American Jewish Congress Sued by Hotel for Withdrawing Its Convention

A spokesman for the Deauville Hotel announced today that the hotel has started a suit to halt the national convention of the American Jewish Congress here May 14-18 and to ban the organization’s expected 500 delegates from meeting at any other hotel in Florida.

The court action came after the organization cancelled plans to hold the convention at the Deauville and re-scheduled the meeting for the Carillon Hotel. AJC spokesmen here said that the switch was decided on 10 days ago after the organization received information that the Deauville Hotel allegedly was anti-labor.

“We received repeated assurances that the hotel was not anti-union,” the American Jewish Congress declared in a statement, “but on April 21 we learned that the Deauville had obtained an injunction restraining the hotel and restaurant workers and bartenders local from normal labor organizational activity. Walter Reuther, president of the United Auto Workers, is one of the speakers scheduled for the five-day meeting.

“It has always been a basic principle of the American Jewish Congress to support the rights of labor to organize and bargain collectively, ” the statement continued. “Upon ascertaining the true situation and in order to protect the interests and relationships of the AJC, we were compelled to change our plans, a step that has involved considerable expense to our organization.”

Bernard Fuller, attorney for the Deauville, said the hotel would file a damage suit against the Congress, “but at this time we cannot tell what our damages will be, and we are unable to set an amount which may be used in the suit.”