ADDRESS (excerpts)

By John Schreier, Assistant Director of Organization

AFL-CIO Washington, D.C.

April 17, 1957

In Detroit I was Director in Michigan and since that time you know there has been a merger and we now have a united labor merger of AFL-CIO. Our organizing staff has increased, along, of course, with our membership. Any group in society with a membership of 16 million becomes a factor and a problem in our way of life. We have certain responsibilities. Our organizing staff increased from 130

to well over 300 people. (I believe it was 340.) Since the merger to the present time, we have lost 67 men, some through death, some through resignation, retirement and some leaving us and going with their own International Unions to carry on the work of their own Internationals. Our staff amounts to 275 organizers. Of course, ours is the largest department within the AFL-CIO and the one that naturally is looked on to carry out the policies of the Federation.

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Since the merger we have increased vacations and try to make the job a little easier, but we also realize this and that is why we have been insisting on forced vacations where men must take it and it is not a question of saying 'I would rather take the money'. . . . We sometime wonder, when a fellow drops dead, if he had taken a voluntary retirement, if he might have lived a few years longer. We are not sure about that, but we have been discussing it. The thing that bothers us is that a lot of these fellows who have died suddenly were rather young men. We don't want to keep a man in the harness when there is a chance for him to retire and he can do so in comfort.

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