LABOR: Union Suites

• Share

With all the fanfare of a Hollywood opening, the A.F.L. teamsters, biggest U.S. union, last week dedicated its white marble, four-story headquarters in Washington, just across the plaza from the Capitol. Guests received embossed invitations; from Hollywood came Movie Stars Pat O'Brien, Walter Pidgeon, Dan Dailey and George Murphy—all A.F.L. card carriers. In his dedicatory speech, Teamster Boss Dave Beck noted that some critics had complained that the building was "perhaps too grand" for working folk, but he told them: "This is a tribute to what the working people of America can accomplish."

After the speechmaking, a corps of 40 uniformed guides took guests on a tour of. the labor palace. They saw a 472-seat auditorium decorated in 23-karat gold leaf and equipped for CinemaScope and Vista-Vision, a walnut-paneled conference room with a large pear-shaped table, an executives' dining room with television and canned music, a coffee room, private shower baths for top officials, wood-paneled offices for all bigwigs. There were oil paintings, lobbies walled in Aurisina Fiorito marble, ashtrays costing $7.50 apiece on the conference tables, and bronze boxes for outgoing mail ($17.50 apiece) on the executives' handcrafted desks. Cost: $5,000,000, paid in cash out of the teamsters' $35 million treasury.

The teamsters' building is the most opulent, but only one of many union structures in Washington. For despite the dictum of A.F.L. Founder Sam Gompers to avoid Government entanglement, one by one, U.S. unions have been moving to the nation's capital. As one A.F.L. official put it: "What happens on Capitol Hill is bound to affect [unions], and they can be more effective by moving their top people to Washington." Today 51 unions have their national headquarters in the capital, with still more coming in. Next, an eight-story, air-conditioned building will open in time to house the newly merged A.F.L.-C.I.O.; other structures are going up for the A.F.L. Machinists, C.I.O. Electrical Workers, A.F.L. Operating Engineers. The C.I.O. Steelworkers and A.F.L. Bakery Workers have bought sites and plan to build.