Labor: George & the Leprechauns

Since 1949, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. has poured $15 million into the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, a Brussels-based labor movement dedicated to promoting unionism in underdeveloped countries. Such a stake gives the A.F.L.-C.I.O. a big voice in I.C.F.T.U. affairs and, so Union President George Meany figures, the right to criticize as well. Recently, Meany did just that. At a press conference, he lit into the I.C.F.T.U., charging among other things that it was "an ineffective bureaucracy, right down to the fairies."

To anybody except small children and little old ladies, that meant only one thing, and next day papers across the U.S. carried stories reporting Meany's charge of homosexuality at I.C.F.T.U. From I.C.F.T.U. headquarters in Brussels, staff members cabled Meany that they "were deeply shocked." Commented one female staffer, more or less demurely: "Mr. Meany is as wrong as can be. Most of the girls here would tell him the opposite charge would make more sense."

Inevitably, Meany had to reply. Last week he turned up in Brussels, barking angrily: "It's all lies, lies, lies! I never used the word homosexual!" It's like this, he explained: "I'm an Irishman and we have a lot of stories about fairies and leprechauns, and we also use the word fairy simply to say somebody is a gossip, an idle gossip."

Maybe so, sniffed I.C.F.T.U. Secretary-General Omer Becu, adding: "Per sonally, I've always understood that fairy meant homosexual.* I know that I wouldn't like it at all if anybody called me a fairy."