Servitors of the National Security State?

During the 1980s, a diverse movement of activists in and around the labor movement opposed U.S. government support for murderous and repressive regimes in Central America and the AFL-CIO’s international policies. This led to the creation of the National Labor Committee in Support of Democracy and Human Rights in El Salvador, and internal debate on the AFL-CIO’s policies eventually extended to South Africa and the Philippines.

Advocates of reform called for labor “solidarity without borders.” U.S. labor’s international activities should build a united global front of workers to support each other against multinational capital. By supporting stronger unions in developing countries, we could reduce the flight of American jobs overseas and assist foreign workers in pursuing their own economic and political objectives. Direct “union to union” ties would foster mutual solidarity among workers from different countries.

This position began to displace Cold War anti-communism as the dominant theme of labor international policy by 1990. The SEIU adopted this position by consensus at its 1988 convention, following a behind-the-scenes struggle within a committee formed to handle the flood of proposed resolutions on international issues. The convention decision contributed to SEIU President John Sweeney’s election over his former mentor Tom Donahue as AFL-CIO President in 1995. Donahue had been closely associated with former AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland’s ideologically rigid anticommunist views, and part of Sweeney’s appeal to more progressive union leaders was that he was open to adopting a fresh outlook on international issues.

As AFL-CIO President, Sweeney appointed progressive trade unionists Barbara Shailor and Stan Gacek to key posts in the International Department. He abolished the four semi-autonomous regional institutes that had been associated with Cold War policies, replacing them with the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS). Over the ensuing few years, a fresh generation of labor activists and community organizers staffed the ACILS and its numerous field offices. Previously strained relations between the American labor movement’s foreign operations and global union federations began to improve, as ACILS staffers pursued modest but useful projects to develop grassroots unions in many countries.

In AFL-CIO’s Secret War against Developing Country Workers: Solidarity or Sabotage?, Kim Scipes notes that he initially welcomed these changes. However, he now believes that Sweeney deliberately betrayed the hopes that his election raised. He vehemently argues that, in substance, nothing has changed and the AFL-CIO continues to be the major obstacle to achieving genuine international labor solidarity: “Despite any small efforts that might assist workers here and there, the overall project is toxic, and must be dug out root and branch, and replaced by a genuine program of international labor solidarity” (p. xii).

For Scipes, the appointment of Harry Kamberis—former director of the Asian-American Free Labor Institute (AAFLI)—as the first director of the ACILS and the retention of other staffers associated with the old regime demonstrated a basic continuity with the discredited past and Sweeney’s resistance to genuine change. The ACILS has conducted some “positive efforts” and interventions in Colombia and Central America. Scipes has even heard “anecdotes” that ACILS staffers have been helpful to trade unionists from Iraq. However, all of its efforts must remain suspect:

Until a detailed understanding of what they are doing in each particular country in which they are operating can be developed, evidence developed to date suggests that any overseas operations by the AFL-CIO, ACILS, or any other operation related to the AFL-CIO, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and/or the U.S. Government must be considered “guilty” of labor imperialism until proven innocent

(p. 215, endnote 84).

This is indeed a tall order, since the ACILS has twenty-six field offices and activities in about sixty countries. Scipes presents several cases of U.S. labor “imperialism” but, with the single exception of Venezuela in 2002, all precede the creation of the ACILS. The detailed cases...