Lost amidst the publicity about the breakup of the AFL-CIO at its convention last month were two events that, in their own ways, could point to a radically new foreign policy for American unions and workers.
The first was the convention’s passage of a resolution placing organized labor squarely behind a rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq—the first time that the AFL-CIO has ever taken a public stance against an ongoing U.S. war. The significance of the resolution was slightly muted by the fact that the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Teamsters, and other members of the Change to Win Coalition that had just left the federation did not vote. But it sent the unmistakable message that labor is single-minded in its opposition to an illegal war that has now cost 1,800 American and countless Iraqi lives.
The resolution itself was a triumph of grassroots organizing, primarily by U.S. Labor Against the War, a coalition of unions and labor councils that has brought the concerns of Iraqi workers to scores of union halls across the country. The bridge between what has historically been a foreign policy chasm between conservative and radical unions was made possible by a slight change in wording concerning the speed of U.S. withdrawal, from “as soon as possible” to “rapidly.” This might seem like a small, semantic victory, pointed out CounterPunch labor correspondent Joann Wypijewski, “Until you consider the historic magnitude. From the floor, no one spoke against the resolution: not the building trades; not Tom Buffenbarger of the Machinists, who after 9/11 called for “vengeance,” not justice; not the American Federation of Teachers, which has typically held high the flame of intervention.”1 Moreover, noted Wypijewski, not a single resolution was introduced seeking support for the war.
The second event unfolded on the conference floor in the waning hours of
the convention, and went virtually unmentioned in the mainstream and left-wing
press. This was an unsuccessful resolution, advanced by the California Federation
of Labor with the support of a dozen other labor councils, calling on the AFL-CIO
to make a thorough examination and public explanation of its foreign policy
activities, from the Cold War to the present, and to “exercise extreme
caution” about seeking or receiving money from instruments of U.S. foreign
policy, particularly the National Endowment for Democracy and the U.S. Agency
for International Development (USAID). Together, these two agencies account
for more than 90 percent of the funds provided to the American Center for International
Labor Solidarity (ACILS—aka the Solidarity Center), the AFL-CIO’s
foreign policy arm and the successor to four institutes that became notorious
during the Cold War for working with USAID, the Labor Department, and the Central
Intelligence Agency to manipulate and control union movements in Latin America,
Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe.
Unity and Trust Resolution
The debate behind the Unity and Trust resolution has been raging in earnest
for several years. In 2002, several West Coast labor councils, citing the example
of the AFL-CIO’s involvement in Chile prior to the 1973 coup, demanded
an explanation from the Sweeney administration and his International Affairs
Department (IAD) about labor’s past misdeeds, and sought to open a dialogue
on the future direction of labor’s foreign affairs.2 The
ramification of the debate became clear last June, when Sweeney—responding
to a financial crisis partly brought on by the imminent departure of the Change
to Win coalition of unions—announced it was eliminating the IAD altogether
and transferring its director, Barbara Shailor, to run the Solidarity Center.
In effect, this meant that AFL-CIO unions would no longer be represented
overseas by an independent arm of the federation, but by a government-funded
organization that aligns its policies with the U.S. government. This, too,
has received virtually no attention in progressive circles and blogs. But it
should: as an institution based solely on government funds, the Solidarity
Center lacks the legitimacy to represent U.S. unions at multilateral venues
like the International Labor Organization, where policy is set by “tripartite” organizations
representing states, business, and legitimate union federations. Moreover,
global labor union coalitions that have worked with the AFL-CIO in the past,
such as the International Transport Workers Federation, might well be suspicious
of maintaining in their ranks a new organization that could not exist without
its government largesse. After all, if the AFL-CIO can challenge the legitimacy
of state-run unions in China and Cuba at these venues, what’s to stop
a genuine labor federation from challenging the credentials of an ACILS delegation?
Sweeney’s team may have grasped the logic of this situation only too
well. Over the past three years, while saying little about its own programs,
it has been mostly in a defensive crouch, fending off the demands for a full
accounting of the AFL-CIO’s institutes around the world and defending
its bungled attempts (using NED money) to fund the anti-government union federation
in Venezuela that sought through illegal means to bring down the government
of Hugo Chavez in 2002. Last spring, however, after it became clear that the
Unity and Trust resolution would be presented to the convention, the Sweeney
forces quietly began floating their own resolution on international affairs
to labor councils in Georgia, North Carolina, and other states. Essentially,
they sought an official AFL-CIO blessing on the Solidarity Center and completely
ignored the requests from a huge number of workers (the California federation
represents a full one-sixth of union members nationwide) for either an open
look at the past or a change in course in the future. Using bureaucratic techniques
borrowed from the Lane Kirkland era, convention organizers—led by AFSCME
President Gerald McAntee—allowed only a cursory debate on the subject
and approved their own resolution—submitted by the AFL-CIO’s executive
council—by voice vote. A key section reads: “The Solidarity Center
will continue to seek public funds, while at the same time it will work to
diversify its funding base.”
The question now is, what will the unions who have left the AFL-CIO do in
response? As the debate about labor’s future played out over the last
year, with the SEIU and Teamsters pressing for a huge infusion of resources
into direct organizing and the AFL-CIO arguing for equal focus on political
campaigns, little was said by either side about foreign policy. It will be
intriguing to see what, if any, attention is paid to the need for cross-border
campaigns and an independent foreign policy center at the Change to Win coalition’s
opening convention in September. The only indication of the coalition’s
position is a short section on its website stating that the “central
thrust” of labor’s international work “must be developing
united strategies and actions” around multinational corporations and
what the coalition calls the “Wal-Martization” of the global economy.
According to one labor veteran now working with the SEIU, the breakaway unions
will henceforth focus “on global trade union action against global companies,
as opposed to either altruistic ‘solidarity’ or traditional ‘subversion’.”
There are plenty of contradictions, however, and neither the AFL-CIO nor
Change to Win can claim the progressive mantle in international affairs. While
the Solidarity Center was promoting U.S. policies in Latin America and Africa
as a client of NED and USAID, Teamster President James Hoffa was a member of
the White House-backed Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which was organized
by the neoconservative think-tanks Project for the New American Century and
the American Enterprise Institute to drum up public support for the 2003 invasion.
Even as they criticize the AFL-CIO’s approach, the SEIU and other unions
make many of their international contacts through ACILS—although Solidarity
Center staff, fearing retribution from their funders, play down any work that
could be publicly construed as anti-corporate. And in 2002, SEIU President
Andy Stern bucked strong opposition from the AFL-CIO when he led a union delegation
to China that included a top aide to AFSCME President McAntee.
Still, there are signs that unions on both sides of the split have abandoned
the AFL-CIO’s old-style labor diplomacy in favor of direct contacts with
workers and unions overseas. The SEIU, for example, is engaged in a global campaign
to organize security workers employed by Wackenhut Corp., and has built strong
alliances with members of UNI, a coalition of service and telecom unions, to
pressure the UK’s FirstGroup to stop the union-busting tactics of its U.S.
busing subsidiary. The Teamsters’ Port Division has been working with unions
in Central America and Europe to pressure Maersk Inc., the giant Danish shipping
line, to allow thousands of port drivers worldwide to bargain for wages and benefits.
The Communications Workers of America, also a UNI member, recently helped a group
of Taiwanese telecom workers bring their fight against privatization to the Securities
and Exchange Commission. It is in such campaigns, emerging directly from workers’ struggles
and demands rather than from the dictates of labor bureaucrats or government
funding, where the future of labor’s foreign policy lies.
End Notes
- “Scenes and Silver Linings from
Labor’s Crack-Up,” http://www.counterpunch.org/jw07302005.html.
- See my article, “Labor’s
Cold War,” in The Nation, http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030519&s=shorrock
Tim Shorrock has been writing about labor and foreign policy for many years. He is the co-chair of the National Writers Union, DC chapter, and represented his local at the founding convention of U.S. Labor Against the War in October, 2004. He can be reached through his occasional blog, Money Doesn’t Talk, It Swears, at http://timshorrock.blogspot.com. He’s a regular contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org).
