Local No. i

Local No. 1

Last week 30 New York ministers signed a petition urging the American Federation of Labor to grant a charter to the Ministers' Union of America. Local No. 1. The petition was seconded by the Manhattan teachers', musicians' and typographers' unions.

That a ministers' union even existed was news to many a churchgoer. Actually the Manhattan local, first of its kind, is four years old, has thus passed the period of probation necessary to A. F. of L. affiliation. Interracial and interdenominational, it was founded with the help of Presbyterian Rev. Edmund B. Chaffee, now editor of the Presbyterian Tribune, holds its monthly meetings at his Labor Temple in radical 14th Street (TIME, Sept. 24). Though the union members know that ministers' salaries are unstable, averaging $2,500 a year throughout the U. S., they sedulously avoid suggesting that raising them is their aim. Their stated purpose is to express religion's approval of ''the right and necessity of organization on the part of all those who labor with hand and brain." Likewise they wish to promote the use of union goods and services in churches, help strikers' families, secure proper mediation in strikes, take active part in picketing, and get ministers in other communities to unionize.

President of the Manhattan local is Rev. Dr. David M. Cory, Brooklyn Presbyterian who won his labor spurs and a mauling by police when he picketed the Brooklyn Edison Co. two years ago. Vice President is Rev. William Lloyd Imes, Negro pastor of Harlem's St. James Presbyterian Church. Others of the 75 union members: Rabbis Israel Goldstein, Alexander Lyons and Sidney Goldstein; Dean Henry Pitney Van Dusen of Union Theological Seminary; Presbyterian Rev. Cameron P. Hall; Methodist Rev. F. Theodore Minor. Least parochial to carry a union card is Rev. James Myers, able researcher, idealistic unionizer, industrial secretary of the Federal Council of Churches.

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