International Jout72al of Politics, Culture and Society, VoL 6, No. 3, 1993

The CIA in Nat ional and Internat ional Labor Movements

Herbert Hill

In his introduction to Compromised Campus, Sigmund Diamond writes that "Universities and labor unions are institutions of critical impor- tance to democratic society" and that it was his original intention as a historian to report on "The relations of the FBI and the Universities and the Labor Unions," but that "given the limitations of the evidence," he was forced to limit his study to the universities. He states that, "My greatest regret, as I have said, concerns the absence from this account of the FBI's involvement in the labor movement ." This writer shares Professor Diamond's regret and would note that the activity of the FBI in penetrating labor unions was only a small part of the government's involvement with organized labor, which was far more extensive than Professor Diamond as- sumes. Other government agencies, including the CIA, the Agency for International Development, the National Endowment for Democracy, and the State Department, exerted such an influence on American labor unions as to make them instruments of the national security state.

Examination of recently available research material, including declas- sified government documents and labor union records, confirms that American labor organizations played an important role in implementing U.S. foreign policy by providing a strategic labor base in many parts of the world during the period of the cold war. The leadership of the AFL-CIO and its affiliated international unions, with very few exceptions, were all too eager to serve as the labor representatives of the government's anti- Soviet crusade and this history clearly reveals the corrupting influence of cold war politics upon domestic institutions.

Through the AFL-CIO and its four international units: the Free Trade Union Institute, American Institute for Free Labor Development, African-American Labor Center, and the Asian American Free Labor Institute, U.S. labor unions, since the end of World War II, have been

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deeply involved in overseas activities. Together with the AFL-CIO's Department of International Affairs and the federation's European office, these institutes have engaged in a wide variety of activities involving foreign labor organizations. While some useful assistance has been provided to fledgling labor unions in Third World countries, the main emphasis of AFL-CIO programs has been to prevent the development of independent militant unions abroad and to provide the means whereby the United States can intervene through governmental or private agencies in the affairs of other countries.

Programs sponsored by the AFL-CIO, its constituent institutes and affiliated unions in the name of anti-communism, have undermined foreign labor militancy by providing valuable assistance, including extensive finan- cial support to compliant labor movements that serve the interests of the U.S. government and the needs of American controlled multi-national corporations.

The crucial point in understanding the AFL-CIO's foreign activities, directed by the federation's International Affairs Department and imple- mented by its four separate labor institutes, is that they are almost entirely funded by the United States government. The funds have often been chan- ne led through the U.S. Informat ion Agency and the Agency for International Development. In addition, substantial funds have passed to AFL-CIO operations through the National Endowment for Democracy. Government funds have also been made available for specific projects such as the grant to the Education Fund of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, an arm of the AFL-CIO, to sponsor a labor conference in South Africa in 1985. This conference, addressed by representatives of American corpora- tions with extensive holdings in South Africa, endorsed the Reagan administration's policy of limited sanctions and urged support for "moder- ate" labor leaders. A significant aspect of the relationship between the AFL-CIO and the government is that the labor federation's International Affairs Department has long had what amounts to veto power over the selection of labor attaches for the Foreign Service of the United States and also of labor representatives of the Agency for International Develop- ment, the large bureaucracy that conducts the country's foreign aid programs.

Typical of the actions that the AFL-CIO has engaged in are the following:

Using CIA funds, it paid for the services of the criminal underworld to break strikes on the docks of Marseilles, when longshoremen refused to work on American ships carrying military equipment.

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It provided financial and other forms of support for conservative groups seeking control of the German unions in opposition to leftist elements.

Using CIA funds, it financed a general strike intended to overthrow the radical Cheddi Jagan government in British Guiana.

It and its client unions in the Dominican Republic helped to organize the coup against Juan Bosch and later supported American intervention to prevent his return to power.

It promoted divisions and organizational splits in the French and Italian labor movements.

It helped to place in power reactionary union leaders in Greece. It has been the major supporter in the world labor movement of American

intervention in Vietnam, Cuba, the Congo and elsewhere. In all of these operations, the CIA has played a major role. CIA

agents have been placed in unions and CIA funds have financed a ma- jor part of U.S. labor's foreign operations. In addition, the activities of some organizations peripheral to the labor unions have also been fi- nanced, in part or whole, by the CIA and used as a cover for CIA agents.

For many years, monthly checks from CIA conduit agencies were sent to the president of an AFL-CIO union, who endorsed the checks over to an international labor organization which financed operations in all parts of the world. Significantly, the leadership of the AFL-CIO and the affiliated unions involved in such activities, lied to their own members and to workers and union leaders abroad, as they repeatedly denied receiving government funds and denied their connections with agencies of the state. It was, of course, essential to the government that cooperative labor leaders retain their positions of authority, and government agencies secretly provided as- sistance in many contexts. In at least one case, well known in labor circles, the election of a new leadership resulted in the removal of CIA personnel from union staff positions and the organization ceased to function as a conduit for the CIA.

Sigmund Diamond's book makes a valuable contribution in docu- menting the collaboration of academic leaders and institutions with government intelligence agencies in the decade after World War II. But this is only a small part of a much larger history in which the most impor- tant institutions of American society were brought into conformity with the requirements of the national security state. These activities, which corrupted many institutions, continued under both Democratic and Republican admini- strations and invite an investigation even more extensive than the one Professor Diamond conducted on the universities.