The Nation vom 19. Mai 2003:

"Labor's Cold War" von Tim Shorrock

Rezension von Kim Scipes

Chicago, May 1, 2003

Anmerkung der Redaktion: Es geht um einen Artikel von Tim Shorrock (LaborNet)

One of the most despicable aspects of US labor history has been the foreign operations carried out by the AFL and later the AFL-CIO, that has helped cause democratically elected governments to be overthrown by military coups, killed militant trade unionists and undermined militant unions, and undermined democracy and transparency within our own labor movement. Tim Shorrock's new piece, published today in The Nation and which follows below, is the latest account of that history, focusing on AFL-CIO activities in Chile, South Korea and Okinawa. While he adds to what is known about Chile, his material on South Korea and especially Okinawa will probably be new to almost everyone.

[There has been little published on the AFL-CIO's operation in Asia between 1967-1996 which was called AAFLI, or Asian-American Free Labor Institute. One other account, which is the best description of what AFL-CIO support has meant for trade unionists, is an account in my book, KMU: Building Genuine Trade Unionism in the Philippines (Quezon City, Metro Manila: New Day Publishers, 1996--available in North America via some universities/colleges and inter-library loans), where I detail how the largest affiliate of the AFL-CIO supported Trade Union Congress of the Philippines worked with death squads to try to counter a local union affiliated to the militant KMU Labor Center in the Atlas Mines in Cebu in 1987-89.]

Shorrock points out that labor's international policies and efforts since the election of John Sweeney in 1995 have been a big improvement--and I agree with this point. The AFL-CIO is supporting some militant unions and their struggles in ways that they would have never done in the past--this support, however, only goes to a certain point (it would never challenge US domination of a country, say like Indonesia)--but there's also been evidence developed that suggests even this positive support is not all that "clean," that AFL-CIO efforts play an ambiguous role in union developments. But there have been major questions raised--some by myself--about AFL-CIO operations in Venezuela over the past few years that have again caused activists to question what is going on.

One point that has NOT been sufficiently emphasized is the role of the AFL-CIO in the development of the National Endowment for Democracy (sic). The NED is a private, non-governmental agency that is financially supported by the US Government that basically carried out US Government foreign policy (read "imperialism") without the stigma of being a US Government agency (ala CIA, Dept of State, etc.) To give one quick example of NED's devotion to democracy: one of its founding members was Henry Kissinger! The AFL-CIO's American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS) is one of the four core members of the NED, along with the international organizations of both the Democratic and Republican parties and the Chamber of Commerce. (Much more on NED can be found in William Robinson's excellent 1996 book, PROMOTING POLYARCHY about the evolution of US foreign policy.) For quick information, go to the NED web site, and particularly http://www.ned.org/about/about.html.

Two weeks ago, at the annual conference of the United Association for Labor Education and the AFL-CIO in Bal Harbor, Florida, Tim Beatty of the International Affairs Department came up to me and tried to convince me that ACILS was "doing God's work" (his words) internationally. When I asked him about the NED connection, he said something, about it's US taxpayers' money and we want our share (or something along those lines--this is not a direct quote).

However, the AFL-CIO has still yet to "come clean" on its foreign operations, either in the past or today, and this has never been democratically discussed, much less ratified by union members. These foreign operations remain overwhelmingly funded, not by members' dues after a detailed and open discussion, but by US Government funds. How can the AFL-CIO take money from the Bush Administration for work overseas, when the same Bush Administration is doing everything it can to disembowel the union movement here in the US??? Hello! And does anybody over the age of, say ten, believe that this money does not come with a quid pro quo?

I encourage everyone to read this article from the current issue of The Nation, and spread it widely. I have been told that while this article has yet to be published on The Nation's web site, it will be shortly.

Incidentally, for the record, the resolutions that Shorrock talks about from the West Coast resulted, at least in part, from an article I published in 2000 titled "It's Time to Come Clean: Open the AFL-CIO Archives on International Labor Operations." Labor Studies Journal, Vol. 25, No. 2, Summer 2000: 4-25. [Posted on-line in English by LabourNet Germany at http://www.labournet.de/diskussion/gewerkschaft/scipes2.html]. (A response to my article was also published in LSJ by Judy Ancel, and her response is also on line at the LabourNet Germany web site: change "scipes2" to "ancel1".) This article also includes a fairly complete bibliography of material on AFL and AFL-CIO foreign policy and operations.) See also "scipes1" for a discussion of "Building International Labor Solidarity One Central Labor Council at a Time," which focuses on getting the first of these West Coast union resolutions passed.

I publicly applaud Tim Shorrock for doing this research and getting this article published--it will help continue the struggle against the reactionary aspects of AFL-CIO foreign operations.

In solidarity,

Kim Scipes
Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology,
University of Illinois at Chicago