811.504 Mexico/246a
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Mexico (Messersmith)
Sir: Reference is made to the Department’s strictly confidential instruction no. 4873 of December 3, 1943,87 and to the telephone conversation of December 4 [3], 194388 between Mr. Sidney E. O’Donoghue, Second Secretary of the Embassy, and an officer of the [Page 584] Department regarding statements made by a representative of a labor organization in a telegram to Mexican officials. The telegram protested that Mexican workers brought into this country under existing agreements were by the terms of those agreements prevented from becoming members of labor organizations and that they were therefore being discriminated against.
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You will be interested in knowing that since that conversation between Mr. O’Donoghue and an officer of the Department this matter has been discussed with both the War Manpower Commission and the War Food Administration, both of which share the Department’s opinion that there is nothing in the agreements which would prevent Mexican workers from joining unions if they so wished. Colonel Philip G. Bruton, Deputy Administrator of the War Food Administration in charge of labor matters, telephoned Mr. William G. Anglim at San Francisco, in charge of the field administration of Mexican agricultural workers, who confirmed that in field practice the War Food Administration had been neutral in regard to this question. Mr. Anglim further stated that it was his understanding that the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations had been interested at the time of the negotiation of these agreements that there would be no displacement of American laborers by workers brought in from Mexico, and that Section 4 of the General Provisions reflected this interest. It may be further stated that at the time the agreements were negotiated, the Mexican Government, because of the temporary nature of the migration, had reservations about Mexican workers being involved with American unions and that the American unions apparently shared these reservations.
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Very truly yours,