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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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command, and they weren't. This labor committee that Tracy set up was supposed to be to help him and advise him. They were partly AF of L and part CIO.

The situation just in this planning period got so strained at times that Tracy insisted on their meeting once a week, or once a fortnight, but having a fixed meeting. He would frequently be obliged to adjourn that meeting, having it very short, less than an hour, and then hastily collect a meeting of AF of Ls and another meeting of CIOs the same day. You couldn't keep them in the same room long enough to talk about the things you wanted to sell them.

His job was to sell them this, that or the other thing, many of them running into things that are awfully hard for labor organizers to take, such as the problem of allowing people who are not carpenters or brick layers to work on work that is ordinarily fought for by carpenters and brick-layers. One of the great problems we had was the business of taking the dues and having join the union these people who were not qualified carpenters and bricklayers. Some of these dues are very high. The organizers said, “We've given this outsider permission to work on this job, and he's got to join the union. The union carpenters won't work along with him unless he's in the union and pays his dues.”





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