Blue Collar Empire: On the History of the ‘AFL-CIA’ and Possibilities for Labor Internationalism
Streamed live on Sep 1, 2024
Featuring Jeff Schuhrke A conversation about the new book Blue Collar Empire—which recounts the AFL-CIO’s global anticommunist crusade in the late 20th century, shows how it took place in partnership with the US government’s Cold War-era quest to control labor struggles abroad, and explores what this history means for the possibility of international solidarity in the US labor movement today. ———————————————————————
Transcript:
7:15okay I think we can get started with some of the more housekeeping stuff and people can keep filing in um if that
7:22sounds good so hi everyone my name is aalin and I’m going to be moderating
7:28this session very exced excited to talk to Jeff about his uh amazing new book um
7:33before we get into that though I just uh you guys have been to other sessions presumably so I’m just going to read through the housekeeping announcements
7:39make sure everyone’s on the same page um I have five things uh first it’s
7:45important to remember that everyone’s required to wear their mask at all times even when asking a question or giving a
7:51comment towards the end this is for everyone’s Collective safety um also
7:56please wear your conference badges throughout the weekend and uh when badge Checkers ask to see them please show
8:03them the badges also for everyone’s safety um third we have some attendees
8:10who require translation services so you might see people uh talking quietly to
8:15each other throughout the session so that’s what’s going on there um so please allow for that um fourth the
8:22session is being live streamed and recorded um but besides that uh we the
8:28conference policy does not permit for recording unless you have a press badge um so please respect that uh and finally
8:35keep in mind that the conference aims to be a space that engages genuine discussion on the left so um and I’m
8:42sure everyone’s already doing this but we ask for everyone’s help and fostering a culture where everyone feels
8:47comfortable asking questions and expressing um opinions and descent um
8:52and as I mentioned before this is being live streamed so keep that in mind when you ask your questions because that will
8:57be part of the recording um okay great all that said I think we
9:03can um start with some introductions so like I mentioned my name is afar nalin she her pronouns I’m news editor at the
9:10magazine Jewish currents I am also a graduate student um and as such I’m a member of the UAW and I’m part of UAW
9:17labor for Palestine which is a coalition that’s working inside the UAW to get the union to divest and have a better
9:24foreign policy positions um and I’m so delighted to be in conversation with Jeff shery um in introduction for Jeff
9:32uh Jeff is a labor historian journalist and assistant professor at the haran arale Junior School of Labor studies at
9:39Sunni Empire in New York City um Jeff is a regular contributor at IND these times
9:44Jackin and Jewish currens and he is most importantly for us here the author of blue collar Empire uh the Untold Story
9:52of Us labors Global anti-communist Crusade um which is available in the
9:58conference uh book um and is the book that we’re going to be talking about and I’m very excited to
10:03to share with everyone um the format for this session is going to be similar to what you’ve seen at other sessions uh
10:11presumably which is that we will have a Q&A conversation from the front of the room for around half the session and
10:17then we’ll turn it to you um we have this mic here for for Q&A and people can come up and um you’re welcome to ask
10:23questions to Jeff you’re also welcome to make comments that are you know a discussion comment for the entire room
10:29um but please be respectful of a 2 to 3 minute time limit so we can H have as many comments as possible um great sorry
10:38for a lot of talking but all had been said we can finally uh turn to Jeff and get into this book so um so I guess to
10:46start with Jeff this book is about the aflci and its activities throughout the 20th century um today when I as someone
10:54in the labor movement think of the AFL CIO it doesn’t resonate or mean that much to me the power of that
10:59organization is very different today compared to in the 20th century in the period you’re talking about and that
11:05also goes for the labor movement which has been undergoing a decline for many decades now so to take us back to the
11:12moment that this book is addressing uh which is the early and mid 20th century specifically um can you help us
11:19understand what was the aflci at that point what was the labor movement um
11:24what was kind of the promise of the labor movement and and why did it not fulfill that promise and go in a
11:29completely different direction and that’s a massive question so go where you will with that
11:35minutes okay uh everyone can hear me okay yeah so good morning and first of
11:40all I want to say thank you to hey market and all the organizers of this amazing conference and thank you to
11:46Verso obviously for publishing my book and and making this session happen and thank you apara for moderating this and
11:53thank all of you for being here for your interest in the book and for all the really crucial important organ izing and
12:00agitating and educating that you’re doing in your own unions and workplaces and
12:05communities so the question was about the power of the labor movement aflci in
12:11the 20th century particularly I think mid 20th century um so I’ll frame my answer this way by thinking about in in
12:18the present imagine if right now in the year 2024 imagine if we had 35% Union density
12:27that would be about 42 million additional unionized workers than we actually have and imagine if companies
12:34like Amazon and Walmart and McDonald’s and others were wall-to-wall unionized
12:40every worker in those companies um working under collective bargaining agreements and big industrial
12:46unions um imagine the power that the labor movement could have if that was the reality right now imagine how the
12:53labor movement could be working to dramatically change the political social
13:00and economic structures of this country and how that would reverberate around the world um so that’s obviously not the
13:07reality right Union density is more like 10% and the biggest companies the biggest private Employers in the country
13:14are still pretty much entirely non-union but in the mid 20th century
13:20and right after World War II that it actually was the reality there was 35%
13:25Union density the biggest industrial corporations in the the country like us
13:30steel and General Motors General Electric were wall-to-wall unionized one in every three non-agricultural workers
13:37was a union member and so unions the labor movement had incredible economic
13:43and political strength compared to right now and compared to any other time in US history um so like what what did the
13:52labor movement and in particular the the main labor federations the AFL and CIO
13:58which then emerged in 1955 to become the AFL CEO what did they do with that that
14:04fleeting power um did they organize the unorganized did they organize the South
14:11did they um you know achieve single-payer Health Care did they hinder
14:17us militarism and imperialism abroad you know we know the answer is no that’s not really what happened um and that’s what
14:24this this book is really about and a big reason why has to do with the Cold War
14:31um a major reason for why Union density grew so dramatically to 35% the highest
14:38it’s ever been that happened within a 10-year time span more or less between about 1935 and
14:441945 but a big reason for that growth was the CIO um you know which was Breakaway from
14:50the AFL more Progressive um and more focused on um industrial organizing um
14:59organizing workers regardless of their skill level or race gender or where they
15:04were in the economy um and a big reason for the cio’s success a major factor in
15:12that was the fact that the CIO had the presence and Leadership of many leftist trade unionists
15:19particularly members of the Communist Party USA and their allies who were dedicated effective organizers and who
15:26had this same who had this kind of broad social Vision um anti-racist
15:32anti-sexist um anti-imperial kind of vision so if anyone was going to um anyone in the
15:39labor movement was going to use that power to really try to remake Society it would have been those leftist communist
15:46union members and union leaders within the CIO and the cold war came about in the
15:53late 40s and you know McCarthyism the Red Scare which was not just accident it
15:59was manufactured by Corporate America and Wall Street for the purpose of taking out those uh leftist trade
16:07unionists and um and hampering the potential power of the labor movement
16:12particularly the CIO at that point um and uh a lot of the you know this this
16:19is why in 1947 Republicans and Congress were able to pass the Taft heartley act
16:25which placed a lot of new legal legal restriction on unions and what they could do and required Union officials to
16:32sign you know legal affidavits saying swearing that they were not members of the Communist party and so on and so it
16:39was really all contrived to try to um uh
16:44drive out the left from the labor movement again particularly the
16:50CIO and the cio’s non-communist leaders had to sort of make a political calculation they could either resist
16:57this Red Scare resist m theism or they could just decide to go along with it um
17:03and they decided to go along with it and you know famously or infamously the CIO
17:09uh purged the communist-led and leftist Le unions um in the in 19 between 1949
17:15and 1950 and you know the CIO part of why the CIO had grown so powerful in the
17:22first place was because it adopted this class struggle unionism that uh you know
17:28as Joe Burns called calls it challenging the power of management day-to-day in the
17:33workplace and with this sort of calculation that the CIO eventually made
17:38to go along with the cold war that was that approach was largely abandoned in favor of a more sort of class
17:44collaborationist or industrial pluralist like this idea we can negotiate rationally with the employers and we’re
17:52all on the same side here we all want America to succeed and that kind of thing um and trying to demonst demate
18:00the cio’s patriotism and loyalty to the United States by showing how anti-communist they were and how much
18:05they were uh in favor of US foreign policy so that’s a big part of why this but the
18:14potential this moment of great potential for the labor movement didn’t really materialize um is because the Cold War
18:22got in the way thank you for sketching out that um
18:28really important history and one of the things that your book adds to that is to
18:34show that you know not only were US Labor leaders part of waging the Cold War they um in their kind of early years
18:43were actually outflanking the US government from the right on the Cold War they were kind of the first people
18:48to wage the Cold War in some senses and um that I found particularly remarkable
18:53and you catalog that um specifically through the free Trade union committee
19:00which was uh you know established by the aflcio to kind of carry out an
19:06anti-communist Crusade around the world um and which actually the US foreign policy establishment catches up with um
19:13after the end of World War II so can you talk a little bit about the history of the free free trade Union uh committee
19:19what is free trade unionism and and what that committee was was doing and then how that kind of Trail blazes the cold
19:26war in the US yeah so my last answer I was focusing a lot on the CIO because
19:31the CIO was the more had been you know the more Progressive um Union Federation
19:38more welcoming and tolerant of the left while the AFL this this answer has a lot
19:43more to do with the AFL which was traditionally much more conservative and vehemently anti-communist um
19:51and within the as I’m in the CIO there was this willingness to you know
19:56tolerate the left and tolerate communist and that was similar at the inter on the international stage as well coming out
20:03of World War II the international labor stage we could say um in the same way
20:09that well I should back up and say you know the cold war did not immediately
20:14begin upon Japan’s surrender in 1945 right it took a couple of years before
20:21the Cold War really kind of officially began with you know in 1947 with the
20:26Truman Doctrine President Harry trp announcing that US foreign policy’s main
20:32objective would be to you know contain Communism also 1947 was when the National Security Act was passed which
20:39uh among other things established the CIA to you know wage the Cold War abroad
20:45so um there were a couple of years at least before the Cold War really got started and there was a you know even
20:52though there was a latent distrust between the US and Soviet Union they had
20:59forged this wartime anti-fascist Alliance and there were people Franklin Roosevelt before he died had hoped that
21:05that kind of Alliance that International cooperation could continue and some of the people in his his administration and
21:11and Elanor Roosevelt also hoped that this sort of alliance between the US and Soviet Union could continue and we see
21:17that with the creation of the United Nations in 1945 which included both the US and Soviet Union as permanent members
21:24of the security Council and on the labor stage there was an attempt to create uh
21:30a kind of United Nations of Labor the World Federation of trade unions which was also established in
21:381945 I’m talking way too much um that was also established in 1945 to
21:45um bring together both you know communist and non-communist uh Union federations that
21:50what all shared a common anti-fascism um and the CIO joined the World
21:56Federation of trade unions on behalf of the United States but the AFL refused to have anything to do with the the World
22:02Federation of trade unions boycotted and vowed to divide it so that would be like
22:08the equivalent of if the US refused to join the United Nations because it included the Soviet Union and the US
22:13said we’re not going to be part of the UN we’re going to form our own alternative un that’s strictly
22:20anti-communist and what the AFL called this sort of anti-communist brand of
22:25unionism that they were trying to promote they called it free trade unionism this idea that you know we’re
22:31supporting uh free Democratic uh um independent kind of unionism but when
22:37you look at the actual history of it which is what I did in the book um it’s
22:43not really about Freedom at all it’s just about anti-communism and support and bolstering capitalism at the end of
22:48the day and bolstering US Imperial power so as early as 1944 the AFL was already
22:57getting ready for the postwar period where they were going to try to undermine communist influence in the
23:03international labor movement and so they created the AFL created this new international arm in late 1944 called
23:10The Free Trade union committee and there’s a lot I could say about it but it’s in the book and I don’t want to go
23:16you know ramble on too long but what the Free Trade union committee did early on
23:23was they sent AFL representatives to Western Europe in the in as the war
23:28World War II came to an end um in countries like France and Italy Communists were very powerful in those
23:37those countries labor movements because they had been at the center of the an anti-fascist resistance they were very
23:42popular among the working classes of those countries and AFL Representatives through the Free Trade union committee
23:48went to like France and Italy and other countries to try to um provoke splits in
23:55those Count’s labor federations to sort of whisper in the ears of the non-communist union leaders to say why
24:01are you working with these these evil totalitarian commies you should break away from them and form these
24:07alternative rival Splinter Union factions um and the AFL was doing this
24:13on its own that’s the important point because people often assume oh they were just instruments of the CIA and that
24:19would eventually happen but at this point the CIA didn’t even exist yet and the AF and the US you know had not yet
24:25fully embraced the Cold War this was before 194 47 and so that’s I think what you were sort of getting at AA and then
24:33by the time the US government kind of caught up with the AFL on waging the Cold War and the CIA was created the CIA
24:42took a look at what the Free Trade union committee had been doing and splitting labor movements overseas and said this
24:47is great work we want to work with you and so they formed this covert partnership where the Free Trade union
24:53committee now started to be funded directly by the CIA and expanded beond Beyond only Western Europe into Latin
25:01America and Asia um and and elsewhere around the world and throughout the 1950s was doing this kind of work of um
25:10again dividing labor movements along Cold War battle lines and so it wasn’t about workers versus Capital it was
25:16about you know democracy versus communism or you know supporting the US
25:22versus um supporting the Soviet Union the labor movement became very much
25:27International labor movement and the World Federation of trade unions was divided and split um and uh I I’ll leave
25:35the answer there thank you um you mentioned Latin America and Asia and in
25:40the book you talk about Africa as well and one of the really important interventions of this book is that it
25:47really looks at the Cold War not just as an East West conflict but as really a north south one fundamentally and as uh
25:54a way that US Labor leaders intervened in decolonizing countries and kind of
26:01crushed revolutionary movements in those countries um alongside the US government so now we enter the kind of period of
26:08explicit or I guess covert collab but explicit collaboration between the CIA and the AFL and labor leaders in the US
26:15um and much of that plays out in the global South so I’m curious about if you can talk a little bit about the
26:21strategies that uh US Labor used in the global South to kind of Silence lab
26:28movements there which ranged from everything from supporting military coups to having an Institute that is
26:35specifically about re-educating workers in these Global South countries to make them anti-communist to funding
26:41development projects I mean the range of tactics and strategies is is is remarkable and actually extremely
26:46versatile in the way that we would want labor to function but it’s all being used uh for this horrible end which is
26:52to prop up these reactionary governments around the world so uh yeah would love to hear more about that yeah yeah so and
26:59this kind of moves into like a sort of later period so the book I should say covers the period of roughly 1945 to
27:061995 and so the book is kind of broken up into three sections of like the early Cold War period in the late 40s and 50s
27:12and then the sort of middle period of the 60s and early’ 70s and then the later period of the 70s 80s into the
27:18early 90s so this you know going into the 50s and 6s you had the rise of the
27:24third world movement of you know postcolonial countries in Africa Asia
27:29asserting their geopolitical independence and you know not wanting to just be puppets in the Cold War and this
27:36was you know for anti-communists in the US government this was completely unacceptable like you had to be a puppet
27:42of the US government or else you were the enemy um and then in 1959 with the Cuban Revolution anti-communists in the
27:49US including in the aflci became very interested in Latin America and making
27:55sure that there were there wouldn’t be any other Revolutions in Latin America
28:00and so to this end in between 1960 61 the AFL CAO created another new
28:06international arm called the American Institute for free labor development or
28:12afield which was specifically focused on Latin America and the Caribbean and was
28:17funded by the US agency for International Development which had been created by the Kennedy administration it
28:23was sort of a a descendant of the Marshall Plan and um this idea of De
28:28development became an important ideological and economic tool for anti-communism and waging the cold war
28:34with the idea to postcolonial countries countries of the global South to say you know we will give
28:41you economic uh assistance as long as you are your government is strongly
28:46anti-communist and pro us and so the a field that was created by the aflcio was
28:53sort of part of this but focused on labor movements specifically in Latin
28:58America and yeah ostensibly it was like a training center where they would um do
29:04training programs like labor education classes you know it’s kind kind of stuff I teach in labor studies uh collective
29:12bargaining and uh stuff like that to Latin American trade unionists that was ostensibly what it was but it was also
29:20these classes were training Latin American workers how to resist any kind
29:26of leftist influence in their Union and I should just say that even I use the word anti-communist a lot and it
29:32that didn’t simply mean opposition to actual communism and opposition to any and all left-wing uh or anti-c
29:39capitalist political movements worker-led movements around the world so just as as an
29:45example um in these classes that afield did these training classes they would do role plays where they would sort of say
29:52you know just like in or you know when you’re training people to be organizers you do role plays um but these role
29:58plays I I’ll read this is an exerpt from a reader digest article in 1966 where
30:03the this writer from the Readers Digest sat in on one of these a field classes and he said another session rehearsed a
30:10meeting of Auto Workers wherein red infiltrators were trying to divert matters to political ends and quote you
30:18are a puppet of Yankee imperialists trained in Washington shouted platted planted hecklers at Juan the Argentine
30:24chairman and then Juan shoots back American workers are the highest paid in the world under the free enterprise
30:30system of class cooperation what did you Communists learn in Cuba how to reduce living standards how to destroy free
30:37unions is that how you plan to emancipate the working class take your doctrines back to Moscow or is it P King
30:44are taking orders from this week um so this is I mean we laugh but
30:50this is what they were really doing and um in addition to these sort of training programs they were they would then send
30:56the graduates of these of these uh programs back to their home countries with generous funding from the US to
31:03carry on their anti-communist organ organizing activities within their own unions and the afield had a uh social
31:11projects department where they would carry out these sort of smallscale Community Development programs setting
31:16up health clinics and community centers and especially um affordable worker
31:22housing projects again funded largely by the US agency for International Development with the idea that if you
31:28belong to an anti-communist Trade union if you were a worker Rank and file worker belonging to one of these
31:34anti-communist Pro us unions you could get these material benefits through afield you could get affordable housing
31:41uh and access to healthc care and stuff like that as a way to sort of you know in this battle for hearts and Minds um but afield was also involved in
31:49various um military coups and other efforts to undermine Progressive
31:55democratic leftist governments across Latin America and the Caribbean um one
32:01example that’s not so well known was in Guyana in South America which in the
32:07early 60s was still a colony of Britain called British Guyana and it was going
32:13through a PL a period of planned planned transition to Independence and the Chief
32:18Minister of Guyana was a Marxist named cheddy jagan who hope to see the country
32:23through its you transition to Independence promote socialist reforms like nationalizing the sugar industry
32:30Etc um the Kennedy administration viewed him as another Castro and he had to be
32:36stopped he had to be taken out of power before uh British Guyana became
32:41independent so Kennedy actually like lobbied the British government to delay Independence in Guyana and in the
32:49meantime afield was training some of unions that were aligned with cheddy
32:55Jin’s political opposition and and uh in the early 60s they staged this huge
33:01general strike this is a tiny country with a small economy um but there was this huge general strike that lasted for
33:08I believe like two or three months um to that was all meant to you know usually we think on the left
33:13General strikes are good you know and they they generally are but in this case the whole point of the general strike was to undermine Jin’s government and to
33:21re you know wreak havoc with the economy and this the strike was the reason the
33:28strike could continue for so long is because the strikers were getting paid by uh there’s multiple layers of
33:36bureaucracy but it was asme um which was getting the money from
33:41the CIA and this served to undermine Jin’s government eventually he was not long
33:47after voted out of power and then the transition to Independence could move forward um similarly you jump ahead in
33:54time 10 years you know Chile this is a more well-known example right with uh um
34:00uh Salvador aende uh socialist government um and the the working class
34:06the trade unions of Chile were were very loyal to aende but there were these uh
34:12um you know middle class professional associations called Gros that were very
34:17much opposed to aende this included like engineers in the copper mines and like truckers and shopkeepers and those kinds
34:25of things and they received a lot of funding and support report from afield as well again with money coming from the state department from usid and the CIA
34:33and they also stag these really crippling strikes in the early ’70s and Chile that served as a pretext for the
34:39military coup there um Brazil in 1964 similar kinds of Dynamics lots of things
34:46it’s all in the book so I won’t ramble on um but yeah multiple different types of tactics and in Beyond Latin America
34:52as well I mean most importantly in Vietnam where the aflci
34:58top leaders were some of the loudest um supporters of the war even as the public
35:04in the US became increasingly turned against the war people like George meimi the president of the AFL CIO remained
35:11staunchly in favor of the war but it wasn’t just like politically talking like we support the war aflci was also
35:18active on the ground in South Vietnam supporting the Vietnamese Confederation of Labor which was the anti-communist
35:24union Federation there um trying to get you know undermine um Communists and leftists
35:32among the working class and among peasants in in South Vietnam so um yes there were a lot of strategies education
35:40development supporting coup supporting Wars uh and this went on for several decades um between like the 60s 70s and
35:4880s um thank you um for yeah for kind of
35:55talking about the diversity of places and tactics I really want to emphasize for Everyone by the way that we are scraping like the tip of the iceberg
36:01with this book buy this book read this book there is so much going on in so many places around the world um and yeah
36:09we’re not going to be able to get to all of it but uh that was a really awesome overview um I think one thing that you
36:16emphasized throughout the book and especially we get when we get to VI the Vietnam war is uh that the rank and file
36:22members of us unions did not know that this was happening by and large um this was all happening right at the very top
36:28the money was kind of CIA money was being taken and US Aid money was being taken and uh passed passed along in all
36:35these different ways without the knowledge of the base and that starts to change in the period of the Vietnam War
36:41uh when there’s these exposes that are published and when there’s this popular unrest about the war and to try to get
36:47the us out um that changes how the aflcio operates abroad but it doesn’t
36:54always change it in good ways um I and you talk about how uh the partnership
37:00between the US foreign policy apparatus and the aflcio goes from being covert to actually being overt and being you know
37:07in the period after the Vietnam War and I’m wondering if you can play out a little bit what happened with the Vietnam War what was the ranking file
37:13reaction to these Revelations what were the kind of uh ways that the aflci sought to manage that descent and then
37:20how did they actually proceed in uh the decades to come sorry these questions are like you can see covering like 20
37:26years each because that’s how much is going on here but yeah yeah the Vietnam
37:32War and in particularly the anti-war movement here in the US was a really important turning point in the Cold War
37:38where you know large sads maybe the majority of the US public started to understand that you know the this uh
37:47Crusade against communism was actually uh hugely violent and repressive uh
37:53reactionary uh form of imperialism and um the the fact that as
37:59I mentioned the AFL CIO was so vocally supportive of the war got a lot of people including rank andile union
38:05members and journalists and elected officials more interested in what the
38:10AFL C you know they were like why is the aflci talking about so much about Vietnam and they started looking into
38:16all these activities that I’ve been talking about that had been already been going on for several years and it
38:21started to come to come to light for the first time because prior to the late 60s
38:27most Rank and fou union members and workers didn’t really know that any of this stuff was going on because they weren’t being consulted about it it was
38:33no was not Democratic at all it was just being decided behind closed doors at the very top levels of Labor
38:39officialdom and so as these Revelations came out you know the New York Times and Washington Post and other like
38:45establishment media was exposing they were publishing these exposes about how
38:51unions like asme and the newspaper Guild now the news Guild um the the retail
38:58Clerk’s International Union and the oil chemical and atomic Workers Union were receiving money from the CIA and they
39:05started talking about these different coups and things that afield had been involved in in Latin America and rank
39:11and filers to a large extent were pretty shocked by this um yes there were also a
39:18lot of rank and filers who were supportive of the war there was a notorious hard hat riot in New York in
39:231970 of construction workers violently attacking um anti-war protesters but
39:30there was also a lot of Union opposition to the Vietnam War um especially among
39:35like black and Latina healthcare workers in New York and elsewhere local 1199 and in any case the the focus on
39:43the war and the anti-war movement brought so much of this to light and going into the early 1970s you started
39:49to have Rank and foul committees calling for the AFL CIO and oh by the way this is when the the term AFL CIA first
39:56started to appear here um but Rank and fou committee is calling for the AFL C to break off all ties with the CIA with
40:03the state department with usid to stop doing all this stuff um and because of
40:10the US defeat in Vietnam you know this led to this period of Dayton where there was more uh Cold War tensions at least
40:18between the US and Soviet Union and China started to to ease a little bit even though the US was still waging
40:24these really grotesque interventions in the global South like in Chile 1973 um and because of this you know
40:32aflci leaders were getting uh frustrated they were still so they were still to the right of the US government they were
40:38like they hated day George Mei hated Daytons he was like why are we negotiating he hated the fact that Nixon
40:44went to uh China and met with MAO while when at the same time when Nixon started
40:50bombing Cambodia George me was like giving him a thumbs up good for you I’m glad you’re doing that um really wild
40:58and um going into so this basically Vietnam was kind of a blow to the Cold War into anti-communism
41:05it started the anti-communist forces in the US started to regroup in the early 80s you know after Reagan was elected
41:13and in particular with running these types of interventions overseas they they looked for a new uh a new
41:20instrument to do it that wouldn’t be um associated with the CIA because by that
41:26point the CIA had a NE reputation and so what was created in the early 80s was the National Endowment for democracy the
41:32Ned which still exists and the aflci played a big role in creating the Ned
41:38and the point of the Ned was to overtly give us funding to anti-communist
41:46organizations overseas to try to do these same kinds of you know interventions that the CIA had been
41:53covertly doing for many years and um so the Ned was kind of like a new source
41:59of funding um for the aflcio to continue these types of activities to undermine
42:06leftists in labor movements in uh all all over the global South and in Europe
42:13um so it became you know the idea is you know the National Endowment for democracy we’re promoting democracy
42:19we’re promoting freedom and it’s a good thing and uh but it was really just the same old same old same old only now
42:26being done out in the open instead of covertly although there was still a lot of covert stuff happening
42:31that wasn’t being like you know openly reported that the Ned was doing um so
42:37yeah and um just to bring us all the way into the present you said the Ned still
42:42exists and some of these Partnerships with the US government abroad still exist could you just talk a little bit
42:48about what form that takes uh you know in the present day yeah there’s um the solidarity
42:56Center so you know uh even in the 80s there was still
43:02continued push back from the rank and file and even from some Union presidents um particularly when it came
43:09to the AFL CIO leadership’s support for Reagan’s counterinsurgency program in
43:14Central America and places like you know Nicaragua and El Salvador uh a lot of
43:20Union people union members Union presidents were saying why are we partnering with Reagan on foreign policy
43:25when he’s our you know our our Archen enemy here at home and there was the creation of the National Labor Committee
43:31in support of democracy and human rights in El Salvador a very long that’s the whole name of the organization or just
43:37National Labor committee for short which was um going against the aflci
43:43leadership and trying to say calling for an end to all Aid to the contras an end to Aid to the uh military in El Salvador
43:51um and actually supporting leftist Union me unionists in Central America um um
43:57and then there was you know with a lot of other developments in the early 90s including NAFTA um and the you know a lot of the
44:06losses that the labor movement had been suffering throughout the 80s and early 90s this led to the new voice movement
44:13in the aflci and new leadership coming in in 1995 John Sweeney president of the SEIU became president of the aflci and
44:21they said we’re going to shut down these anti-communist institutes like afield we’re going to stop this horrible
44:27foreign policy and so in 1997 afield and these similar you know
44:34institutes in Africa and Asia were shut down and Consolidated and and instead in
44:40their place was the solidarity Center was created as the AFL cao’s new international arm and the idea behind
44:47the solidarity Center as it was you know explained by the new aflco leadership
44:53was like we’ve turned a corner we’re not doing this anti-communist stuff anymore we’re just supporting workers abroad in
45:00their you know in their in their struggles for uh you know better wages and better working conditions but the
45:08the solidarity Center is still primarily almost exclusively funded by the US
45:13government by The NED by the state department by usaid um you know I haven’t studied as
45:20much of what the solidarity Center does and it’s not it’s only briefly comes up in the conclusion of the book because it’s kind of outside outside the time
45:26period um I think solidarity Center you know on the one hand it appears to be doing a
45:31lot of you know decent benign you know work in a lot of countries but also
45:37there’s evidence that you know like when Hugo Chavez became president of Venezuela suddenly the solidarity
45:43Center’s budget in Venezuela went way up or when George Bush invaded Iraq in 2003
45:48suddenly the solidarity Center’s Middle East budget went way up um so that
45:53sometimes it seems that the the funding to the to the solidarity Center seems to mirror whatever the US foreign policy
46:00you know is Go is is doing at at that particular time so I think there needs
46:05to be more you know discussion and uh of what the solidarity Center is and what it’s doing and what kind of foreign
46:11policy do we want uh the labor movement to have do we want it to be dependent on
46:18funding from the state department and Ned and usaid or do we want it to be more
46:24independent um you know I have thoughts about that but my point of this book is not to like give you those answers is to
46:30say here’s the history of what happened now you go you go decide or you decide uh I report you decide no you discussion
46:38discuss debate you know have a conversation about this because there is no conversation about it really in the
46:43labor there started to be in the last 11 months because of the genocide in Gaza
46:49um but uh you know there needs to be a lot more um discussion and political
46:55education right um I have one final question to bring bring us back to the beginning um
47:02and then we can open it up for Q&A so you talked about how the AFL cio’s
47:08decision to basically become an anti-communist organization first and a labor organization second was informed
47:15by this idea that class compromise would win for workers at home if you can get a larger pie for America you get a larger
47:23slice for workers um by default that complet breaks down um throughout the
47:2920th century but especially with the Advent of kind of new liberal policies in the 70s and ‘ 80s um and uh to the
47:36point that you know basically uh once the Cold War wraps up and the usefulness
47:42of some of these structures to the US foreign policy establishment uh is it’s no longer these are no longer structures
47:48that are necessary the aflci finds itself kind of left holding the bag and unable to really influence policy in the
47:56Realms that it would want to which is to make workers lives better at home um one
48:01lesson that some might be tempted to take from this is that the aflci and the US Labor movement never should have
48:07intervened in matters over there and that we should have stayed focused on bread and butter issues at home um that
48:14is a lesson that people are you know taking away from what’s been happening in the past 11 months in Gaza um or some
48:20a talking point that we hear over and over again is focus on what’s in front of you don’t intervene um and I don’t
48:26think that’s where your book is going I don’t think that’s the lesson of the book so I just wanted to kind of give you a chance to talk about what the
48:33lesson of your book is in in your opinion um and what you would say to people who say you know that’s what we
48:39learned from this history yeah I mean the lesson is don’t for the labor movement is don’t participate in
48:46imperialism it’s pretty simple uh and you know nonparticipation in
48:54imperialism does not mean you’re just isolated or you’re just focus on you know what
48:59you know the so-called bread and butter issues here at home you could still be internationalist you could still have
49:04worker to worker solidarity around the world and that’s not that’s that’s vital that’s necessary you know and that’s
49:10been recognized since at least you know the 1848 workers of the World Unite
49:17right and the first International um so yes internationalism is is necessary and
49:22vital but it’s what kind of internationalism is it going to be just reflexively echoing and supporting
49:29everything the US government does and the US foreign policy uh priorities or
49:34is it going to be challenging and especially because you know we are the US Labor movement exists in you know the
49:41belly of the Beast and the in the heart of the Empire we have a special responsibility the labor movement here
49:47to challenge um speak out and Challenge and get in the way of US foreign policy to
49:53the extent the US foreign policy is imperialistic and Military istic um and that’s not what the AFL C’s
50:00foreign policy you know traditionally looked like it was always just supporting and
50:05bolstering uh us Empire um but yeah you know the it’s sort of ironic in a way
50:12AFL CIO was getting millions and millions of dollars from the US government over the over all these
50:18decades to wage this cold war Crusade overseas um and partnering very closely
50:26with these high levels of the US government um and all these interventions and so on but what did
50:32what did the labor movement get in return from the US government did the government uh repeal
50:38the Taft heartley act did the government pass any kind of labor law legis uh labor law reform to make it easier to
50:45form unions did the US government uh keep minimum wage going up or or uh did
50:53it rain in and regulate corporations I mean obviously the answer is no instead
50:59the US government just made it easier for industrial corporations to Offshore
51:04to you know send production overseas and the fact that the more militant class conscious labor movements in many other
51:10countries had been decimated in part with the aflci support meant those the
51:16working class of those countries were not able to resist so it made it easier to do this sort of neoliberal
51:23globalization um you know it was really so even if you were just going to you know forget morality and forget ethics
51:30and just look at self-interest this didn’t this foreign policy of the aflcio made no
51:36sense um and uh you know you reap what you sow I guess but that’s unfortunate
51:43because again this was not this foreign policy was not Democratic it was not the rank and file having a say in it
51:49whenever the rank and file learned about what was going on that generally speaking they would protest they would form different committees and caucuses
51:55and you know to some extent made an impact here and there in certain places and times like you know Pro uh
52:01protesting against the Vietnam War protesting against the counter Insurgency Wars in Central America uh
52:07pushing supporting the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa you know there’s some positive examples that come
52:12up throughout the book but unfortunately most of it is you know pretty bleak um and I you know I I I don’t want I I
52:20don’t want people to be depressed that’s not what I’m trying to do but it’s more just like laying out the this is what
52:26happened uh it’s not pretty but we can do we can and must do
52:32better thank you so much um
52:43yeah thank you for covering more ground in 45 minutes than I knew was possible
52:49um um yeah we’re open for questions and comments uh people have to come to the
52:54mic so maybe I’ll call on you you can come to the mic so maybe the comrade over here whichever one of you wants
53:04to uh thank you so much uh this book sounds amazing I’m definitely going to pick it up and read it and um one thing
53:12that I thought of was uh there’s a great podcast called organizing the unorganized about the history of the
53:19CIO and one of the more fascinating things I learned from that podcast was
53:25the lead ership of the CIO for example the United Mine Workers uh were kind of always very
53:35anti-communist um but they recognized that the Communist in the United States
53:40were some of the greatest labor organizers um and they used them for
53:46that purpose and to a certain extent the Communist went along with this in the CIO because they didn’t want to be the
53:53leaders they wanted to be on the ground organ ganing with the rank and file and
53:59I worry that I see the same tendency today among uh the left in the labor
54:05movement and uh last night I had the privilege of seeing roxan Dunbar orties
54:12and she said that one of her greatest concerns about the left today is the
54:18fear of being leaders and stepping up into leadership roles and so I’m curious if you think
54:25that much of the imperialism of the AFL CIO uh that you describe in your book
54:33could have been avoided by some of these communist and socialist and the CIO and
54:38in the labor movement more broadly sort of being more ambitious and stepping up into leadership
54:45roles uh thank you yeah yeah there’s um thanks for the
54:52question it’s an interesting sort of contradictions about the CIO is that yeah the main leader of it uh
54:59especially in the the early years John L Lewis president of the United Mine Workers was you know uh not a Democrat
55:07not Democratic at all in his own Union very top- down very autocratic and had purged the United mind workers of its
55:14own communist faction in the 1920s but he has this famous quote um you know
55:20responding to David dubinsky another union leader in the CIO who was an anti-communist why are you wel
55:26tolerating all these communist organizers in the CIO and John L Lewis’s famous reply was you know who gets the
55:32bird the hunter or the dog um and um yeah I mean it’s the there
55:42were there was this sort of top town dendy in the CIO which is sort of how the steel workers got organized and this
55:48more bottom up leest um current in the CIO which is how like the U UAW was born
55:55and how the auto industry was unionized um and yeah that podcast
56:01organizing the unorganized as well as there’s another one fragile Juggernaut another CIO podcast I think they’re
56:07having a session right after this one um so a lot of fascinating history there um
56:13yeah I mean if if and there were various unions within the CIO including like the
56:18uee United Electrical Workers which it still exists despite you know the attempts of uh many reactionaries to try
56:25to destroy them um CIO the uee was I think the third largest Union in the
56:32CIO um before it was um before it was expelled and raided um so there were
56:38some pretty powerful communist leftist um union leaders within the CIO and they
56:44were trying to sort of prevent the Cold War um by joining the World Federation
56:49of trade unions and maybe yes if they had more influence and more power um a
56:56lot of this could have been avoided but I think the way I see it is that you know it was really the their non-communist allies who eventually
57:03turned on them during the the you know the the Hy right Red Scare hysteria of
57:11the McCarthy era you know um they had a choice they could either as I said
57:16either resist the Red Scare or just go along with it and the non-communists sort of decided to just go along with it
57:23um and you know by the I I should have said this earlier but it’s not hard for us to we don’t have to strain our
57:29imaginations to think what what this to understand what this look like this Red Scare McCarthy hysteria cracking down on
57:37the labor movement because we’re seeing it right now with uh with regard to unions that
57:43have um been outspoken in supporting Palestine Liberation and trying to stop
57:49the genocide in Gaza various Union locals have been facing lawsuits
57:56um supported by anti-union groups like The National Right to Work Foundation
58:01and the so-called Liberty Justice Center and these groups that were behind the Janice case um like the association of
58:07legal aid attorneys UAW Local 2325 and um the professional staff
58:14Congress AI MIT graduate students un graduate students union which is part of
58:19uee they’re all facing lawsuits that have been filed on behalf of members or
58:26former members of these unions Zionist members and former members who say that their Pro Palestine activities are
58:32anti-semitic and endangering them and they’re getting and these but these lawsuits are being funded by the
58:38traditional anti-un right-wing groups and we see like Virginia Fox the chair
58:44of the house committee on education and the workforce sort of like a modern day Joe McCarthy doing this Witch Hunt
58:51saying any support for Palestine is ant is anti-Semitic and basic it’s all
58:56transparent what they’re doing right they’re just using the fact that unions are taking a a a stance against genocide
59:03and they’re using that they’re using this foreign policy issue as a excuse to
59:08try to crack down on organized labor and this is basically what was happening in the late 40s using the instead of
59:15Palestine the issue was the Cold War and unions that were saying we don’t support the Cold War were being called
59:20treasonist traitors and they needed to be cracked down on so imagine if today
59:26if like you know a lot of aft locals have passed resolutions in support of Palestine imagine if Randy wein Garten
59:31president of aft just start decided to expel all those those aft locals you
59:37know and then create alternative um uh you know alternative teacher locals and
59:43and go out and raid the members of you know of the other ones that not not don’t tempt her yeah um not just
59:52suggesting I’m just saying you know you know if you want to understand what this was like only it wasn’t locals
59:57were talking about it was like whole Union National unions that were being expelled by the CIO that you know just throwing them under the bus basically
1:00:04rather than try to fight back against this right-wing attack that was a very long answer sorry
1:00:11no necessary um maybe the comrade and the black mask over there yeah I’m sorry
1:00:18that’s the red shirt and black mask that’s also not specific enough actually a lot of red shirts here too
1:00:28it’s all good one of the last panels somebody said somebody with a mask can you please
1:00:35come up so um good morning uh thank you Jeff and apara for this conversation and
1:00:41talk very interesting um my name is John I’m a part of the Revolutionary socialist group uh speak out socialist
1:00:49and um just sort of like listening in um and and thinking about you unions you
1:00:56know unions are incredibly defensive you know they they are used to protect the interest of workers to fight for better
1:01:02contracts for better working conditions for better contracts and against concessions and just seeing like what
1:01:09the AFL and the CIO turned into you know the fact that the state was able to
1:01:15co-opt these movements either through coercion legislation violence or money
1:01:21uh and just seeing today that um within the union and labor move movement there’s huge pushes to make um you know
1:01:30Rank and file militant Democratic and bottom up
1:01:35unions and I guess just my thought is um you know these are all really important
1:01:41pushes but like is this enough I guess my fear or my thoughts is like will this
1:01:47devolve again with the US State trying to co-opt these unions again and like
1:01:53what would we we need to build in order to like not uh you know push back against us imperialism the capitalist
1:01:59class and uh this class collaboration and these attacks on the working class thank you and also it’s just not for you
1:02:06guys but also the whole audience because I’m sure people have thoughts on this as well thank you awesome um Jeff unless
1:02:13you want to answer that million dooll question we can just keep uh taking comments okay since I see a lot of hands
1:02:20um maybe the blue shirt over here
1:02:28um hey I’m Paul I’m a rank and file member of UFCW 663 and Minneapolis
1:02:34Minnesota and a professional meat cutter um uh I first of all Jeff like um yeah I
1:02:42just I appreciate uh you’re writing a lot I think you’ve done a really good job um I say this with no negative
1:02:49connotations popularizing labor history um making it accessible in in Jackman in these times it’s it’s appreciated it’s
1:02:55great great stuff that I can actually potentially share with my co-workers so you know surprise um and um yeah I I have a
1:03:04couple question I think first of all like you know there’s a really
1:03:09interesting article that came out on labor notes last year on um organizing in Baja California among Farm Workers
1:03:15who work at drisol in a sort of pseudo free trade um fair trade um farm and one
1:03:23of the things that came up was the Protections enshrined in the usmca that have been used to build to help um build
1:03:31independent unions that fight against the aul ctm in Mexico um somehow exempt
1:03:36many parts of the economy namely Agriculture and um a few other kind of
1:03:43food manufacturing and Light Industry and so I guess one question is kind of like you know as the economy is grown in
1:03:50organizations like the UW but also I think the alcio have recognized the importance of having raising up wage
1:03:57standards in places like Mexico um there seem to be Industries where this has
1:04:03never been and you know they are not worried about raising so I get you know
1:04:08um and how how that works the other the other thing I kind of been you know I
1:04:14I’m sure you’ll probably talk about in your book when which I will buy is you know a lot of the or like a lot of the organizing the’80s against um uh with
1:04:23solid a for Latin America part of it was driven by immigrants from these countries coming in and be like my union
1:04:28sucks and the you know as the CIA was funding it um in my union these days we
1:04:33have it’s you know in me packing it’s a whole different world we have a lot of frankophone West Africa um southeast
1:04:41Asia um you know countries with different histories and and as kind of
1:04:47immigration in the US gets more diverse from you know from different areas how
1:04:52is that going to how is that going to impact how um with people who have been
1:04:57affected by different kinds of imperialism too how is that going to impact um politics of Labor solidarity
1:05:03within the unions do you want to take that last
1:05:10part I mean just briefly I think you know uh and I’m not you know really the
1:05:15expert so much on um you know the immigration and and the impacts on labor
1:05:21but just you know uh sort of at least superficially I think it’s a really
1:05:26uh positive um you know the influence of immigrants from all over the world
1:05:32including countries that have traditionally been on the receiving end of us imperialism and militarism is a
1:05:37promising sign for the labor movement being in more genuine solidarity and
1:05:42Anti-Imperialist anti-war movements um going forward I think we’re seeing that
1:05:47even now with the Gaza solidarity Palestine solidarity in the labor movement a lot of it coming from um
1:05:56maybe not immigrants themselves but children of immigrants you know in second generation uh people from
1:06:02countries all over the Middle East from Palestine from other places in the Middle East Africa Latin America Asia I’ve heard you know um Latino workers uh
1:06:13union members sort of say the part of what what’s uh motivating their um
1:06:19activism within their own unions around Gaza is you know the fact that they they’ve come from countries that have
1:06:26that have uh been uh exploited and and faced violence and Military intervention
1:06:32from from the US um so they you know completely understand from a more
1:06:37personal point of view so um I think it’s a yeah promising promising
1:06:45development um maybe someone in the front maybe Glenn
1:06:56hello I’m Glenn uh part of the uh afg local 3448 and a DSA and Sr member um I
1:07:03want to thank you again Echo what everybody said about your presentation uh one thing that I’m
1:07:09concerned about or that I would really appreciate your Insight on is uh with the you know with the Red Scare
1:07:17that purged the Communist from labor organizing and as you said perhaps a coming you know watermelon scare or
1:07:24whatever you’d call it um the answer is you know obviously not to stop supporting or pushing for these
1:07:30things but what can unions do or what can we do to defend ourselves against this from you know if there’s any
1:07:37examples you’ve come across and to put a finer point on the question do you think and I think this
1:07:43Echoes a previous question do you think there’s at issue the current structure of American unionism with the aflci and
1:07:50sort of the top down hierarchical nature of it uh is that is any of that involved
1:07:56in you know like co-optation and being able to be infiltrated thank you I just want to add on to that
1:08:03question and I think Jeff you should then answer it which is there are ways in which it’s obviously extremely
1:08:08encouraging that the labor movement today is taking positions on at least a ceasefire in Gaza um that it wouldn’t
1:08:16historically have taken and yet I asked Jeff this yesterday there’s a way in which that’s presented and understood as
1:08:22being unprecedented we are kind of on the frontier of some like of Labor’s radicalism um and this book obviously
1:08:28shows that that is not the case that the frontier was somewhere very different um so I think just to add on to that
1:08:34question how would you understand the present moment in in the history that your book uh lays out in terms of what
1:08:42more could labor be doing and how do the kind of structures that labor operates within constrain it from doing
1:08:49that um yeah I mean I think it’s what the calls for a ceasefire and especially
1:08:55the calls for an arms embargo on Israel uh obviously really significant and important um um considering all the
1:09:02history that have just been talking about and uh unprecedented at least when it comes to Israel because US Labor
1:09:10support for Israel has traditionally been like on a whole other level um and I’ll I’ll just sort of say now hinting
1:09:16that that’s that’s what my next book is about actually um but it’s not totally
1:09:22unprecedented in when it comes to other countries like I was talking about just a few minutes ago in the 880s the National Labor Committee in support of
1:09:28democracy and human rights in El Salvador um which was um uh you know a group of
1:09:36Union presidents and there was a lot of rank and file various Rank and file committees different cities that were
1:09:41you know sort of aligned with this National Labor committee they were actively lobbying Congress to cut off
1:09:47military funding to El Salvador to the contras they were um holding huge mass
1:09:54mobilizations like this big March and April of 1987 where roughly 100,000
1:10:00people showed up to the National Mall and of those roughly half were union members being bust in calling for an end
1:10:07to military aid to to these right-wing Central American regimes and um bringing in uh trade
1:10:15unionists from Central America having them tour the us talk to workers in their union halls about the repression
1:10:20they were facing at home with US taxpayer money and sending delegations of us unionists to Central
1:10:27America um writing reports a lot of political education for Rank and file union members about what was
1:10:33happening um so there was a lot of you know this kind of opposition to us
1:10:39militarism that was happening you know in the 80s and and there’s other examples obviously I mentioned the anti-apartheid movement um the
1:10:47ILWU famously um you know uh boycotting
1:10:52uh a ship carrying South African cargo um actually happened a few times but particularly in November
1:10:581984 um and uh a lot of divestment activities unions divesting their
1:11:03pension money from apartheid South Africa um so it’s not what’s happening
1:11:09now is not totally unprecedented I wouldn’t go that far although it is special because of because it’s Israel
1:11:15and the US Labor move has always been so Pro Zionist um I kind of forget what the rest of the question was but oh that
1:11:22there was also a question I think that Glenn asked about um examples of like defending against this kind of Red Scare
1:11:29or watermelon scare if you will um and I think you know it it’s I’m not saying it’s easy because it is a big challenge
1:11:35to push back against this kind of repression um but there was a promising example that we just saw uh last fall
1:11:43which was Starbucks Workers United which was really kind of the First Union or group of union members that were
1:11:50actively and unapologetically speaking out in solidarity with Palestine and they were
1:11:55immediately um from the house from Republicans and the house committee on education and the workforce from other
1:12:02right-wing groups anti-union groups and from Starbucks management itself they were being um blasted as being
1:12:09anti-semitic as being you know Pro terrorism and it was this coordinated
1:12:14smear and Starbucks company sued Starbucks Workers United you know for using their the name
1:12:21Starbucks and Starbucks Workers United you know was part of Workers United part
1:12:26of seu um they didn’t just curl up into a ball and back down they said no screw
1:12:34you we support Palestine and uh even Workers United seu you know supported
1:12:40them and they said this is just a cynic they’re using this you know uh crisis and the violence happening in in Gaza to
1:12:49um to engage in union busting and they counter sued against Starbucks and then this launched you
1:12:56know this Global boycott against Starbucks and a few months ago Starbucks agreed to be really begin finally
1:13:03sincerely negotiating a first you know a pattern for a first contract at the unionized stores so this is a positive
1:13:10example of you know they didn’t back down they didn’t they did the opposite of what CIO leaders did during the Red
1:13:16Scare they actually doubled down on their on their correct stance on foreign policy and you know it seemed to work
1:13:23out well for them uh again I’m not trying to suggest this is all easy and it’s you know but you know there’s
1:13:29something to be said for standing by your principles um so I’ll
1:13:35yeah um maybe blue shirt here
1:13:42yes all righty thank you so much for your uh session this has been really informative um I am a uh student of
1:13:49History I have a master’s degree uh from the University of Chicago and I know that when you are reviewing primary
1:13:55source documents you run into some crazy things and I am curious if you have a
1:14:01particular fact or statement or anecdote that stands out to you um in the course
1:14:08of researching this book maybe something that made it into the book or maybe something that did not thank you so much
1:14:13great question um yeah I mean pretty much all of it no
1:14:19but um no the the couple things I mean one thing did get into the book and it’s
1:14:25kind of I don’t know if I have it uh handy here well it’ll take me too long to find it um after the the coup in
1:14:32Brazil in 1964 the one of the top leaders of afield American Institute for free labor
1:14:39development was like openly bragging about it he said you know he was referring to it not as a coup but a revolution and he was on a radio program
1:14:46and he was saying um the revolution in Brazil didn’t just happen it was planned well in advance by our our our own
1:14:53trainees and they were involved involed in the clandestine activities and he’s just going out and saying it out loud
1:15:00and um actually Victor Ruther Walter ruther’s younger brother who was the head of international Affairs for the
1:15:05UAW Victor Ruther is sort of one of the more um one of the good guys in the book
1:15:10more or less um he was like privately saying like I can’t believe they’re
1:15:16talking about this outl even if this is true they should at least know their know enough to keep their mouth shut L literally what he said that’s one thing
1:15:23another thing um in 1949 19 or 1950 right after the the
1:15:31Chinese Revolution um and the nationalist forces Chang Kai Sheek forces you know moved to moved to Taiwan
1:15:38the CIA gave the afl’s Free Trade union committee something like
1:15:43$158,000 which in today’s money would be like $1.8 million to carry out um a
1:15:49project to train anti-communist Chinese workers in Taiwan train them in the ways
1:15:56of sabotage and Espionage give them guns and explosives and then send them into mainland China to wreak havoc and I did
1:16:03find a document that’s labeled secret and uh um and it explains like this is what
1:16:10here’s what how we’re going to train these Chinese workers and it was you know mentioning we’ll talk about you
1:16:16know Trade union freedom and collective bargaining and Union Administration and and Espionage and sabotage and
1:16:23subversive activity and you know labor law you know it’s just sort of like imp planted in there
1:16:30um and apparently they did cause some Havoc they were like blowing up uh fuel tanks in Shanghai and like civilians
1:16:37were getting killed and then and then the CIA once once the Korean War started the CIA kind of abandoned that whole
1:16:44project and these agents that the AFL had trained were like left behind and
1:16:49they were slowly like captured by the Chinese authorities and executed and um people the people who the AFL people
1:16:56running the Free Trade union committee were like these damn CIA people you know and there’s all this tension
1:17:01between uh you know it’s kind of funny how the a lot of these AFL guys were you
1:17:07know they they came up from the working class they were came from immigrant backgrounds Jewish Catholics while the
1:17:13CIA guys were all these ivy league educated white englo sax and Protestants they didn’t always get they didn’t get
1:17:19along a lot of the time and they’re sort of even though they were on the same side they have all these uh kind of
1:17:25ridiculous little squabbles um so yeah that’s some of the stuff I came across and some of it did end up in the book so
1:17:33yeah um let’s see which side of the maybe uh back middle
1:17:49greenish uh hi my name is Brinn I’m um DSA member and undergraduate student in
1:17:55Denver um I understand your book kind of starts like in the 40s and such um at least from what I’ve gathered from this
1:18:01panel but um you know what was going on with the labor movement’s sort of international relations prior to that
1:18:07right um were they taking positions on the Spanish Civil War and support were
1:18:12their efforts like support the Republican cause or were um you know their sort of uh uh efforts at you know
1:18:19International organizing kind to trying to exploit the crisis of the depression or or you know really other sort of um
1:18:27you know sort of interesting anecdotes or even Trends prior to that actually maybe I will take two more
1:18:34questions and then Jeff you can if they are for you you can answer all of them together
1:18:39um yellow mask here that that’s new yes yes you the only one in the
1:18:48room yeah that’s why I brought the yellow mask to stand up hi my name is Sam uh on Affiliated socialist hopefully
1:18:56that will change uh soon um yeah so I am a total uh newborn uh in this field
1:19:06so um I I thought it was a wonderful talk just you know folks are brought up Gaza and Palestine and labor actions
1:19:13around that and the reaction to uh you know Labor uh solidarity with palisin
1:19:19but I’m just curious if in your research for this book or otherwise
1:19:25um there’s any tidbits you might share about
1:19:30uh uh Palestine solidarity organizing among or or or action among organized
1:19:37labor in the period that your book covers in the in the 20th century I’d just be so interested to hear hear about
1:19:44that and and the farther back you can go the better you know the 40s or 50s or or 60s we’d love to hear anything
1:19:51thanks right maybe we’ll take one more um maybe you here
1:20:01yeah yeah thank you very much I really appreciate your speech and uh I took a
1:20:07uh course back when I was uh in last semester in University about the uh 20
1:20:1420th century US Labor history and socialism movement so it would we we had
1:20:21a lecture about uh postwar concession and achievements of course uh so my
1:20:28question is more or less related about my personal uh I’m from China and my
1:20:34great-grandfather was a union member in 50s and uh so I was like to I what I
1:20:40would like you to explain more about the U uh AFL cio’s movement in Soviet Union
1:20:47and in China in the Cold War um period like how they Tred to infiltrate and try
1:20:54to um create some alternative unions which is very unlikely because of the
1:21:01authoritarian um nature of these countries and I remember um in that
1:21:07lecture I took just a either from Georg mini or from water rers I don’t remember
1:21:13probably both that the they think that the unions in sovet unions are probably
1:21:20are most likely extension of the government body but um it’s very funny
1:21:26how they actually collaborate with US Government very much to say that
1:21:32word thank you some very historical questions for you je
1:21:40um so to to brin’s question about Labor internationalism before the 1940s I mean
1:21:46I’m sure yeah the Communists communist within the CIO Communists in general were obviously very much supporting the
1:21:52Republican cause uh in in Spain the Spanish Civil War and um you know
1:21:57sending uh volunteers to go fight for the Republicans and fundraise and so on
1:22:03um and some of the Communist Le unions were supporting that kind of activity and talking about it but um you know the
1:22:10for especially with the AFL um and to some extent the CIO as well was
1:22:16largely um isolationist for a long time
1:22:22um the CIO we mentioned John L Lewis earlier the president of the United Mine
1:22:27Workers who was also the president of the CIO um he actually was present at the uh the
1:22:34founding of this Central American the the sorry the confederation of Latin American workers the
1:22:41CT in 1938 which was sort of a leftist um organization of Latin American Trade
1:22:49unions that were openly opposed to us imperialism and the AFL was like very
1:22:54UPS about the creation of this uh this group but uh the CIO supported it and
1:23:00John L Lewis attended uh the founding convention in Mexico City in I think it was
1:23:051938 but um the you know interestingly and I do talk a little bit about this pre-1940s period in the introduction of
1:23:12the book The afl’s partnership with the state uh really began with a lot a lot
1:23:18of ways with World War I with the support uh Samuel gumper as president of
1:23:24the AFL trying to make sure that uh unions and workers would not do anything
1:23:30to hamper the war effort to know not go on strike and and try to get Workers to
1:23:36support us entry into World War I because us entry into World War one was very unpopular a lot of workers didn’t
1:23:43want anything to do with the war either because they were socialists and they saw it in as imperialist war or because they were immigrants from countries like
1:23:49Ireland uh that that hated the British and didn’t want to be siding with the British
1:23:54um so the AFL kind of helped push get the labor movement on board with the war
1:24:00um and then after the war George I mean it’s not George M Samuel gers went to a
1:24:06went to Europe and was participating in the creation of the ILO International labor organization and a lot of activity
1:24:13like that um to Sam’s question uh about
1:24:19Palestine solidarity organizing from the labor movement in the 20th century you
1:24:24know I’ve written I wrote an article for Jacobin a few months ago uh that kind of touches on that for the most part again
1:24:31the US Labor was very supportive of Zionism um actively sending a lot of
1:24:37funding to the histadrut which is the Zionist labor Federation um in that hugely important
1:24:44to the settlement settler colonialism in Palestine in the mandatory the period of
1:24:49the British mandate um but there was interestingly in 19
1:24:5549 just as the nakba was you know at least that first that phase of the nakba
1:25:01was ending and 750,000 Palestinians had been been made refugees the international ladies
1:25:09garment Workers Union was donating like millions of dollars to the new state of
1:25:14Israel and a group of rank and file ilw members in New York wrote a letter to
1:25:20the union president that I found in the archives where they said look we see your giving a lot of money to Israel and
1:25:26you’re giving money to other International causes could you see it put you know find a place in your heart
1:25:31to care about the Palestinian refugees and donate some money for them as well
1:25:38and the president of the ilg David dubinsky responded by um giving
1:25:44$1,000 to uh to the American friend service committee which was uh you know
1:25:49supporting Palestinian refugees in Gaza but that letter is like very moving cuz and this fact because you see the
1:25:55handwritten signatures and there they said it’s they identified themselves as workers of uh Arabic descended speaking
1:26:03people or something basically arab-americans but the term arab-american didn’t really exist at that point but the signatures also
1:26:10include clearly like Italian names and names of other ethnicities and they they
1:26:16added a postcript to the letter they said once they said this was originally only intended for people of our race to
1:26:22sign on to but once our fellow workers of other nationalities found out what we were doing they wanted to sign on too
1:26:29and that was 1949 they were already ranking file workers sympath sympathizing with Palestinians once they
1:26:35learned about what was happening and then more famously in 1973
1:26:42um Rank and file Arab American Auto Workers in Detroit staged a wildcat
1:26:48strike to protest the uaw’s support for Israel purchase of Israeli bonds I’ve written articles about that as as well
1:26:55so there there are some great examples of that really fascinating and and obviously important to to know about
1:27:01right now um and yeah it is really ironic how
1:27:06aflci their their criticism of trade unions in the Soviet Union and and China
1:27:12was well they’re just creatures of the state they’re they’re you know dominated by the government etc etc while the
1:27:18aflcio was working hand inand with the US government and taking millions and millions of dollars from the US
1:27:23government um um and I mentioned you know that there was this attempt this fun CIA
1:27:30funded project to send a sabur into into mainland China in in the around 1950 it
1:27:37was called the free China labor League um um yeah so anyway I already I guess I
1:27:44already covered that um so we can probably move on to the next great um we have about 6 minutes
1:27:52left I want people who have comments not questions to raise their hand
1:27:57now um
1:28:04here hi I’m Selena um from the M communist Union um thanks so much for um
1:28:10all the Insight that you’ve offered and I’ll definitely check out your book there we go um so I was wondering
1:28:20um uh you you talk a lot about the external contradictions um at the time
1:28:27um in which the um the CIO um the Communists within the CIO um were uh
1:28:34unable to really struggle against um the the uh uh their you know betrayed allies
1:28:42um the Allies that betrayed them within the CIO and I’m wondering um that’s you
1:28:47know that’s is really important that’s is one side of it right but there’s also the internal
1:28:52contradictions um and the lead up to to this which you did speak a little bit about um but more specifically the
1:28:58leadup to this within the Communist party and the communist movement um and the internal contradictions going on you
1:29:04know at this time by 1945 the Communist party was pretty thoroughly had gone
1:29:10down the revisionist path um and so um speaking to a couple of the comrades who
1:29:17um rais questions about um what else do we need to do um be Beyond like the and
1:29:24file strategy and and some of these these other um uh uh uh things uh we we
1:29:31have to we have to see that the strength of the the Trade union movement in the US was you know in parallel with the
1:29:38communist movement uh the strength of the communist movement and um we can’t
1:29:43see those as two separate things that um the this as Lenin talks about um in what
1:29:50is to be done um the spontaneity of the working class um um you know is is always going to be there they’re going
1:29:56to spontaneously make unions and and um uh make demands political and economic
1:30:02demands um but really the the class Consciousness um comes from without um
1:30:07not from within and so um this is really where we in the us if we really want to
1:30:14see a strengthening of of the Trade union movement um which which I do um we
1:30:21we need to to see ourselves as marxists socialist uh our role in that is actually to um develop ourselves as as
1:30:29Communists and as marxists um so that we can bring Marxism to the working class
1:30:35um and really fuse Marxism with the working class and that’s where you actually build up the communist movement
1:30:43those things are interl um and and very much related um and so I just wanted to
1:30:48to offer that as a comment and if if anyone would like to talk to me about that after I I’d love to have a
1:30:54discussion awesome thank you um standing up
1:31:05person oh hey Michael hi hey AA uh my UW labor for Palestine sibling
1:31:13AA and so glad to see you and Jeff thank you for everything that you’re doing um
1:31:18my name is Michael Lewin I’m former president of UAW 2325 which Jeff uh generously called called out today for
1:31:25our resistance to the uh Zionist machine including the house subcommittee um and I guess I just want
1:31:33to make a couple of points one is I think it’s important to recognize that there was workingclass resistance during
1:31:39the Vietnam war to the war I don’t think it really significantly came from the unions some unions did come out against
1:31:45the war the UAW did the even the teamsters did uh and so so did some leftwing unions as you mentioned but the
1:31:53where where ended where where didn’t go beyond was words from the unions they
1:31:59never called job actions of any kind to stop the war which of course is their major power right I mean that’s what
1:32:05makes unions different or labor different is the power we have at the workplace and that was never done and so
1:32:11but by the same token the working class resistance that did exist took the form of rank and file Revolt which kind of
1:32:17melded into a broader ranking file Revolt that was going on at that time especially in the auto plants and
1:32:22elsewhere the the even the the 1970 postal strike which was a huge thing Wildcat strike um and also especially
1:32:30from the black Le Auto Workers that you mentioned League of revolutionary black workers drum and above all the GI Mutiny
1:32:38in in Vietnam and around the military which absolutely crippled the American Military machine and is discussed
1:32:45actually in Joe Allen’s book Joe I wish you should all read about the Vietnam
1:32:51and and the anti- movement um so I guess I also want to say that in regard to labor Zionism I think it’s
1:32:58also interesting to note that it’s similarly anti-democratic it members
1:33:03don’t know just they didn’t know about AFL CIA they don’t know about that uh similarly imperialist similarly racist
1:33:10and very much aligned with the domestic racism of of US Labor leaders and
1:33:15attitude towards black workers and Latino workers especially from the Garment worker unions that were so
1:33:21virulently Pro Zionist and at the same time were uh doing their best to retain control of those unions against the post
1:33:28war influx of black and Latino workers but I think it’s also important to note
1:33:33that it’s anti-communist in the sense that going all the way back to to the World War I period that you mentioned
1:33:39and then right after that when the U when US Labor bought into uh labor Zionism in large part it’s interesting
1:33:46to note that the Baler declaration which you know gave British government support for Zionism in 19177 was Within days of
1:33:54the bulvik Revolution and was designed in part to undermine workingclass and
1:34:02communist movements by promoting Zionism as a way of undermining those movements
1:34:09and but at the same time I think it’s also necessary to note and and to acknowledge that this didn’t just come
1:34:16later you know labor support or Union support for Zionism labor Zionism did
1:34:23not just come from the right it also came from the left so for example you know the Israeli
1:34:28State the kna was carried out in large part by weapons supplied by Stalin and
1:34:34the Soviet Union which is the first regime to recognize the Israeli state which opposed resolution 194
1:34:42guaranteeing the right of return and supported partition and that then helped to
1:34:49influence a whole generation of leftists and Communists in particular including some of my own family I’m I’m sorry to
1:34:55say who saw uh you know Israel as a and
1:35:00and Zionism even they wouldn’t call it that they would say they were anti-zionist but but what they meant by that was that they were against zionists
1:35:07who were not supportive of the Soviet Union they didn’t mean that they were against Israel in fact they talked very
1:35:13prominently about Israel and in fact in his book William Z Foster who was at one time the leader of the Communist Party
1:35:19in the 1950s wrote a history of the CP USA in which he says you know Communists are
1:35:25the most supportive people of Israel the Soviet Union went as far as
1:35:31to deny the kna basically saying Thea seem an Infamous Massacre never happened
1:35:37and the reason I’m pointing that out is I think that a we have to take responsibility for that and B understand
1:35:42how that impacted even the left in its support for Israel in large part which
1:35:48only began to change Under the Influence I think of of the Black Liberation movement in like in the late ‘ 60s for
1:35:53example me as a young pre-teen and even young teen activist in 1969 learned
1:36:00about Palestine from the Black Panther newspaper and I think that was true for a whole generation of us who uh began to
1:36:07see it as a colonialist project under the influence of the Black Liberation movement so those are just some thoughts
1:36:14to share thank you thank you um we are unfortunately past time
1:36:20everyone is welcome to hang out and talk afterwards thank you so much for coming thank you Jeff for writing this amazing
1:36:25book
1:37:03hell how’s it going
