EL SALVADOR UNIONS-THE REAL STORY

...groups in order to promote his new party...

...unions were to issue a statement in the name of the AFL-CIO, criticizing a public official newly elected with labor support, without bothering to notify AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland...

...State Department...

...The dissidents' motives in calling the press conference cannot be known for certain...

...Ironically, the UPD dissidents who complained the loudest about their lack of independence were the ones who most strongly resisted the kind of a dues structure that would increase their independence...

...Mendoza currently represents a tiny union made up of his loyal followers, and continues to use his UPD title in public activities, in spite of the fact that the UPD has disbanded...

...Similar coalitions, known as "united labor committees," exist between many U.S...

...If the UCS believed in privatizing coops, AIFLD would have pressed for this solution in the first place...

...But to us, it is an old story...

...newsmen) have criticized AIFLD for numbskullery only shows that it must be doing something right (something right for whom is a question we haven't space to deal with...

...The press conference, however, did spur a series of meetings to plan the new confederation...

...Equally spurious is the claim that AIFLD sought to link labor with landowners and "privatize" the agrarian cooperatives...

...At the same time, however, disorganization and factionalism were so rampant in the UPD that following immediately upon the last of these modest achievements it needed to be replaced altogether by a new labor front, the CTD, lest the mediocrity continue...

...It is absurd for Luhan to accuse AIFLD of having "given" the smaller unions the same vote as the larger ones...

...Some may have been genuinely frustrated with the pace of change, even though Duarte had been in office only three months...

...Several of the new organizations, such as the postal workers, were considered even by the UPD dissidents to be left of the older unions...

...Embassy personnel described as having taken place between AIFLD union loyalists like Maldonado and Salvadoran agricultural bigwigs (and thugs) like Alfonso Salaverria to discuss joint management of UPD reform sector cooperatives with their former owners, meetings that Maldonado himself described at length to the Boston Globe August 19, 1985...

...IN EARLY 1984, when the election of Duarte seemed possible and the opening of a new, democratic period in Salvadoran history probable, the leaders of the two large federations, UCS and FESINCONSTRANS, initiated discussions about the formation of a true union confederation...

...The UPD conspirators wasted no time in subverting Maldonado, the new CTD president...

...Most UPD activities were carried out by its separate, and still fractious, components...

...Both the UCS and FESINCONSTRANS wrote letters disavowing the press communiqu...

...Another, the CTS, led by Miguel Angel Vasquez, was affiliated internationally with the Christian World Confederation of Labor, a rival of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), with which FESINCONSTRANS was affiliated...

...20036...

...It might be added that with critics like Luhan, AIFLD knows it must be doing something right.q would like to boil down David Jessup's account and fill in a few blanks: According to him, the UPD should be credited with a few modest achievements (" . . . land reform, the first free elections in Salvadoran history and the election of Duarte as president...

...Jessup was too absorbed in describing the fine details of the fancy new accounting procedures...

...The elections were completely wide open...

...As in all trade union organizations, dues would be the basis for proportional representation at congresses and on the executive board...

...The UPD was not a true labor federation...

...So THERE IT IS, another AIFLD success story...

...Leaders of the smaller UPD unions, however, 514 saw the new confederation as a threat to their influence...

...UNTS spokesman Esquino was ousted from ANIS, which has rejoined the democratic unions in UNOC...

...This was OK, however, because it freed him to concentrate all of his efforts on building CTD democratic unionism...

...Forget about the meetings that U.S...

...The AFL-CIO, as well, has always supported government dialogue with the opposition as the most promising solution to the wars in both El Salvador and Nicaragua...

...El Salvador's two major labor organizations, FESINCONSTRANS and the Salvadoran Communal Union (UCS), persuaded three smaller organizations to form the Unidad Popular Democratica (UPD) in 1980...

...Most important, the new organization was to have a per capita dues structure as a way of reducing excessive reliance on foreign donations...

...FAR FROM ATTEMPTING to establish an alliance with conservative forces, the union leaders who created the CTD were interested in building a powerful authentic confederation, which, while supporting Duarte's democratic opening, would stand independent of any political party and seek gains for the workers in the economic sphere...

...AIFLD recently released a translation of those portions of the documents relating to guerrilla work in the labor sector...

...Leaders of ACOPAI and ANIS participated actively and fought for every position...

...Some may have believed that the press conference might increase their influence and visibility...

...The fact that creating such a new front would let President Duarte off the hook from the Social Pact his party had signed with the UPD to pursue dialogue with the left was of no consequence...

...IN A LAST DESPERATE ATTEMPT to derail the CTD juggernaut, the UPD then hired the services of one J. Michael Luhan to concoct the fable of the RightWing Plot...

...A lengthier account may be obtained from AIFLD, 1015 20th St...

...Part of Heberle's job as AIFLD information director is to meet with Latin leaders from across the political spectrum, when they request such meetings during their Washington trips...

...This they have done...

...Whether AIFLD's favored son, CTD President Salvador Carazo, blabbed to reporters about a $160,000 campaign offer that AIFLD made to him, at the same time that U.S...

...Meanwhile, the UPD has disintegrated...

...Note: Not mentioned in Luhan's original article were the circumstances of Carazo's departure from office...

...Kessler...

...funds to compensate expropriated landowners...

...This led to reports in some U.S...

...All five of its founding organizations have withdrawn...

...One tactic was to appeal elections in their own unions won by their pro-CTD opponents...

...Nevertheless, problems were apparent...

...We know in hindsight that several dissidents were secretly collaborating with the Marxist-Leninist guerrillas to disrupt the UPD, destroy the basis of the Social Pact, embarrass Duarte, and push for negotiations on terms favorable to the guerrillas...

...Nor is it true, as charged by Luhan, that AIFLD cut the ANIS budget by 25 percent "when Esquino Lisco defied [AIFLD director] Packer's wishes and ran for president of the CTD...

...Equally absurd is the claim that the equal vote provision was an attempt to move the new federation to the right...

...In the case of FESINCONSTRANS, the dissidents won...

...Both ACOPAI and Miguel Vasquez's CTS have announced their withdrawal from UNTS...

...The unions even managed to bring about several historic changes: land reform, the first free election in Salvadoran history, and the election of Jose Napoleon Duarte as president...

...In normal times, the three smaller groups would have had little reason to form such a coalition...

...In February 1986, several Communist-run labor unions persuaded the remnants of the UPD to join a new coalition using the acronym of UNTS...

...AIFLD director Packer did not impose a slate of officers...

...Embassy, the Christian Democrats, Salvadoran businessmen, and various U.S...

...He magnifies "facts" that support a preconceived thesis, while ignoring real events that lead to a different conclusion...

...The unions also helped persuade Congress to condition U.S...

...state AFL-CIO labor federations and nonAFL-CIO unions...

...These conflicts had little to do with the "guerrilla dialogue" section of the Social Pact so lovingly highlighted by the U.S...

...Unfortunately, some U.S...

...But the cuts came in June 1984, long before the flap over the press conference or the founding congress of the CTD...

...The documents specifically mention the controversial August press conference, the cooperation of ANIS, and the danger, from the guerrilla viewpoint, of the new democratic labor federation...

...It is not surprising that Barrera might have made false claims about his "relationship" to AIFLD and other U.S...

...Democratic union leaders had to write a letter to the Washington Post to get their point of view across: North Americans may think it is strange that the far right and the far left are allies against the Duarte government and the democratic trade unions in El Salvador...

...The position of chairman—an honor made dubious by the concomitant possibility of assassination— was rotated on a monthly basis...

...Why would AIFLD, even if it had the power to dictate the terms of the founding congress, impose a provision that would guarantee the election of its harshest critic...

...MEANWHILE, A TINY GROUP of selfish, resentful, and conniving UPD dissidents was busy doing everything possible to slow the CTD's inexorable march toward democratic unionism...

...policy, a fact often buried by those who seek to portray AIFLD as a tool of the U.S...

...Director Packer also adopted stricter accounting practices, which irritated some union leaders...

...What bothered them was not the statement favoring dialogue with the guerrillas...

...left," as one can sense from Jessup's use of language...

...When the ORIT representative could not attend due to airline schedules at the time, the newly elected executive board asked the AIFLD director to assume this role...

...Understandably, they were not pleased...

...AIFLD's Jack Heberle did once agree to meet with Hugo Barrera in Washington...

...THREE MONTHS after Duarte's election, on August 30, 1984, the leaders of the smaller UPD unions called a press conference—in the name of the UPD—to denounce President Duarte...

...What is surprising is that any journalist with a claim to seriousness 516 would give credence to his claims without supporting evidence...

...FESINCONSTRANS did the same...

...In reality, the democratic unions have stuck with Duarte's democratic opening and abandoned the UPD...

...As the first organization to pay dues (in late December), the UCS asked AIFLD to hold its funds in a safe until a new CTD bank account could be established...

...reporters, including Luhan, persist in bestowing the UPD title on what has always been a minority faction...

...At no time, however, did Packer threaten to reduce assistance to organizations reluctant to join the CTD, even when some of their leaders began to attack their colleagues—and AIFLD—publicly...

...The largest UPD organizations were not consulted about the press conference...

...The reason: control of government patronage by several union leaders might lead to power struggles within the unions...

...His only evidence for this claim are statements by Barrera himself and rumors circulated by UPD dissidents, who were at the same time circulating contradictory rumors to nervous Christian Democrats that AIFLD was plotting to start a new social democratic party...

...A similar reaction might be imagined if several U.S...

...Even ANIS availed itself of this convenience...

...The concept was alien to ACOPAI and ANIS...

...Luhan does not share with Dissent's readers another Heberle quote from the same article: "What's happening is that people on the outs are trying to come in...

...When asked to explain why the UPD dissidents had gotten into so much trouble with AIFLD, he replied: "If you're going to argue with the cook, you can't expect to eat" (Boston Globe, August 19, 1985...

...AIFLD Deputy Director Donald Kessler then told Carazo's victorious UPD opponent that it was all AIFLD property that was being repossessed, a rather curious attitude since Jessup pointed out that FESINCONSTRANS was an official member of the ICTFU and hence a blood brother of the AFL-CIO...

...It is ludicrous to claim that the UPD unions had been "weaned away" from reliance on their own internal dues structures in favor of "hand-outs" from AIFLD...

...It is true that FESINCONSTRANS and UCS brought in many spectators to cheer the process, but the voting was democratic, in accordance with the rules established by the committee, and hotly contested...

...Such a position had long been advocated by their own unions...

...To his credit, Luhan acknowledges AIFLD's role in changing U.S...

...Without such compensation, campesinos could not obtain title to the land they occupied...

...N.W., Washington, D.C...

...Luhan tries to portray the formation of the CTD as a retaliatory response to the press conference, in spite of the fact that the chronology, and probably the causality as well, were the reverse...

...It never happened, apparently because ANIS was having second thoughts about maintaining its membership in the CTD...

...AIFLD has always preached: dues, dues, dues...

...Ambassador Pickering and AIFLD's paymaster, The Agency for International Development (AID), were both professing to know nothing about it, could not be commented upon...

...J.Michael Luhan's description of the AFLCIO's American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD) in El Salvador (Dissent, Summer 1986) is fundamentally distorted by the ideological, cold war lens through which he views events...

...The situation might have soon returned to normal had not major conflicts also erupted in the two large union federations, UCS and FESINCONSTRANS, in January of 1985...

...It is not true that subsequent to the congress, AIFLD forced the CTD member organizations to pay dues to AIFLD and bypass treasurer-elect Esquino...

...Furthermore, the voting strength of ACOPAI and ANIS would be reduced in proportion to their size...

...AIFLD really supports "the guerrilla dialogue section of the Social Pact so lovingly highlighted by the U.S...

...Neither rumor was true...

...The real story is that El Salvador's democratic trade union movement, despite fierce opposition from left and right extremes, has been largely successful in creating a democratic opening for working people...

...He lifts two statements out of context from newspaper stories, one quoting AIFLD Information Director Jack Heberle to the effect that "one could say that by pressuring for negotiations, they [the UPD] were pushing Duarte to the left...

...One of their allies, the union of the National Agrarian Reform Institute (ISTA), penned a letter to President Duarte in June 1985 charging Maldonado, the ISTA director, with misdirecting AID funds to several new CTD organizations, a charge corroborated by an AID official to the Boston Globe August 19, 1985...

...left...

...After a five-hour meeting with Duarte on the day following the march, the democratic union leaders announced several changes in the government's economic package that were favorable to workers...

...One of them, ACOPAI, had earlier split from the UCS...

...The first quote was prompted by the reporter...

...Others may have held grudges against their more powerful colleagues...

...It came to be called the Confederation of Democratic Workers (CTD), and was to replace FESINCONSTRANS as the sole Salvadoran affiliate of the ICFTU...

...Forget about Barrera's statements to the press about his wonderful relations with the CTD—that was a Slender Reed that UPD dissidents used to whip up wild rumors about Right-Wing Plots...

...A representative of the Inter-American Regional Organization of Workers (ORIT), the ICFTU regional body, had originally been invited to administer the oath of office, in accordance with custom...

...AIFLD did reduce its assistance to all organizations by 25 percent, due to budget cutbacks...

...The equal size provision was an important factor in allowing Esquino of ANIS to win the office of treasurer...

...Bravo, Mr...

...It's a turf battle...

...The fact that people like Luhan (and the U.S...

...The real point of controversy was a situation in which several individuals could meet in a back room, draft a statement, secure the signatures of minor officials in other unions, and make it look as though they were speaking for the entire membership of the UPD...

...It was a loose coalition that was supposed to operate by consensus, largely out of deference to the smaller organizations within it...

...Contrary to Luhan's assertion, the congress was not masterminded by AIFLD as a surprise event...

...newspapers that the democratic unions had abandoned Duarte...

...Since space is limited, this reply will focus primarily on the issue of the Confederation of Democratica Workers (CTD...

...After three hours of discussion, a nine-member committee was elected to prepare the draft statutes for the proposed confederation...

...LUHAN'S FABLE becomes increasingly imaginative when he tries to establish AIFLD's "real motives" during this period: moving the unions to "the right...

...Maldonado, well said...

...It continues to exist as a paper organization run by a handful of self-appointed leaders, many of whom lost elections in their own unions...

...Unfortunately, no U.S...

...But Maldonado summarized to the Boston Globe the kind of independent unionism that AIFLD is so successfully inculcating in El Salvador...

...On March 15, 1986, UNOC organized a rally of 65,000 workers, the largest in recent history, to support "reforms, peace, and democracy...

...Ambassador Pickering's request shortly thereafter for AIFLD director Packer's removal from El Salvador, as alleged by two senior embassy officials, likewise was not worthy of comment...

...Before surrendering his headquarters at the SUTC and FESINCONSTRANS, Carazo took with him as severance pay everything that wasn't nailed down—tables, chairs, typewriters, etc.—and stowed them safely in the CTD offices...

...The problem was always how to move ahead with the implementation of the reforms as originally designed...

...515 Neither co-chair abandoned the hall, "leaving Packer to swear in the new officers," as claimed by Luhan...

...During this period, the new CTD president, Salvador Carazo, tried several times to arrange an appointment with Esquino to set up a bank account...

...The main sticking point was the question of dues...

...Nothing was "wired" in advance...

...He claims that an individual named Hugo Barrera received promises of AIFLD support for starting a new right-wing political party, Patria Libre...

...A poor way to treat relatives, Mr...

...AIFLD has continued its assistance to FESINCONSTRANS, just as it did when a challenger had won an election several years earlier...

...journalists reported on D'Aubuisson's speech...

...Details of this relationship are contained in documents captured from a guerrilla leader after an April 1985 shootout with government troops...

...Eventually, Carazo withdrew all the funds from the AIFLD safe and established a CTD bank account, leaving a blank space in the paperwork for Esquino to come in and sign at his convenience...

...Luhan's actual words were "conservative alliance ," mere tools to tone down his ideological extremism...

...After staging a rally of 12,000 supporters in February, the UNTS alliance has increasingly unraveled...

...The CTD recently linked up with another Christian-affiliated union to form a new umbrella coalition called the National Union of Workers and Peasants (UNOC...

...One of the primary improvements to be made by the new CTD was in financial accountability...

...The second represents Heberle's actual views, which he has repeated in several publicly available letters and statements...

...Sometimes they even persuaded the government to cooperate, as when Salvadoran Labor Minister Julio Samayoa declared Carazo's election void upon determining he had trucked in loads of nonmembers to vote for him...

...At no time did either AIFLD or Salvadoran union leaders contemplate any major changes in the agrarian reform...

...military aid on human rights improvements, an essential lever for reducing death squad activity...

...But it did take some time to work the bugs out of the new accounting system...

...This cost Carazo his base for the presidency of the CTD, but another prime AIFLD protege, Samuel Maldonado, quickly stepped in to carry the torch forward...

...AIFLD, at the request of the elected leadership of the new CTD, did begin to channel its assistance through the new ICFTU affiliate, as is customary in other countries in which AIFLD is active...

...q 518...

...Both extremes know that if democracy wins in El Salvador, they lose...

...Even more damaging to the credibility of UNTS was the praise it received from right-wing ARENA party leader Roberto D'Aubuisson during a March television harangue attacking Duarte...

...According to the captured documents, three union leaders, code-named the "cocos," expected to receive financial assistance from the guerrillas in return for their cooperation...

...With enemies like that we know we must be doing something right...

...Largely to accommodate ACOPAI and ANIS, the organizing committee decided that whereas future congresses were to be based on proportional representation by size, the founding congress would allow each organization an equal number of delegates...

...The organizing committee of nine voted to hold the founding congress of the CTD on December 12, 1984...

...In the case of the UCS, a challenger named Ram& Mendoza tried, and ultimately failed, to win control...

...President Duarte was apparently taken in by this ruse and fired Maldonado in July...

...Nor were the dual admissions that AIFLD 517 spokesman Jack Heberle made to the press that pressuring Duarte on dialogue was tantamount to leftist provocation—his words were twisted by ideological reporters in the service of the Miami Herald and Los Angeles Times...

...The major stumbling block at the time was the Helms Amendment to the Foreign Aid act which prohibited the use of U.S...

...The first was called by FESINCONSTRANS and UCS in early November 1984...

...The problem was the section giving government jobs to labor leaders...

...It involved 120 union leaders representing twenty different unions or federations, including ACOPAI and ANIS...

...The times, however, were not normal, and the UPD was born, a coalition for survival...

...Forget about Salaverria's subsequent cooperation with former ARENA vice-president Hugo Barrera in forming the Patria Libre party, which only coincidentally posited the same reform-of-the-reforms idea...

...Unless it renounced its affiliation with the Christian labor international, Vasquez's CTS would not even be eligible to join the CTD...

...It had no constitution, no regular meetings, no dues structure, no defined set of officers...

...AIFLD would have preferred that government appointments go to persons sympathetic to labor, but not labor leaders...

...It was hoped the UPD would continue as a vehicle for cooperative action with other democratic non-ICFTU-affiliated unions, especially on political action...

...The third group, ANIS, was an Indian association that might only generously be called a union...

...Upon this slender reed Luhan attempts to erect the myth of the Right-Wing Plot...

...Despite efforts by the UPD dissidents to lure the new leadership away from the CTD, FESINCONSTRANS has continued its involvement in building the CTD...