
 Mir. Gallup's

Washington. = Sentiment against the Taft-Hartley Act is increasing rapidly among union workers, according to the semi final returns of the poll being conducted by the AFL News Service through the labor press.
 The lO-tO-l margin regis tered in opposition to the law in April has been boosted to Is to l in the latest returns from the poll, which follow: Aagainst T-H law. 33,8l7
 For I'll law .......... 2,lO7
 SECRET BALLOT
 This vote, taken by secret ballot, represents an unchallengeable con- sensus of opinion among union members throughout the country and emphasizes the fact that the rank and file sOlidIy support the efforts of their union leaders to have the Taft-Hartley Act repealed.
 Efforts have been made in recent weeks to discredit the AFL poll on the ground that the number of votes cast constitutes only small percent age of the total AFL membership. In fact, one radio commentator. suffer ing from the misapprehension that ballots were being sent to each indi- | xyfH1Iol T11oT11hor xyoV7f19~ea1 ha assertion that those who did not vote were thereby indicating that they favored the Taft-Hartley Act.
 However, the facts are that the poll undertook to obtain only a sampling 1 of rank and file opinion on this issue, not referendum. The number of votes cast thus far constitutes a far greater total than the Gallup poll or other professional public opinion polls GUS tomarily seek to obtain.
 NOT EASY
 In conducting its poll. the AFL Weekly News Service published sam pie ballots which it asked the labor press to reprint. When this was done, the reader had to clip the ballot from his paper, mark it, address an en- velope to the Poll Department of the AFL Weekly News Service. afix a Scent stamp and mail 1t. These de tails are set forth here to make it clear that under such circumstances no huge vote could be expected.
 Furthermore, the conditions of the poll were deliberately establish I al k0 LAavH Ah0 RAR0Io Rr. bling proportions and to make cer- tain that each vote was individually cast in a separate envelope.
 It would have been comparatively simple to print ballots in bulk and distribute them at local union meet ings to register an enormous vote, but if this had been done, the poll would have been criticized as not being a fair expression of indi- vidual opinion.
 This method was tried out, at the request of officials of the International Holders and Foundry Workers Un- ion, at few of their local unions. The vote cast was 5,264 against the Taft-Hartley Act and only 76 in favor of 1t.
 The overwhelming sentiment among union members against the Taft-Hartley Act, as evidenced in the AFL poll, has been borne out at the secret uniOn-shOp elections conducted by the NLRB.
 The unions have been winning more than 99 percent of these cleo tions and more than 85 percent of all workers eligible to vote have cast their ballots in favor of the union shop. These elections results are es- pecially significant because of the ex- pectation of the Taft-Hartley Act sponsors that if the workers were given the opportunity to vote on the question of compulsory union mem- bership, they would reject it.
 The outcome has been such a boomerang to the Taft-Hartleyites that they are now pushing amend ments to the law eliminating fhe requirement for uniOn-shOp cleo tiOns.
 Next month the final tabulatiOns of the AFL poll will be published. |