ABSTRACT
The Republican leadership attempted to contrast the Governor Paul A. Dever’s evolving pro-labor position to their own professed “middle ground” approach, and charged that the Governor’s persistent “business baiting” was driving industry from Massachusetts and retarding economic recovery. The legislative committee on labor and industries favorably reported a bill almost identical with the Cox-Phillips proposals. One venture in 1952 which did mark a new departure for the Massachusetts Federation of Labor, however, when the state State Federation of Labor (AFL) organization openly went into a Democratic primary election in an attempt to unseat a legislative incumbent of the Democratic Party. The United Labor Committee, which has proven less effective in the 1950 elections than in 1948, completely collapsed in 1952, when the ADA could not agree with the state AFL and State Industrial Union Council in supporting Governor Dever’s bid for a third term.
