AIFLD Amok
Spalding, Hobart A. Jr.
THROUGHOUT ITS HISTORY AIFLD HAS been bedeviled by accusations of CIA involvement. The Institute's first director, Serafino Romualdi (1962-65) worked for the OSS during World War II; in the...
...XX, no...
...and AFL-CIO, "The AFL-CIO Abroad," in pamphlet series Perspectives on Labor and the World, publication no...
...government and corporations seemed to be the 21A IFLD CLAIMS TO HAVE TRAINED OVER ft half a million Latin imerican and Caribbean unionists since 1962...
...Eric Williams asked the director for AIFLD's Caribbean office to leave in 1972 after it was revealed that he used an in-country education program for intelligence gathering...
...Dozens more hold positions in unions ranging from the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) to the United Auto Workers (UAW...
...I (Summer 1986), pp...
...But U.S...
...In the nationalized copper mines they had some success leading work stoppages, which helped damage the already fragile Chilean economy...
...on Romualdi, see Tom Barry and Deb Preusch, AIFLD in Central America: Agents as Organizers, (Albuquerque: The Resource Center, 1986), p. 10...
...Another 220 leaders were to get instruction in technical aspects of union administration, cooperativism, or community service from local labor organizations under AIFLD supervision...
...Union leaders claim AIFLD funneled between $500,000 and $800,000 into Duarte's campaign, including providing jeeps and twoway radios, and funding 1,000 door-to-door canvassers...
...in the 1960s the Institute received grants from founda- tions later revealed to be CIA conduits...
...U.S...
...A sample questionnaire can be found in NACLA, Argentina in the Hour of the Furnaces (New York: NACLA, 1975), p. 64...
...And Joel Freedman, a frequent delegate to meetings of the Socialist International who is married to SD/USA national secretary Rita Freedman, is working under a NED grant as international affairs advisor to Bricklayers president Jack Joyce...
...Today, a surprising number belong to a littleknown organization of ex-Trotskyites, Social Democrats, USA (SD/USA...
...The A. Philip Randolph Institute, which links the AFL-CIO to the black community, and Frontlash, which performs a similar service with college students and younger workers, are both dominated by SD/USA members...
...Courses in 1985-86 enrolled 73,624 participants in 17 countries...
...military intervention which followed, echoing, however, the AFL-CIO and State Department positions that the invasion thwarted communism and prevented another Cuba...
...421-45...
...In reality, the director did no more than other AIFLD field officers in soliciting financial data, political leanings, and other personal information from unionists, sometimes asking fellow workers in effect to act as spies by supplying confidential information...
...19-21...
...But after the revolution of March 1979, the Seamen's and Waterfront Workers' Union, for example, refused to unload Cuban sugar...
...The U.S...
...Nominally part of the AFL-CIO, the FTUI funnels NED monies to "democratic" labor projects abroad...
...One of them, Don Slaiman, a rank-and-file labor militant with experience Labor Development...
...After the Labor Ministry invalidated the vote, a legal quorum of over 500 reelected an anti-AIFLD slate, but their rivals-numbering 40-held a counter-election which the Ministry certified...
...In August 1984, when UPD leaders took him to task, AIFLD considered this clear opposition to U.S...
...Within days, AIFLD director William Doherty visited the military head of the interim government and by mid-March an ORIT/ICFTU delegation had settled on the Federation of Unionized Workers (FOS) as the best bet for affiliation...
...It was after the invasion that, according to a government interagency report, AIFLD began "developing an exten- sive plan to reorient and train the labor leadership...
...AIFLD maintains an active program in the country...
...182 (Washington: AFL-CIO, Aug...
...267-270, and Jan Knippers Black, The Dominican Republic: Politics and Development in an Unsovereign State, (Winchester, MA: Allen & Unwin, Inc., 1986), pp...
...Duarte, however, failed to deliver on his promises...
...AFT president Albert Shanker has maintained close relations with SD/USA for many years and is widely considered a spokesman for its political line within the AFL-CIO...
...18-9...
...and Jan Knippers Black, The United States Penetration of Brazil (Pennsylvania: Univ...
...Support from local unions and an international solidarity campaign, which pressured the parent company, eventually won workers a favorable contract...
...In the 9-year battle at Guatemala's Coca-Cola bottling plant, three of the union's leaders were assassinated and numerous members and supporters were threatened, beaten, arrested, kidnapped, tortured, shot or forced into exile...
...Shortly before the 1963 military coup that ousted Bosch, CONATRAL paid for a full-page advertise- ment in a local newspaper calling for the military to save the country from communism...
...Humberto Castelo Branco, and bargained for an ex- panded AIFLD presence...
...25-36...
...It remained "neutral" in the popular uprising of April 1965 and the U.S...
...Many of the trade union leaders some of whom were actually trained in our institute were involved...
...Its first massive training of Bolivians came just prior to the 1964 military coup which ended a nationalist regime and installed a government implacably hostile to organized labor...
...After failing to take over the broad-based Unified Workers Central (CUT), the Institute's allies formed a separate confederation, whose largest affiliate, a Valparaiso-based maritime federation led mostly by AIFLD graduates, put forth as its stated policy "to cooperate with owners and the directors of big business...
...It does little to prevent runaway shops which have cost millions of jobs in the 1980s...
...NED, "Country Breakdown, Fiscal Year 1984-1985," unpublished, cited in Weinrub and Bollinger, The AFL-CIO, p. 29...
...AIFLD recognizes its early support for the junta only obliquely by saying that the "military dictatorships of El Salvador in the 1970s and Chile in the 1980s have not identified us as allies...
...After attempting for decades to organize a revolutionary current opposed to both major powers, Schactman led his band into the Socialist Party of Norman Thomas in the late 1950s...
...WHAT HAVE YOU DANIC TA AAAVC Ta ~o{acKc MAY/JUN 1988 2 MAY/JUNE 1988 fragile Chilean economy...
...This favored strategy of transnational corporations has facilitated the flight from the U.S...
...Quote from Joachim Mark, "AIFLD-CIA: The Subversion of Grenadian Labour," Committee for a Free Grenada, Newsletter, Vol...
...CUS membership has dropped to less than 1% of the organized workforce and its role in the recent wave of strikes has been marginal...
...32...
...These people were disciples of Max Schactman, one of the founders of U.S...
...AIFLD and its Brazilian allies, however, praised the "democratic" coup and continued to operate with official blessing...
...Several governments have asked the Institute or its representatives to leave the country, as in Peru in 1971...
...AIFLD, Annual Meeting, "Financial Report, a) Audit Report" and "Financial Activities, c) Current Budget...
...In recent practice this has meant opposing both Pinochet and the Sandinistas while supporting social democratic or-where no social democratic alternative exists, as in Chile--Christian democratic unions.'" AIFLD, however, prefers to work with labor organizations committed to no political party...
...Most nations of the Caribbean now feature such zones, and compete for foreign capital by offering the corporations ever greater concessions...
...1984), p. 159...
...did not just happen it was planned...
...4. See Herbert Klein, Bolivia: The Evolution of a Multi-Ethnic Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), pp...
...pp.1, 9, 18...
...But AIFLD also shows special interest when lack of organization poses a threat to "stability," as in Haiti after the fall of Baby Doc Duvalier in February 1986...
...2 8 According to a recent account, "Most of its [FOS] members are in state enterprises and are often unaware that they belong to a union...
...Lane Kirkland did no more than state his support for the union and AIFLD, despite its extensive program in Guatemala, did virtually nothing.20 24 REPORT ON THE AMERICAS Ut $t'4 AFL-CIO In August 1984, when UPD leaders took him to task, AIFLD considered this clear opposition to U.S...
...1 (Fall, 1974), p. 43...
...In the Spirit of Butler: Trade Unionism in Free Grenada (St...
...No direct evidence exists of AIFLD involvement in the October 1983 U.S...
...Most notable is the debt to foreign bankers and international lending institutions which Latin American workers have been called upon to pay...
...246-7...
...AIFLD-influenced unions worked against the Popular Unity government on several fronts...
...contract, currently operate in such zones in the Dominican Republic...
...AIFLD Briefs, issue released Oct...
...Of these more than 4,000 attended select study courses at the George Meany Labor Center in Silver Spring, Maryland and over 200 attended universities in the United States' In the 1960s and 1970s the Institute trained some 20,000 persons a year and in the 1980s over 30,000...
...Ue AFL-CIO and non-political charter...
...Why the AFL-CIO undertakes such work was perhaps best explained by one U.S.AJD official: "There is no one more conservative than a small farmer...
...As part of a worldwide solidarity campaign, the International Union of Food and Allied Workers called for a boycott...
...AIFLD set up offices in FOS headquarters, located in the building of the taxi drivers' union, long tied to the Duvalier family...
...3 (May/June 1987), p. 27...
...See Trade Union Committee of the People's Popular Movement, The CIA and Local Trade Unionism-An Analysis of the Role of the AIFLD (Trinidad and Tobago: The Committee, 1982), appendix 1. 12...
...316-8...
...Despite its modernized stance, AIFLD's energies have not been concentrated on fighting rightwing dictatorships...
...It now spends as much there as in the rest of Latin America combined, and has trained over 200,000 unionists from the area...
...Among them are Westinghouse, GTE, Bristol-Meyers and numerous apparel firms...
...Among other things, AIFLD trainees helped prevent a general strike against the coup by keeping lines of communication open for the military...
...One is longtime SD/USA leader Tom Kahn, who succeeded Lovestone as director of the DIA...
...personnel, worked out a pact with presidential candidate Jos6 Napole6n Duarte, pledging electoral support in return for key appointments in the new government, an end to death squad terror, social reforms, and a negotiated peace with the FDR-FMLN insurgents...
...Pressure from militant workers forced AIFLD to close its offices in Cordoba, Argentina in the late 1960s...
...AIFLD, while it supported anticommunist coups, its founding, has the leopard now changed its spots...
...While elsewhere AIFLD graduates invariably counsel lowering wage demands, during 1981 several Grenadian unions with AIFLD and ORIT-trained officers demanded wage increases clearly beyond the government's capac- ity to pay...
...This effort recognized the need to channel inchoate labor unrest, the spontaneous development of trade unions which is occurring, and the dangers posed by politicized groups...
...ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick, is currently president of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which is a major funder of AIFLD...
...White House Briefing to U.S...
...8, 1987, p. 2. 11...
...on Brazil see Spalding, "U.S...
...intelligence.3 AIFLD's direct or indirect involvement in right-wing coups also raises suspicions...
...The AFL-CIO supported Allende's ouster claiming that most Chileans accepted it as a "necessary act...
...During the struggle to overthrow the dictatorship AIFLD remained aloof, refusing to criticize the government even when the CUS's leader was assassinated by security forces in January 1979...
...The organization has also made itself felt in neoconservative political circles...
...Later, AIFLD's director testified before Congress: "What happened in Brazil...
...AFL-CIO In August 1984, when UPD leaders took him to task, AIFLD considered this clear opposition to U.S...
...We do know about the Bolivian educational program for 1974-75 under U.S.AJI) contract, and it appears to be typical of AIFLD's work...
...5 In Brazil during the nationalist presidency of Joio Goulart (1961-64), AIFLD flew in operatives from the I'VE WRUNG CONCES IONS OUT OF YOUR WORKERS, BUSTEP YOU UNIONS, ANP MOVE YOU PLANTS TO CENTRAL AMEIICA...
...It maintained a presence through its financial support of the CUS, providing it with at least $194,000 from the National Endowment for Democracy in 1984 and 1985.21 The Institute and its allies have been relatively unsuccessful in rallying workers against the gov- ernment...
...Quote from U .S...
...AIFLD set up offices in FOS headquarters, located in the building of the taxi drivers' union, long tied to the Duvalier family...
...CUS does maintain ties to the contras through the Democratic Coordinating Committee and union members have been accused of committing acts of industrial sabotage on their behalf...
...With this characteristic, the federation can contribute to Haiti's political stability and economic development...
...Interviews with Phillip Agee on the CIA and El Salvador (New York: Deep Cover Publications, 1981), p. 54...
...led the way in recognizing informal shop floor committees during the wildcat strikes of the 1970s and early 1980s, when unions could not exist above ground...
...Humberto Castelo Branco, and bargained for an expanded AIFLD presence...
...XXI, no...
...in the overthrow of the Goulart regime...
...When Duarte imposed IMF-inspired budget cuts in January 1986, the UPD joined with the left wing of the labor movement to form the National Unity of Salvadoran Workers (UNTS...
...The 4,000-member telecommunications union ASTI'EL, which has waged a long and bitter fight against the state-owned company run by the military, is a case in point...
...Many of the trade union leaders-some of whom were actually trained in our institute-were involved . . in the overthrow of the Goulart regime...
...As might be expected, such heavy-handed tactics reaped the opposite of their intent...
...Despite its public stance against IMF pro- grams, A!FLD defended Duarte's economic policy, intended essentially to make the poor pay for the war...
...4 Immediately previous to the military takeovers in Chile and Brazil, AIFLD training rose by 400% and 600% respectively...
...Chris Norton, "Build and Destroy," NACLA Report on the Americas, Vol...
...WHAT IS THE BALANCE OF THE AFL-CIO'S activities in Latin America...
...6 Within days of the coup, AFL-CIO director for inter-American affairs, Andrew McLellan, met with the new dictator Gen...
...SD/USA's influence is significant...
...5. Hobart A. Spalding Jr., "U.S...
...Its greatest impact has been in countries with the smallest and least developed labor movements, and in countries under repressive regimes...
...Today, AIFLD is busy re- AIFLD reworked its line in response to a drastically writing its own history...
...Lane Kirkland did no more than state his support for the union and AIFLD, despite its extensive program in Guatemala, did virtually noth- ing...
...6. U.S...
...In the 9-year battle at Guatemala's Coca-Cola bottling plant, three of the union's leaders were assassinated and numerous members and supporters were threatened, beaten, arrested, kidnapped, tortured, shot or forced into exile...
...Frank Smyth, "Tainted AIFLD Money: Duarte's Secret Friends," The Nation, March 14, 1987, pp...
...Most years AIFLD runs similar programs in 17 or 18 Latin American and Caribbean nations.4 The Institute also funnels U.S.AID funds to international trade secretariats, which in turn supply qualified personnel to counterpart unions for education, organizing, conferences, or special projects such as teaching stevedome about containerization...
...Approved unions may obtain donations of up to $5 000 from AIFLD for specific purposes such as building a community center or purchasing a printing press The larger Regional Revolving Loan Fund has lent out over $8.4 million In 1986 it financed a umon building for Colombian textile workers, purchased a diesel engine for Salvadoran textile workers and in Brazil covered expanded medical Uc AFL-CIO sole measure for support...
...invasion...
...Government Inter-Agency Team on Commercial and Private Sector Initiatives, "Prospects for Growth in Grenada: The Role of the Private Sector," Dec...
...74-8...
...Pressure from militant workers forced AIFLD to close its offices in C6rdoba, Argentina in the late 1960s...
...But after the revolution of March 1979, the Seamen's and Waterfront Workers' Union, for example, refused to unload Cuban sugar...
...Over the next two years, the Institute cut off funds, repossessed equipment, conducted slander campaigns and called rump meetings to attempt takeovers of recalcitrant unions...
...The U.S...
...The U.S...
...did not just happen-it was planned...
...273-4...
...One AIFLD official even withheld stipends when union members refused to pay dues directly to him...
...6 (Nov/Dec 1986), pp...
...AIFLD, while it supported anticommunist coups, would not condone the destruction of entire labor movements...
...It continued: Because of the presence of radical labor unions and the high risk that other unions may become radicalized, the State Department has requested the assistance of the American Institute for Free THE "EX" SYNDROME BY JACK CLARK S NE EXPLANATION FOR THE OBSESSIVE anticommunism of AFL-CIO foreign policy is the unusual congregation of ex-leftists in its Department of International Affairs (DIA...
...Claiming persecution after it was accused of acting as a CIA front, AIFLD pulled out of Nicaragua in 1982...
...Today, AIFLD is busy rewriting its own history...
...The budget came to $187,000...
...For example, nearly 200 companies, almost all U.S-owned or under U.S...
...It was quoted in the New York Times...
...The organization's profile may soon rise, however, since Don Slaiman, the man who built SD/USA's inroads into labor, is due to retire from the AFL-CIO and become SD/USA president...
...21-6...
...These stands cost the organization dearly, with membership falling by about three-quarters.' In Chile, AIFLD maneuvered to split the progressive labor movement both before and during the presidency of Dr...
...Labor Politics and Program, 90th Cong., 2nd sess., July 15, 1968, p. 14...
...Michael S. Hooper, "The Monkey's Tall is Still Strong," NACLA Report on the Americas, Vol...
...democratic or where no social democratic alternative Despite its modernized stance, AIFLD's energies exists, as in Chile Christian democratic unions.'4 have not been concentrated on fighting rightwing dicAIFLD, however, prefers to work with labor organiza- tatorships...
...university...
...In 1986, AIFLD distributed nearly one million dollars under this program.5 AIFLD graduates often receive stipends for up to a year after returning to their countries, from either the Institute or the appropriate international trade secretariat...
...They may also assist in collective bargaining...
...As part of a worldwide solidarity campaign, the International Union of Food and Allied Workers called for a boycott...
...18, 1975, append...
...1987), p. 12 gives higher 1987 figures...
...Three ex-ASTA leaders said that only 33 people attended the "mass membership meeting" which elected the executive board...
...AFL-CIO foreign policy also fails workers in this country...
...When STTIUSA, the union in El Salvador's largest textile plant, Industrias Unidas, S.A., became a founding member of the UNTS, the Institute tried unsuccessfully to buy the union elections...
...When the workers struck to defend their rightful leadership, the company fired 500 workers, crushing the movement...
...AIFLD claims, however, that FOS grew to 19 unions in 1986 and that some signed collective bargaining agreements...
...CEOs, June 13, 1986, 10:30AM,mimeo, pp...
...military intervention which followed, echoing, however, the AFL-CIO and State Department positions that the invasion thwarted communism and prevented another Cuba...
...Eric Williams asked the director for AIFLD's Caribbean office to leave in 1972 after it was revealed that he used an in-country education program for intelligence gathering...
...Recurrent strikes, particularly by truckers-clearly financed from the outside, many believe through the CIA 8 -- helped further disrupt the economy and prepare the way for a coup...
...AUDS programs seek to improve the lot of small farmers primarily by encouraging the production of cash crops often for ex- port...
...The AFL-CIO supported Allende's ouster claiming that most Chileans accepted it as a "necessary act.' ' Only when the junta clamped down even on AIFLD unionists did the Federation begin to change its tune, condemning the Pinochet government for repressive policies.'0 AIFLD has not found the sailing smooth...
...New York Labor Committee in Support of Democracy and Human Rights in El Salvador, "Labor Campaign to Save ASTTEL Union in El Salvador," Fall 1987, p. 1. 20...
...The prospects of a successful organizational effort by the far left has such profound implications for Haiti's future that the risk should not be taken.'3 HAT IS THE BALANCE OF THE AFL-CIO'S V V activities in Latin America...
...Indeed, in order to apply for housing loans, for example, unions had to supply detailed information about union finances and leadership.'2 In these examples from AIFLD's early years others like Argentina, Guyana or Honduras could be added anticommunism outweighed all other criteria in the Institute's decision to undermine a particular government or labor movement...
...In addition, a National Endowment for Democracy grant paid for an education program to create citizen awareness of political rights and free trade unionism...
...Later, AIFLD's director testified before Congress: "What happened in Brazil...
...T HROUGH THE U.S.AID-FUNDED AGRARIAN Union Development Service (AUDS), founded in 1965, AIFLD organizes peasants into production and marketing co-ops...
...With the help of AIFLD trainees, the military regime ousted the legitimate lead- ers of more than 450 labor organizations...
...Using its considerable financial clout, AIFLD proceeded to buy off UPD unions-enticing the heads of several to abandon the UNTS with payments of up to $3,000.'" When the Institute could not buy loyalty, it encouraged splinter groups to hold dummy elections, after which they received instant government recognition as legal representatives...
...REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 26ous questions remain about its assumption that the U.S...
...Despite AIFLD's efforts, declining standards of living have placed larger socio-economic issues on labor's bargaining table...
...Even if one does not object to the Federation's political premises, seriin the civil rights movement, landed a job on the AFLCIO's national staff...
...Further, it founded a counter-confederation its third in six years and charged UNTS leaders with guerrilla ties, a vicious move in a country where death squads regularly roam the streets...
...Are Nicaragua's Trade Unions Free...
...Norton, "Build and Destroy," p. 30...
...AIFLD provided 50% to 80% of the budgets for all but one of the UPD's five main organizations...
...It cut real wages by over 20% and reduced strike activity to zero by the early 1970s...
...and ex-CIA agent Philip Agee maintains that a "CIA case officer is undercover in almost every AIFLD office abroad...
...Within days, AIFLD director William Doherty visited the military head of the interim government and by mid-March an ORIT/ICFTU delegation had settled on the Federation of Unionized Workers (FOS) as the best bet for affiliation...
...Government] effort with AIFLD is to make available to interested workers a moderate trade union federation in Haiti...
...As part of a worldwide solidarity campaign, the International Union of Food and Allied Workers called for a boycott...
...When STTIUSA, the union in El Salvador's largest textile plant, Industrias Unidas, S.A., became a founding member of the UNTS, the Institute tried unsuccessfully to buy the union elections...
...They also charged that ASTA's president receives a $200 a month AIFLD stipend.' 9 This case of a phantom union is not unique...
...Foreign Policy," Counterspy, Vol...
...More significantly, AIFLD trained its first all-Brazilian class in 1963, some of whom played a role in the military coup that ousted Goulart the following year after he threatened land reform and restrictions on foreign oil companies...
...Early that month the AFL-CIO adopted a resolution condemning "the dictatorship of Maurice Bishop in Grenada . . . for continuing repression and abuse of trade union organizations...
...It maintained a presence through its financial support of the CUS, providing it with at least $194,000 from the National Endowment for Democracy in 1984 and 1985.21 The Institute and its allies have been relatively unsuccessful in rallying workers against the government...
...The Institute also provided technical and financial assistance to cover "some basic expenses associated with the development of free trade unions in Haiti...
...They pay no taxes and are required to report almost no financial data...
...FTUI funding decisions are made by Eugenia Kemble, Lane Kirkland, Tom Kahn and AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Tom Donahue, who is married to another SD/USA member Rachelle Horowitz...
...The answer seems to be no, although AIFLD has become much more sophisticated in its approach...
...And the pages of Commentary have long been open to the organization's leaders...
...The workers refused...
...The Institute's 25-year summary simply notes that the Brazilian government fell in 1964 and makes no mention at all of AIFLD's role in that country or in Allende's overthrow.' 3 EVEN ADMITTING THAT AIFLD SUFFERED an excess of anticommunist zeal in the years after its founding, has the leopard now changed its spots...
...In Brazil, for example, Ford Motor Co...
...For more than three decades, foreign affairs at the AFL and then the merged AFL-CIO was dominated by former Communist Party leader Jay Lovestone-expelled from the party in 1929-and his ex-communist protege Irving Brown...
...Indeed, in order to apply for housing loans, for example, unions had to supply detailed information about union finances and leadership.' 2 In these examples from AIFLD's early years-others like Argentina, Guyana or Honduras could be added-anticommunism outweighed all other criteria in the Institute's decision to undermine a particular government or labor movement...
...and ex-CIA agent Philip Agee maintains that a "CIA case officer is undercover in almost every AIFLD office abroad...
...labor since the beginning of the century...
...Using its considerable financial clout, AIFLD proceeded to buy off UPD unions enticing the heads of several to abandon the UNTS with payments of up to $3,000...
...would not condone the destruction of entire labor The answer seems to be no, although AIFLD has be- movements...
...Following the revolution, when the rest of Nicaraguan labor united in a coordinating council, CUS instead linked up to the rightwing business and political party coalition, Ramiro Sacasa Democratic Coordinating Committee, which was soon to lead the internal opposition to the Sandinista government...
...I "f MAY/JUNE 1988 2! In the Dominican Republic, AIFLD encouraged "democratic" unions to split from the leading confederation, United Workers' Front for Autonomous Trade Unions (FOUPSA), in 1962 and form the National Confederation of Free Workers (CONATRAL...
...6 (Nov/Dec 1981...
...Legally, unions may organize in these zones, but none has ever done so...
...With AIFLD approval, CONATRAL refused to support populist president Juan Bosch even though he allowed labor relative freedom, advocating profit sharing and recognition of majority unions as legitimate bargaining agents...
...264-5...
...As might be expected, such heavy-handed tactics reaped the opposite of their intent...
...Using its considerable financial clout, AIFLD proceeded to buy off UPD unions enticing the heads of several to abandon the UNTS with payments of up to $3,000)8 When the Institute could not buy loyalty, it encouraged splinter groups to hold dummy elections, after which they received instant government recognition as legal representatives...
...In Nicaragua the Institute has been active since 1968 when, with Somoza's blessing, it helped establish the Confederation of Trade Union Unity (CUS...
...When independent unions came to an AIFLD press conference on recent firings, they were not allowed to present their side of the story.2 A June 1986 White House briefing, however, showed how far AIFLD's game goes beyond such chicanery: The thrust of the USG [U.S...
...3 " The Institute may be up to its old tricks in Haiti...
...Most nations of the Caribbean now feature such zones, and compete for foreign capital by offering the corporations ever greater concessions...
...CUS membership has dropped to less than 1% of the organized workforce and its role in the recent wave of strikes has been marginal...
...5 4.1 MILLION, ALMOST A THIRD OF AIFLD'S U) 1987 budget, was earmarked for El Salvador, where the Institute has become heavily involved in a struggle to shape the labor movement and influence the political process...
...While the ranks of rivals thinned due to repression-with some 5,000 unionists losing their lives in 1980-83-the UPD organized with relative impunity.' 6 In the crucial 1984 elections, UPD leaders, literally under the watchful eyes of U.S...
...After the Labor Ministry in- validated the vote, a legal quorum of over 500 reelected an anti-AIFLD slate, but their rivals numbering 40 held a counter-election which the Ministry certified...
...As might be expected, such heavy-handed tactics reaped the opposite of their intent...
...These stands cost the organization dearly, with membership falling by about three-quar- ters . In Chile, AIFLD maneuvered to split the progressive labor movement both before and during the presidency of Dr...
...More significantly, AIFLD trained its first all-Brazilian class in 1963, some of whom played a role in the military coup that ousted Goulart the following year after he threatened land reform and restrictions on foreign oil companies...
...A IFLD'S OFFICIAL PRONOUNCEMENTS OF opposition to runaway transnational corpora- tions, like its stance on IMF stabilization programs, contrast sharply with its performance in the field...
...2 (Nov...
...In at least one case, the rank-and-file ousted leaders for such stubborn, anti-government activities...
...2 4 In Grenada, pro-AIFLD unions refused to take militant action against the dictatorial and anti-labor regime of Eric Gairy...
...Dozens of its members hold staff positions in the DIA or its affiliates, including AIFLD...
...government, it has focused on those countries where nationalist or leftwing labor movements threaten the investment climate, particularly the small countries of the Caribbean basin, including Central America...
...By the mary simply notes that the Brazilian government fell in mid-i 970s a series of brutal military dictatorships held 1964 and makes no mention at all of AIFLD's role in sway, which without exception persecuted labor, in that country or in Allende's overthrow.3 many cases even those unionists trained by AIFLD...
...This effort recognized the need to channel inchoate labor unrest, the spontaneous development of trade unions which is occurring, and the dangers posed by politicized groups...
...Finally, the program planned to assist social development projects for 10 rural and urban unions...
...Because the Institute's policies fail to address these issues preaching instead collaboration with business and government, whose interests unions perceive to be antagonistic to their own AIFLD can only continue to alienate the larger body of organized workers...
...see Walter Poelchau, ed., Whitepaper, Whitewash...
...Despite its public stance against IMF pro- grams, AIFLD defended Duarte's economic policy, intended essentially to make the poor pay for the war...
...This favored strategy of transnational cor- porations has facilitated the flight from the U.S...
...Right" along with the "dictatorial or totalitarian led the way in recognizing informal shop floor commitLeft...
...As far as rhetoric is concerned, the Institute now claims to support the "democratic Left" or "center"-terms it uses interchangeably-and to oppose the "dictatorial Right" along with the "dictatorial or totalitarian Left...
...The program envisioned training 400 national, departmental, and local trade union leaders and 30 peasant leaders in "advanced trade union techniques," as well as some 400 activists in basic and intermediate evening courses...
...On general involvement in rightwing coups, see Al Weinrub and William Bollinger, The AFL-CIO in Central America (Oakland: Labor Network on Central America, 1987), pp...
...XIX, no...
...Although he never served in the Department of International Affairs, he held several senior staff positions and established enough credibility with George Meany and the top leadership to bring his comrades on board...
...government and corporations seemed to be the Z'M GOING To WA IN CENTRAL AMERICA TO FROTE(-T YOUR VITAL (NIEREcTS' VIEU...
...The prospects of a successful organizational effort by the far left has such profound implications for Haiti's future that the risk should not be taken...
...In the nationalized copper mines they had some success leading work stoppages, which helped damage the already I'M GOINg To WAR IN rGC ITPA AMICPfrA TA T WEL...
...Further, the Federation has not acted to make international labor solidarity a counterweight to the power of transnational capital...
...In fact Grenada's revolutionary labor legislation guaranteed the right to organize based on secret ballot elections, and the government did not intervene in a single union, settling disputes by mediation...
...It also sponsors community development projects in literacy, health and sanitation...
...After the Labor Ministry in- validated the vote, a legal quorum of over 500 reelected an anti-AIFLD slate, but their rivals numbering 40 held a counter-election which the Ministry certified...
...The executive director of the Free Trade Union Institute (FTUI), Eugenia Kemble, is also an SD/USA member and the sister of SD/USA vice-chairman Penn Kemble, who heads the pro-contra lobby PRODEMCA...
...As the movements of the early 1960s were building, and moving in directions which the Socialist Party and the League found unwelcome, Schactman's followers achieved a crucial breakthrough...
...Given such activities, it is not surprising that AIFLD is being questioned across the continent...
...Henry J. Frundt, Refreshing Pauses: Coca-Cola and Human Rights in Guatemala (New York: Praeger, 1987) who documents the work of the international union...
...For a three-month period in 1986 AIFLD organized Saturday seminars attended by an average of 15 Haitian unionists, while 20 more participated in a special seminar in Washington...
...Even if one does not object to the Federation's political premises, seri26 REPORT ON THE AMERICAS RAFL-CIO o Ameia AFL-CIO and non-political charter...
...a AIFLD has not found the sailing smooth...
...On Argentina, see Spalding, Organized Labor, pp...
...AIFLD and its Brazilian allies, however, praised the "democratic" coup and continued to operate with official blessing...
...I' 1 20 REPORT ON ThE AMERICAS 'S AFL-CIO AIFLD AMOK By HOBART A. SPALDING, JR...
...CONATRAL justified its action on the grounds of "non-involvement in politics...
...Several governments have asked the Institute or its representatives to leave the country, as in Peru in 1971...
...He was formerly the executive director of the SD/USA-influenced League for Industrial Democracy...
...During the struggle to overthrow the dictatorship AIFLD remained aloof, refusing to criticize the government even when the CUS's leader was assassinated by security forces in January 1979...
...With the help of AIFLD trainees, the military regime ousted the legitimate leaders of more than 450 labor organizations...
...In Grenada, pro-AIFLD unions refused to take militant action against the dictatorial and anti-labor regime of Eric Gaiiy...
...CUS membership has dropped to less than 1% of the organized workforce and its role in the recent wave of strikes has been marginal...
...71-5, 86-91...
...AIFLD is not an aberration on the contemporary labor scene, but a logical outgrowth of the foreign policy trajectory followed by the leadership of U.S...
...In reality, the director did no more than other AIFLD field officers in soliciting financial data, political leanings, and other personal information from unionists, sometimes asking fellow workers in effect to act as spies by supplying confidential information...
...interests and set about to destroy the organization it had created...
...24 REPORT ON THE AMERICAS - AFL-CIO Runaway shop in El Salvador...
...It cut real wages by over 20% and reduced strike activity to zero by the early 1970s...
...and Anna Eisner, "Guatemalan Trade Unions, Testing the Waters," NACL,4 Report on the Americas, Vol...
...military did fly AIFLD executive director William Doherty into Grenada immediately after pacification had been completed...
...Nowhere has AIFLD campaigned against economic "free zones" designed to attract foreign capital with tax exemptions, guaranteed low wages, substandard working conditions and a virtual prohibition on union organizing...
...intelligence.' AIFLD's direct or indirect involvement in right-wing coups also raises suspicions...
...In Brazil, for example, Ford Motor Co...
...4 United States to orchestrate a walk-out preventing labor unity at the 1962 Third National Labor Congress and threw its support behind the Democratic Union Movement (MDS) under its motto "God, private property and free enterprise...
...When independent unions came to an AIFLD press conference on recent firings, they were not allowed to present their side of the story.32 A June 1986 White House briefing, however, showed how far AIFLD's game goes beyond such chicanery: The thrust of the USG [U.S...
...The USG support for AIFLD's work with the federation [FOS] pre-supposes the federation's pragmatic AIFLD's tvoe of unionism falls to deliver...
...Over the next two years, the Institute cut off funds, repossessed equipment, conducted slander campaigns and called rump meetings to attempt takeovers of recalcitrant unions...
...Five graduates were later to receive U.S.-based instruction, and others attend advanced courses at home or at a U.S...
...Most unions in the anglophone Caribbean are tied to political parties (or divided between them) and thus, as a Grenadian observer put it: "The more receptive Caribbean labor is to the presence of American investment and management patterns, the more so will be the regional politicians...
...As far and government, the Institute promotes the incorporaas rhetoric is concerned, the Institute now claims to tion of moderate unions into the political system to support the "democratic Left" or "center' ' terms it avoid social upheaval and the emergence of radical uses interchangeably and to oppose the "dictatorial movements...
...7. See Hobart A. Spalding Jr., Organized Labor in Latin America, (New York: Harper and Row, 1977), pp...
...Following the revolution, when the rest of Nicaraguan labor united in a coordinating council, CUS instead linked up to the rightwing business and political party coalition, Ramiro Sacasa Democratic Coordinating Committee, which was soon to lead the internal opposition to the Sandinista government...
...Among other things, AIFLD trainees helped prevent a general strike against the coup by keeping lines of communication open for the military...
...In all three cases AIFLD-supported unions participated in the overthrow of the constituted authorities...
...When the military moved in September 1973, AIFLD-trained maritime and communications workers kept lines open to ease the military's task...
...Jack Clark, a former member of the Young People's Socialist League, is currently active in the Democratic Socialists of America...
...1, 3...
...Further, it founded a counter-confederation its third in six years and charged UNTS leaders with guerrilla ties, a vicious move in a country where death squads regularly roam the streets...
...solicitor-general publicly admitted in January 1981 that two of the Institute's employees working in El Salvador's agrarian reform program "were some kind of undercover persons working under the cover of a labor organization.' '2 Other studies have provided evidence of close cooperation between AIFLD, its allies and U.S...
...42-50, 62-6...
...invasion...
...They also charged that ASTA's president receives a $200 a month AIFLD stipend.19 This case of a phantom union is not unique...
...XVII, no...
...and Chris Searle, Grenada: the Struggle Against Destabilisation (London: Readers and Writers, 1983), pp...
...Georges: Fedon Publishers, 1982), pp...
...Salvador Allende (1970-73...
...In all three cases AWLD-supported unions participated in the overthrow of the constituted authorities.5 In Brazil during the nationalist presidency of Joao Goulart (1961-64), AIFLD flew in operatives from the United States to orchestrate a walk-out preventing labor unity at the 1962 Third National Labor Congress and threw its support behind the Democratic Union Movement (MDS) under its motto "God, private property and free enterprise...
...4 (July/Aug 1987), pp...
...government, it has fotions committed to no political party...
...These dictatorships pursued "developmentalist" pro- E VEN ADMITTING THAT AIFLD SUFFERED an excess of anticommunist zeal in the years after grams which drastically drove down real wages...
...The 4,000-member telecommunications union ASTTEL, which has waged a long and bitter fight against the state-owned company run by the military, is a case in point...
...FOS leader MAY/JUNE 1988 Joseph Senat has been accused by some unionists and human rights activists of spying for Duvalier...
...Shortly before the 1963 military coup that ousted Bosch, CONATRAL paid for a full-page advertisement in a local newspaper calling for the military to save the country from communism...
...AIFLD supports labor colleges on Barbados, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago, and has recently given special courses at the Meany Center in Maryland for select groups of workers from the English-speaking Caribbean...
...Labour Intervention in Latin America: The Case of the American Institute for Free Labour Development," Labour, Capital and Society, Vol...
...But, as the case of El Salvador shows, even in such situations workers eventually balk at AIFLD's agenda, proceeding to form independent organizations to address the crucial political issues AIFLD would prefer they ignore...
...Penn Kemble was a founder of the Democratic Party's Coalition for a Democratic Majority and at times is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute think-tank...
...interests and set about to destroy the organization it had created...
...Despite its public stance against IMF programs, AIFLD defended Duarte's economic policy, intended essentially to make the poor pay for the war...
...AME1?CAI SEORZ'VE I2ESIROYED MY Ut'J IONS AtP GUA1166P SLAVE WAGES FO '/OUR RUN-AWAY SHOPS...
...265-7...
...Over the next two years, the Institute cut off funds, repossessed equipment, conducted slander campaigns and called rump meetings to attempt takeovers of recalcitrant unions...
...For Grenada, see EPICA, Grenada: The Peacefsd Revolution (Washington: EPICA, 1982), pp...
...With this characteristic, the federation can contribute to Haiti's political stability and economic development, It continued: Because of the presence of radical labor unions and the high risk that other unions may become radicalized, the State Department has requested the assistance of the American Institute for Free Labor Development...
...When the workers struck to defend their rightful leadership, the company fired 500 workers, crushing the movement...
...Lane Kirkland did no more than state his support for the union and AIFLD, despite its extensive program in Guatemala, did virtually nothing...
...In the 9-year battle at Guatemala's Coca-Cola bottling plant, three of the union's leaders were assassinated and numerous members and supporters were threatened, beaten, arrested, kidnapped, tortured, shot or forced into exile...
...The USG support for AIFLD's work with the federation (FOS] pre-supposes the federation's pragmatic AIFLD's type of unionism falls to deliver...
...Rather, like the U.S...
...No direct evidence exists of AIFLD involvement in the October 1983 U.S...
...After failing to take over the broad-based Unified Workers Central (CUT), the Institute's allies formed a separate confederation, whose largest affiliate, a Valparaiso-based maritime federation led mostly by AIFLD graduates, put forth as its stated policy "to cooperate with owners and the directors of big business...
...Embassy and AIFLD claim 1,000 members for the officially recognized union ASTA, while ASTTEL workers put the figure at about 50...
...The Institute also provided technical and financial assistance to cover "some basic expenses associated with the development of free trade unions in Haiti...
...In summer 1980 it helped found the Popular Democratic Unity (UPD), which soon became the largest above-ground confederation of labor and peasant unions...
...In fact Grenada's revolutionary labor legislation guaranteed the right to organize based on secret ballot elections, and the government did not intervene in a single union, settling disputes by mediation...
...AIFLD, Report, Vol...
...The half million AIFLD trainees have surely worked to push Latin American labor towards the type of un- ionism the Institute prefers...
...3, 1983, p. 4. 26...
...Carl Gershman, former SD/USA executive director and former deputy to U.N...
...Three ex-ASTA leaders said that only 33 people attended the "mass membership meeting" which elected the executive board...
...Claiming persecution after it was accused of acting as a CIA front, AIFLD pulled out of Nicaragua in 1982...
...of such notorious union-busters as Texas Instruments, Levi Strauss, General Telephone and Electronics and Maidenform, all of which closed plants in the United States and moved to El Salvador in recent years...
...The Institute's 25-year sum- changed political situation in the hemisphere...
...solicitor-general publicly admitted in January 1981 that two of the Institute's employees working in El Salvador's agrarian reform program "were some kind of undercover persons working under the cover of a labor organization.'"2 Other studies have provided evidence of close cooperation between AIFLD, its allies and U.S...
...see also p. 68 for housing program in Argentina...
...Its first massive training of Bolivians came just prior to the 1964 military coup which ended a nationalist regime and installed a government implacably hostile to organized labor.4 Immediately previous to the military takeovers in Chile and Brazil, AIFLD training rose by 400% and 600% respectively...
...Following the revolution, when the rest of Nicaraguan labor united in a coordinating council, CUS instead linked up to the rightwing business and political party coalition, Ramiro Sacasa Democratic Coordinating Committee, which was soon to lead the internal opposition to the Sandinista government...
...By the mid-1970s a series of brutal military dictatorships held sway, which without exception persecuted labor, in many cases even those unionists trained by AIFLD...
...18-22...
...118, 130, 187, 190, 239, 301, 332...
...See Latin America Bureau, Soft Drink, Hard Labour: GuatemaIan Workers Take on Coca-Cola (London: Latin America Bureau, 1987...
...FOS leader Joseph Senat has been accused by some unionists and human rights activists of spying for Duvalier...
...AIFLD Amok 1. See Winslow Peck, "Clandestine Enforcement of U.S...
...XV, no...
...Trotskyism, who, ironically, was expelled from the Communist Party by General Secretary Lovestone in 1927...
...Conversely, policies favorable to the U.S...
...6 Within days of the coup, AFL-CIO director for inter-American affairs, Andrew McLellan, met with the new dictator Gen...
...In Nicaragua the Institute has been active since 1968 when, with Somoza's blessing, it helped establish the Confederation of Trade Union Unity (CUS...
...For a recent statement by AIFLD of its general position, see ibid...
...According to a recent account, "Most of its [FOS] members are in state enterprises and are often unaware that they belong to a union.' ' AIFLD claims, however, that FOS grew to 19 unions in 1986 and that some signed collective bargaining agreements.3 For a three-month period in 1986 AIFLD organized Saturday seminars attended by an average of 15 Haitian unionists, while 20 more participated in a special seminar in Washington...
...CONATRAL justified its action on the grounds of "non-involvement in politics...
...on Guyana, see ibid., pp...
...Along with its liberal allies in business come much more sophisticated in its approach...
...With AIFLD approval, CONATRAL refused to support populist president Juan Bosch even though he allowed labor relative freedom, advocating profit sharing and recognition of majority unions as legitimate bargaining agents...
...Rather, like the U.S...
...Only when the junta clamped down even on AIFLD unionists did the Federation begin to change its tune, condemning the Pinochet government for repressive policies...
...model of trade unionism is appropriate for Latin American economies and societies, an assumption which, in the name of anticommunism, leads it to undermine legitimate labor organizations...
...6 AIFLD has recently concentrated on two major Central American peasant federations the Salvadoran Communal Union (UCS) and the National Association of Honduran Peasants (ANACH} although in 1986 it also worked in five other countries including Guatemala, Panama and Costa Rica.' Its largest rural undertaking has been administering El Sal- vador's controversial land reform program under U.S.AID contract...
...From there they played a small but important role in the early civil rights movement, helped revitalize the League for Industrial Democracy, and argued within the New Left for a policy of anticommunism...
...2 (Sept...
...Also, Phillip Agee, Inside the Company: CIA Diary (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1975), esp...
...of such notorious union-busters as Texas Instruments, Levi Strauss, General Telephone and Electronics and Maidenform, all of which closed plants in the United States and moved to El Salvador in recent years...
...Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Sub-Committee on American Republic Affairs, Survey of the Alliance for Progress...
...New York Times, June 6, 1988, p. D8...
...Weinrub and Bollinger, The AFL-CIO, pp...
...2, no...
...2 2 AIFLD'S OFFICIAL PRONOUNCEMENTS OF opposition to runaway transnational corporations, like its stance on IMF stabilization programs, contrast sharply with its performance in the field...
...When Duarte imposed IMF-inspired budget cuts in January 1986, the UPD joined with the left wing of the labor movement to form the National Unity of Salvadoran Workers (UNTS...
...5, 1983, p. iii-iv...
...Allan Ebert, "Haiti: A Burden Removed, A Burden Renewed," National Reporter...
...Senate, Select Committee to Study Government Operations with respect to Intelligence Activities, Covert Action, 94th Cong., 1st sess., Dec...
...These dictatorships pursued "developmentalist" programs which drastically drove down real wages...
...Embassy and AIFLD claim 1,000 members for the officially recognized union ASIA, while ASTTEL workers put the tigure at about 50...
...During the struggle to overthrow the dictatorship AIFLD remained aloof, refusing to criticize the government even when the CUS's leader was assassinated by security forces in January 1979...
...But AIFLD also shows special interest when lack of organization poses a threat to "stability," as in Haiti after the fall of Baby Doc Duvalier in February 1986...
...Three ex-ASTA leaders said that only 33 people attended the "mass membership meeting" which elected the executive board...
...AIFLD-influenced unions worked against the Popu- lar Unity government on several fronts...
...In recent practice this has meant opposing both tees during the wildcat strikes of the 1970s and early Pinochet and the Sandinistas while supporting social 1980s, when unions could not exist above ground...
...in the 1960s the Institute received grants from foundations later revealed to be CIA conduits...
...Its strength resides in the effectiveness of its bureaucratic networka curious irony, since Schactman's critique of Stalinism focused on the bureaucracy's usurpation of power...
...AIFLD, Annual Meeting, "Activities Report, b) Country Reports, Haiti," unpaginated...
...1984), p. 4. 16...
...Runaway shop in El Salvador...
...While elsewhere AIFLD graduates invariably counsel lowering wage demands, during 1981 several Grenadian unions with AIFLD and ORIT-trained officers demanded wage increases clearly beyond the government's capacity to pay...
...In October of that year, apparently as part of a larger scheme to undermine the government, the AIFLD-trained Technical and Allied Workers leader ordered the island's electrical power shut off...
...9. See Spalding, Organized Labor, pp...
...When the military moved in September 1973, AIFLD-trained maritime and communications workers kept lines open to ease the military's task...
...2 By January 1984 AIFLD seminars were in full swing and the Institute helped organize support for the U.S.backed candidate, Herbert Blaize, in the elections that followed.27 As Grenada demonstrates, no place is too small for AIFLD when progressive forces threaten the investment climate or nationalist governments come to power...
...Early that month the AFL-CIO adopted a resolution condemning "the dictatorship of Maurice Bishop in Grenada . . . for continuing repression and abuse of trade union organizations...
...AIFLD's own account is in AIFLD, Twenty-Five Years, pp...
...A, pp...
...AIFLD is not above bribing union officials, influencing union elections and encouraging governments to destroy those unions and federations that take an independent stance...
...In at least one case, the rank-and-file ousted leaders for such stubborn, anti-government activities...
...NED program from Annual Meeting, "Activities Report, a) General Activities, National Endowment for Democracy...
...Donald Slaiman, deputy director of the AFL-CIO's Department of Organizations and Field Services and SD/USA vice-chairman, is another well-placed member...
...5, 10...
...21, no...
...CUS does maintain ties to the contras through the Democratic Coordinating Committee and union members have been accused of committing acts of industrial sabotage on their behalf...
...By 1973 it had trained be tween 3% and 4% of unionized Chileans and in the 1970s about 5% of those unionized in Colombia and Peru, including most of the leadership of the CGTP, Peru's main confederation.2 And through AJFLD's extensive publishing operation, it touches many more.3 Details on individual country programs are not often available to the public...
...Claiming persecution after it was accused of acting as a CIA front, AIFLD pulled out of Nicaragua in 1982...
...Despite its influence, SD/USA maintains a low profile and has fewer than 1,000 members...
...Embassy and AIFLD claim 1,000 members for the officially recognized union ASTA, while ASTTEL workers put the figure at about 50...
...In Trinidad and Tobago, even the conservative government of Dr...
...When S1TIUSA, the union in El Salvador's largest textile plant, Industrias Unidas, S.A., became a founding member of the UNTS, the Institute tried unsuccessfully to buy the union elections...
...This is so not only because it works to undermine labor unity, but because the type of unionism it espouses fails to deliver...
...By January 1984 AIFLD seminars were in full swing and the Institute helped organize support for the U.S.backed candidate, Herbert Blaize, in the elections that followed.27 As Grenada demonstrates, no place is too small for AIFLD when progressive forces threaten the investment climate or nationalist governments come to power...
...SE*oR,'V r DES-ROYED MY I - _ 20REPORT ON THE AMERICAS c e REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 20 i IIn the Dominican Republic, AIFLD encouraged "democratic" unions to split from the leading confederation, United Workers' Front for Autonomous Trade Unions (FOUPSA), in 1962 and form the National Confederation of Free Workers (CONATRAL...
...In addition, a National Endowment for Democracy grant paid for an education program to create citizen awareness of political rights and free trade unionism.3' The Institute may be up to its old tricks in Haiti...
...DYE WRUNG CONCS)ONS OUT OF YOUR WORKERS, BUSTEP Y0U' UNONS,ANP MOVED YOU1 PLANTS 10 CN1rj...
...When the workers struck to defend their rightful leadership, the company fired 500 workers, crushing the movement.20 In Nicaragua the Institute has been active since 1968 when, with Somoza's blessing, it helped establish the Confederation of Trade Union Unity (CUS...
...8. U.S...
...on Honduras, see Steven Volk, "Honduras: On the Border of War," NACLA Report on the Americas, Vol...
...Focus on the Eastern Caribbean (Albuquerque: The Resource Center, 1984), pp...
...We're going to breed capitalists like rabbits...
...Labor Lawyers' Delegation to Nicaragua, April 1985, mimeo, pp...
...Along with its liberal allies in business and government, the Institute promotes the incorporation of moderate unions into the political system to avoid social upheaval and the emergence of radical movements...
...Government] effort with AIFLD is to make available to interested workers a moderate trade union federation in Haiti...
...When the Institute could not buy loyalty, it encouraged splinter groups to hold dummy elections, after which they received instant government recognition as legal representatives...
...CUS does maintain ties to the contras through the Democratic Coordinating Committee and union members have been accused of committing acts of industrial sabotage on their behalf.22 A IFLD'S OFFICIAL PRONOUNCEMENTS OF opposition to runaway transnational corpora- tions, like its stance on IMF stabilization programs, contrast sharply with its performance in the field...
...WHAT FIAYE You PON TO MAKE Tt-IE WORLP SAFE FOR 6 usIEc...
...cused on those countries where nationalist or leftwing AIFLDm Action 22 REPORT ON THE AMERICAS RF-C4I 04o 4e Am e4c AFL-CIO sole measure for support...
...AIFLD reworked its line in response to a drastically changed political situation in the hemisphere...
...23-4...
...In Trinidad and Tobago, even the conservative government of Dr...
...The 4,000-member telecommunications union ASTTEL, which has waged a long and bitter fight against the state-owned company run by the military, is a case in point...
...3. See, for example, William Blum, The CIA: A Forgotten History (London: Zed Press, 1986), pp...
...The U.S...
...2, no...
...When Duarte imposed IMF-inspired budget cuts in January 1986, the UPD joined with the left wing of the labor movement to form the National Unity of Salvadoran Workers (UNTS...
...Salvador Allende (1970-73...
...Conversely, policies favorable to the U.S...
...It remained "neutral" in the popular uprising of April 1965 and the U.S...
...One AIFLD official even withheld stipends when union members refused to pay dues directly to him...
...Ebert, "Haiti: A Burden," p. 20...
...270-3...
...Labour Intervention," pp...
...The U.S...
...it may even aid capital flight by working to keep labor docile in Central America and the Caribbean...
...The 80,000 workers receive wages averaging about $4 a day...
...10, no...
...They also charged that ASTA's president receives a $200 a month AIFLD stipend.'9 This case of a phantom union is not unique...
...30-31...
...It maintained a presence through its financial support of the CUS, providing it with at least $194,000 from the National Endowment for Democracy in 1984 and 1985.21 The Institute and its allies have been relatively unsuccessful in rallying workers against the gov- ernment...
...Further, it founded a counter-confederation-its third in six years-and charged UNTS leaders with guerrilla ties, a vicious move in a country where death squads regularly roam the streets...
...unionists are raising questions about foreign policy as never before, and this may well mean that the historical line from Gompers to Doherty will soon be altered...
...Recurrent strikes, particularly by truckers clearly financed from the outside, many believe through the CIA 8 helped further disrupt the economy and prepare the way for a coup...
...In the same way that Gompers sought to spread the gospel of bread-andbutter unionism by imposing a labor Monroe Doctrine on the hemisphere, through AIFLD the AFL-CIO works to impose its own version of economic development and labor organization on Latin America's workers...
...It was after the invasion that, according to a government interagency report, AIFLD began "developing an extensive plan to reorient and train the labor leadership...
...For further details, see Weinrub and Bollinger, The AFL-CIO, p. 26...
...95-7...
...In October of that year, apparently as part of a larger scheme to undermine the government, the AIFLD-trained Technical and Allied Workers leader ordered the island's electrical power shut off...
...REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 24Nowhere has AIFLD campaigned against economic "free zones" designed to attract foreign capital with tax exemptions, guaranteed low wages, substandard working conditions and a virtual prohibition on union organizing...
...2. This slip occurred at Agee's trial after the State Department tried to confiscate his passport...
...The U.S...
...of Pennsylvania Press, 1977), p. 117...
...The workers refused...
...interests and set about to destroy the organization it had created...
...One AIFLD official even withheld stipends when union members refused to pay dues directly to him...
...NED director Gershman has funded several SD/USA members to advise unions on foreign policy...
Vol. 22 • May 1988 • No. 3
