A joint AFL-CIO delegation of nine top trade union leaders will leave the U.S. by plane tomorrow for a ten-day visit to Israel. Their trip is sponsored by the American Christian Palestine Committee and by the National Committee for Labor Israel. On arrival they will be guests of the Histadrut, Israel’s Federation of Labor.
This group is the second joint AFL-CIO delegation to visit Israel as guests of the labor movement. While in Israel, the party will inspect trade union activities, labor management relations, and welfare work done by Histadrut. They will be met in Tel Aviv by Moshe Bar-Tal, Histadrut’s representative in New York who is now in Israel.
Walter Reuther, president of CIO, and Joseph Biernie, president of the Communication Workers of America, will go to Israel in time to attend opening day ceremonies on Labor Day of the Philip Murray Memorial Center at Elath, on the Red Sea. The CIO’s Philip Murray Memorial Foundation contributed $100,000 toward the construction of this Culture Center, and Histadrut in Israel shared in the cost of construction with a similar amount. Reuther and Biernie will be accompanied by Judge Simon Sobeloff, U.S. Solicitor General and Governor Theodore R. McKeldin of Maryland, who have been invited by CIO to make the trip and witness the ceremonies.
The five AFL delegates leaving tomorrow are: Anthony Ballerini, business representative, Lodge 1327, International Association of Machinists; Roy M. Brown, general vice-president. International Association of Machinists; George Cavender, president, Colorado Federation of Labor: Harold J. Gibbons, secretary-treasurer, Local 688, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, St. Louis, Missouri, and E.H. Williams, president, Louisiana State Federation of Labor. The four CIO delegates are: Joseph Appelbaum, vice-president, Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers; Jacob Clayman, secretary-treasurer, Ohio CIO Council; James Robb, director, District 30, United Steelworkers of America; and Frank Winn, public relations director of the United Auto Workers.
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