Blue-Collar Empire

Description

The Untold Story of US Labor’s Global Anticommunist Crusade

By Jeff Schuhrke
Verso

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

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

“In this comprehensive and consequential study, Jeff Schuhrke sheds light on the often nefarious international agenda of the AFL-CIO. During the Cold War, as Schuhrke documents, the top leaders of the U.S. labor establishment, driven by fervent and indiscriminate anti-communism, helped sabotage nascent union movements in countries across the globe. In doing so, the AFL-CIO undermined cross-border working class unity and bolstered multinational corporate power. Blue-Collar Empire thus offers much vital information and insight, both for scholars seeking to understand the rise and decline of the 20th century labor movement, and for union activists working today to build (or re-build) international networks of solidarity.”—Toni Gilpin, author of The Long Deep Grudge: A Story of Big Capital, Radical Labor, and Class War in the American Heartland

“If you have ever heard the derisive term “AFL-CIA,” you will want to read Jeff Schuhrke’s new book. In Blue Collar Empire, Schuhrke, a long time labor journalist and scholar, lays out the entire disturbing history of the American labor movement’s decades of close involvement in anticommunist crusades around the world. The reality of the AFL-CIO’s ties with the Cold War, the CIA, and America’s bloody foreign policy is, I assure you, much more astounding than you might think.”—Hamilton Nolan, author of The Hammer: Power, Inequality, and the Struggle for the Soul of Labor

“Schuhrke has done a truly remarkable job simply telling us in detail about the AFL and the AFL-CIO operations around the world during these years. He has weaved together a sprawling, extremely complicated chain of events that extend around the world, and over roughly a 50 year period … A tour de force, this book should be read by every trade unionist and people studying US global operations over these years.”—Kim Scipes, author of Building Global Labor Solidarity in a Time of Accelerating Globalization

“An invaluable contribution to the field, essential for curious novices and specialists alike.”—Henry De Groot, Cosmonaut