Book Review: Blue Collar Empire—The Untold Story of US Labor’s Global Anticommunist Crusade

Blue Collar Empire joins several books in recent years to highlight the US’s staunch anti-communist stance on the world stage (The Jakarta Method by Vincent Bevins immediately comes to mind) and the various means by which it manipulated foreign unions and even used American union leaders to wage their cold war abroad. With institutions like the Free Trade Union Committee (FTUC), International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD) and through splitting various trade unions abroad to then rebrand them as being “free”, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) played a vital role in US foreign policy and the Cold War.

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), another CIA cutout that the AFL-CIO had ties with, worked within Poland helping to fund Solidarności (Solidarity). As noted in the book however, this stance did not just start post WWII but was rather a trait of the trade unions going all the way back to the AFL’s first president, Samuel Gompers. Many figures from history including Walter Reuther of the United Auto Workers (UAW), Jay Lovestone (National Secretary of the Communist Party USA from 1927-29), and Irving Brown (International Relations for the AFL-CIO) would be useful allies to the CIA during this time.

Before the AFL-CIO merger in 1955, the CIO was considered more radical and communist friendly than the AFL had traditionally been. Where the AFL was unwilling to organize industrially, was beholden to strictly craft unionism, and would not organize black workers—the CIO stepped in. After the merger, many unions started expelling their communist (and other militant) members amidst the deepening ties between the AFL-CIO and the CIA. The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) was one of those unions deemed “communist friendly” since they were not willing to expel Communists (or this they would be expelled by the CIO at its Eleventh Convention in 1949) and as such was subject to raids by the UAW (and CIO created IUE) resulting in losing the majority of their membership and almost being destroyed.

There is a consistent pattern that appears when studying US intervention in internal affairs of other countries. When militant unions were on the rise and were willing to work with the Soviet Union, organizations were deemed “Communist dominated” and work was done to create a split in these organizations which would lead to weakening the labor movement in a given country. In France, the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) was split, forming the Force Ouvrière (Workers Force) in 1947. In Italy, the Italian General Confederation of Labor (CGIL) was split and two groups, the Free General Confederation of Italian Labor (LGCIL) and Italian Federation of Labor would merge to become the Italian Confederation of Trade Unions (CISL). This story appears in countries from Europe, Africa, Latin America, and more. The story of Indonesia and the genocide that unfolded resulting in approximately 1 million people killed due to CIA and AFL-CIO involvement is a tragic backdrop and a testament to the ends that the US was (and is) willing to go in its anti-communist crusade.

In 1991, with the counter-revolution in the USSR and the United States “winning” the cold war and the AFL-CIO having rid itself of its most militant members for decades, would see a decline in union membership around the country as union density decreased. The fight for workers rights had taken a backseat during the cold war years in favor of anti-communism. But like the book concludes, to this day the fight still continues for militancy in and outside the AFL-CIO.