I'm not familiar with the history of unions but it is really shocking to learn that powerful American unions had such insidious roles in US foreign policy. Any ILR alums out there care to elaborate?
In his much-discussed essay calling for Democrats to embrace a more hawkish foreign policy last year, Peter Beinart noted that in 1944, the conservative AFL set up the Free Trade Union Committee, which, in Beinart's retelling, "worked to build an anti-totalitarian labor movement around the world," undermining Communist efforts in Italy, France, and Greece. Right. That's certainly the rosy version of the story.
Less well-known is that the AFL also worked with the CIA to overthrow the elected Arbenz government in Guatemala in 1954, helped set up drug smuggling routes in Europe, and in 1962, established the American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD) which helped lay the groundwork for U.S.-backed military coups in Brazil in 1964, the Dominican Republic in 1965, and Chile in 1975, among others. Under the aegis of "business unionism," the AFL-CIO supported military dictatorships around the world against leftist and progressive unions. Among other things, it supported the Reagan administration's refusal to conduct a review of labor rights under the military regime in El Salvador for most of the 1980s, because, as Human Rights Watch noted, those being repressed were mostly left-wing unionists.
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Interesting article. No wonder some of the more progressive unions (SEIU, Carpenters) have talked about or decided to leave the AFL-CIO. Most of the leftist purging occurred after 1947, when Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act which required union leaders to sign anti-communist pledges. I am just disappointed that the AFL-CIO has not changed enough to rid itself of stupid policies. Such behavior along with other problems have led to unions just pulling out from it.
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