Blue-Collar Empire The Untold Story of US Labor's Global Anticommunist Crusade

by Schuhrke, Jeff

• ISBN13: 9781839769054
• ISBN10: 183976905X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2024-09-24
• Publisher: Verso

Summary

How the CIA used American unions to undermine workers at home and subvert democracy abroad

Blue-Collar Empire tells the shocking story of the AFL-CIO’s global anticommunist crusade—and its devastating consequences for workers around the world.

Unions have the power not only to secure pay raises and employee benefits but to bring economies to a screeching halt and overthrow governments. Recognizing this, in the late twentieth century, the US government sought to control labor movements abroad as part of the Cold War contest for worldwide supremacy. In this work, Washington found an enthusiastic partner in the AFL-CIO’s anticommunist officials, who, in a shocking betrayal, for decades expended their energies to block revolutionary ideologies and militant class consciousness from taking hold in the workers’ movements of Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

Author Biography

Jeff Schuhrke is a labor historian, journalist, union activist, and assistant professor at the Harry Van Arsdale Jr. School of Labor Studies, SUNY Empire State University in New York City. He is a frequent contributor to In These Times and Jacobin, and his scholarship has been published in Diplomatic History and Labor: Studies in Working-Class History.

Table of Contents

Abbreviations

Introduction

Part I
FREE TRADE UNIONISM (1945–1960)
1 Th e Free Trade Union Committee
2 Good Neighbors
3 A Larger Pie
4 Joining the CIA
5 Inter-Americanism
6 Merger

Part II
FREE LABOR DEVELOPMENT (1960–1973)
7 Comradely Brainwashing
8 Intervenors
9 Mama Maida
10 Vietnam
11 Exposed

Part III
FREE MARKET REVOLUTION (1973–1995)
12 Crisis
13 New Blood
14 Endowing Democracy
15 Civil War
16 Hollow Victory

Conclusion

Acknowledgements
Notes
Index