The following article was originally delivered at the Historians against the War Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, April 11-13, 2008.
Appearance and essence: “If appearance always coincided with reality, then science would be superfluous.” (Marx) And, we might add, so would historical research. Is the essence of the American labor movement really different from labor around the world? Was U.S. labor monolithically pro-Cold War?
We should begin by remembering two meetings 55 years apart. Actually we should consider three, but let’s start with the most recent.
In the summer of 2005, the AFL-CIO convention in Chicago passed a groundbreaking resolution. After several speakers rose to argue vigorously for a “friendly amendment”, the convention called for the “rapid” withdrawal of US Troops from Iraq. The vote was overwhelming and brought loud cheers from the assembled delegates. This was the first time in the organization’s fifty year history that it took a position on an international issue in opposition to official U.S. foreign policy. The role that a relative newcomer to the labor scene—an organization called US Labor Against the War or USLAW—played in bringing about this change deserves scrutiny. But first, a look backward would be helpful. Neither the 2005 Iraq resolution nor USLAW simply appeared out of nowhere.
The ‘05 convention presents a stark contrast to the same organization’s convention 40 years earlier. At its 1965 gathering, the organization’s 928 delegates had voted—unanimously for the record, although at least one speaker rose to challenge the resolution—to support the Johnson Administration in whatever efforts it deemed necessary [including escalating the war as the Administration was in the process of doing] to halt the “Communist aggression” in Vietnam. However, the apparent unanimity did not reflect the divided and more mixed sentiments of union families that poll results were soon to show. [Tables 1, 2]
Now, reach back 15 more years to January 1950. Picture the youthful, combative secretary treasurer of the CIO speaking to a hall full of representatives of national organizations about labor and world affairs. His presence at the meeting, while not given prominent coverage, was mentioned in two New York papers. The Times reported that he spoke, but discreetly ignored his most provocative words. The Herald Tribune on page 16, down in the story, reported that James Carey had said, among other things, “In the last war, we joined the Communists to fight the fascists; in another war, we will join with the fascists to fight the Communists.”
Carey’s remarks seem to have caused hardly a ripple or a raised eyebrow among his conservative listeners. The nearly 200 people in the room represented organizations claiming some 50 million American members. The occasion was the “All American Conference”, called in an atmosphere of looming crisis, hosted by the American Legion and including delegates from the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Medical Association. In regard to Carey’s remarks and labor’s participation, however, the Herald Tribune report generated more of a response from many in and around the union movement than had his actual speech.
Anxious inquiries came from sources on the left in U.S. labor and from as far away as Switzerland. The questions may be paraphrased as follows: “How could the CIO Secretary Treasurer say such a thing barely five years after so many Americans had given their lives in, or returned from, the most destructive war in history—fighting fascism around the globe? Why had he appeared on the same platform as noted anti-labor figures? Was he speaking for his 2 million member organization, and was that body calling for war?” Attempts to explain were forthcoming, but never a denial.
The Secretary Treasurer’s remarks suggested the dilemma facing US trade unionists at the time, given the seismic changes on the world political scene over the previous five years. By January 1950 the nation claiming the title of “first workers’ state” (in the form of the USSR) was, in the view of most of the delegates at the Legion Conference, threatening democracy everywhere, including in the US. Changes around the globe were presented in the commercial media as dire threats to the security of Americans: The “fall of China”, the Soviet A-bomb, Czechoslovakia’s new government in the winter of 1948. And, of course, when Carey appeared at the Legion conference, the outbreak of war on the Korean peninsula was just five months away. And the CIO had Communists in it. Was labor the Reds’ “Fifth Column” in the US?
Finding themselves on the defensive, labor leaders faced difficult choices—how could they push their ambitious domestic social program? How could they maintain the influence—and the “respectability”--of their new organization in this environment so quickly altered since the end of the war? US labor’s solution to the problem was not complicated. Depending on one’s point of view, the decisions of dominant union leaders were either opportunistic and short sighted on the one hand, or, on the other, pragmatic. They made a deal. While the organizing drives and experience gained during the ‘30s and ‘40s meant that labor had built up enough clout to bargain, in a general sense, with corporate America, the dominant leaders of the CIO saw hard slogging ahead for their social and economic agenda in the new threatening Cold War environment. So the deal was in effect, “You can have unions; but you will help us hunt Communists.” Or maybe, “You will join the crusade against Communism, here and around the world; this will, of course, entail supporting our imperial foreign policy.” Pinpointing the moment when the deal was struck is not easy, and not really the point. Was it when the CIO executive council voted to endorse Harry Truman’s candidacy in early 1948? Or was it when that body decided to “go to bat” for the Marshall Plan around the same time? In any case, the policy was in place by the time Carey made his remarks to the Legion conference.
For the leaders of the CIO, agreeing to the deal proved easier than carrying out their part. From the expulsion of the “left led” (or alternatively “Communist dominated” or “red run”) unions from the CIO in November 1949 until the AFL-CIO merger in December 1955 on the basis of the anti-Communist crusade—that is, on the basis of supporting the Cold War—was six years. The period was characterized by intense fratricidal warfare in the US labor movement; by war abroad on the other side of the planet; by Congressional investigations, legal hassles and even physical violence directed at the “left” unions. Despite efforts of large employers, government agencies, Congressional committees, the Catholic Church and right wingers in the labor movement, the process of bringing labor into line behind a domestic and international Cold War program did not go smoothly, and was in fact, never completed or consolidated.
The merger of the two largest labor centers did bring a kind of unity to labor. It was powerful enough to get corporate America nervous. The prospect of 15 million workers in one organization, even one based on Cold War assumptions, did not go down easily on Wall Street. But, for the most part, the merger went forward as planned and the new body took its place in the constellation of Cold War politics in the US.
Viewed from another perspective, however, the merger rested on the shakiest ground, and the new order in labor looked suspiciously like an AFL takeover after 20 years of warfare. The bogus “consensus” in labor lasted a little over a decade. In fact, the 1965 convention and the Administration’s heavy handed performance there showed how clearly the AFL-CIO leaders and the Administration understood their tenuous position. By the early 1970s and the US withdrawal from Vietnam, the labor consensus had unraveled completely, as shown by the refusal of the Meany leadership to impose a position on labor during the 1972 Nixon-McGovern election.
Given this assertion, one might reasonably ask what exactly was going on between 1973 and 2005. This is a fair question, but the answer is that much was going on. The National Committee for Trade Union Action and Democracy (NCCTUAD) or TUAD founded by rank and file activists—including experienced old timers as well as younger workers—founded around 1970 is a notable example. And there were prominent leaders who worked to clear the atmosphere of the fog of Cold War obfuscation. Think of William Winpisinger of the IAM who not only kept the issue alive in his own union, but left a legacy in the wider labor movement by helping to found Jobs with Justice (JwJ) which today plays a nationwide role with chapters in many cities which work to build labor-community ties.
So, it may be true that much was percolating in the ranks, but what about most of the leaders? That took longer; in 1985 a group of progressive leaders was able to get a resolution through the AFL-CIO convention protesting the threats to Latin American trade unionists from US connected and funded forces. Of course, it would be another ten years until the election of the Sweeney-Trumka-Chavez Thompson team to the leadership of the AFL-CIO (1995); then eight more until the founding of USLAW. And all the while the US manufacturing base continued to shrink, “good paying” jobs to evaporate along with it as the “mainstream” labor leadership (at least up until the 1995 change) continued to support a foreign policy which, as is now obvious, did not well serve the interests of too many of their members. But the evidence is that there is another tradition in our labor movement: one with a rich storehouse of experience on which we can draw—and are drawing today. This is necessary because labor leaders, with some notable exceptions, continue to approach foreign policy matters with extreme care; some would say reluctance and hesitation. Witness for example the enigmatic role of Solidarity Center in today’s environment.
This brings us to the role of USLAW. In January 2003 a group of 125 labor leaders from around the nation, spurred by the Bush Administration’s gathering drive to war, met at the hall of Teamsters Local 705 in Chicago. From this founding meeting, through two follow-up national conferences the organization had, by the summer of 2005, grown into a coalition of some 110 unions, central labor councils, state federations, local unions and other labor organizations. It has since continued to gain member organizations and influence. We should consider the factors that are driving the anti-war impulse in the labor movement and that brought USLAW into being at this time.
1. The current administration in Washington: its conservative Republican character means that masses of workers have no problem relating the Bush team’s anti-worker domestic policies to its aggressive, reckless and wasteful foreign policy. This puts labor in a very different situation than in the 1960s when a Democratic administration undertook imperialist moves abroad but still put forward a domestic policy that appealed to labor. During the 2004 election, while the AFL-CIO’s unprecedented mobilization to defeat George Bush was based entirely on domestic issues, USLAW was able to continue to raise the issue of the war without being labeled diversionary, and some national unions passed resolutions opposing the war.
2. The leadership of the AFL-CIO, while not emphasizing or even taking on the war as a major issue, has not isolated or ostracized or attacked the anti-war sentiment in the unions or the organized voice of that sentiment in the form of USLAW.
3. The experience of many of today’s union leaders and activists, who came of age during the Vietnam years. This generation of labor leaders includes Vietnam War veterans and former anti-war activists from the 1960s. In the words of one member of the USLAW steering committee, “They bring hard won experience, distrust of government pronouncements, and a basic understanding of the geopolitical interests of the U.S. ruling class” that too many labor leaders lacked or did not show in the 1960s.
4. The end of the Cold War. While the basic geopolitical interests and outlook of the US ruling class may not have changed, the geopolitical situation has. This is a point that needs further discussion.
After its five years of work, the role and the significance of USLAW might be assessed as follows: It functions as a caucus in organized labor, with members in both the AFL-CIO and Change to Win, and gives voice to the anti-war sentiment among workers.
Represents a much larger body of opinion/ sentiment extending far beyond its formal organization. The impulse for ending the Iraq War is much broader than the organized entity known as USLAW.
The process that led to the AFL-CIO Iraq resolution in the summer of 2005 demonstrates both of the above points. The Iraqi-US Labor Solidarity Tour which brought six senior Iraqi union leaders to the US in June of that year was sponsored by USLAW. The Iraqis, traveling in teams of two, visited 25 US cities and provided American workers an opportunity to see and hear for themselves what Iraqi workers had to say about the war and occupation. Meeting directly with workers from another country outside of any US Government sponsored setting was a new experience for Americans and helped prepare the groundwork for the discussion that took place at the Convention.
By the eve of the convention, the AFL-CIO leadership had received resolutions from all over the country on the Iraq war. Some came from central labor councils and some from national unions. The resolution from the Philadelphia CLC, to take one example, was actually an updated version of one the council originally passed in January of 2003, opposing the war before it started. That resolution had in turn been written by the council’s “Iraq Committee”, established and appointed by council president Pat Eiding at the urging of several members. The Iraq Committee included representatives from ten Philadelphia unions, three of which sent representatives to the USLAW assembly in the fall. The Philadelphia resolution which went to the national in 2005, therefore, had input from individuals who became active in USLAW, but it also reflected the sentiments of broader sections of the labor movement.
At the 2005 convention, despite the widespread calls for troop withdrawal, the resolution reported out of committee to the full AFL-CIO convention called for withdrawal at the “earliest possible” time. In other words, the resolution originally put before the convention, even in 2005, was worded safely and with an eye to avoiding making waves in the area of foreign policy.
USLAW, however, did not miss a beat. Because of the work the organization had already done and because of its savvy preparation, it was able to tap into and galvanize the sentiment among the delegates for a more assertive resolution. Its activists buttonholed delegates, met with delegations, hosted a reception and distributed literature. When the “friendly amendment” to the resolution was proposed, changing the wording from “withdraw as soon as possible” to “withdraw rapidly”, delegates lined up at the microphones to support it. As we have seen, this represented a culmination of two years of work by the organization.
The organization continues to grow and today represents nearly 200 labor bodies including affiliates from 20 different national unions in the form of locals and state federations as well as regional, state and local labor councils. USLAW’s membership is concentrated in public sector unions and unions representing workers in social service such as AFSCME, AFT, and SEIU. Opposition to the Iraq war is driven in part by the war’s economic and social costs at home, and public sector unions are among the workers bearing the brunt of increasingly tight budgets at the state and local level. USLAW, in common with Cold War opponents in the labor movement over half a century ago, calls for the redirection of resources away from weapons programs and into programs such as public education, healthcare and transportation. USLAW members who work in education have formed Educators to Stop the War (ESW), which is developing teaching and curriculum materials, including the lesson plan booklet accompanying the DVD, “Meeting Face to Face: The Iraq-US Labor Solidarity Tour”. In the words of one USLAW educator/activist
USLAW seeks to promote a labor foreign policy that would establish real international solidarity with unions and workers in Iraq and across the globe, who have demonstrated in their millions against American unilateral military aggression, continuing occupation, and the neoliberal agendas of “structural adjustment” and privatization of these economies.
Some conclusions we might pose:
The US working class is dynamic and changing—as it always has been. Politicians (and labor leaders) would do well to take account of this basic truth.
Workers will respond to principled leadership, which sometimes only becomes clear in the longer term.
3) The American working people have much to gain from seeing their movement in international terms.
Some questions to ponder going forward:
1) The “conventional wisdom” has been that the broader, deeper character of the CIO, as compared to the AFL, changed, at least temporarily, organized labor’s outlook on global as well as domestic matters. The 1935-45 decade witnessed explosive growth in numbers and influence as workers of varying skill levels, ethnic and racial backgrounds, African American and immigrant workers streamed into the house of organized labor. And the CIO did show a different international approach as evidenced by its active participation in the founding of the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) in 1945. How will the more recent changes in the make up and the nature of the US working class influence labor’s international stance? Think of the massive unprecedented demonstrations of immigrant workers during the spring of 2006. Think of the changes in the US and global economy and the disappearance of so many US manufacturing jobs over the last decades of the 20th century.
2) Suppose a new administration in Washington (perhaps a Democratic administration) takes a more labor friendly stance at home but continues to pursue an imperialist policy abroad. What will be the response of the US labor movement?
Table 1: Public Opinion Poll Results: The Vietnam War
Poll results showed that working people, including union members, were divided in their opinions on the war by the mid 1960s. A Gallup Poll report in the New York Times on January 3, 1968 presented a markedly different picture than the “unanimous” support accorded the Administration war policies at the 1965 and 1967 AFL-CIO conventions. The questions were asked of “adults in union member families.”
“Do you approve or disapprove of the way President Johnson is handling the situation in Vietnam?”
Approve
Disapprove
No opinion
National
39
49
12
Union families
47
43
10
According to the poll, union families were, by the beginning of 1968, more likely to approve of the Johnson Vietnam policy than the general population, but only by a narrow margin. Union members apparently found it difficult to put themselves on record against Administration policies because labor considered the Johnson domestic program, except for the wage guidelines, worthy of strong support. See, for example, the NYT February 3, 1968 (p.6) for an account of George Meany’s filmed conversation with Johnson at the White House intended as a campaign piece.
Table 2: Public Opinion Poll Results: the Vietnam War
By mid 1969, workers in “manual” or “blue collar” occupations favored withdrawing troops more strongly than those in “professional or business” categories. Continuing the pattern shown in polls 16 years earlier regarding Korea, respondents with less formal education were more likely to favor withdrawing troops.
“Would you favor or oppose withdrawing all of our troops from Vietnam immediately as suggested by some of our Senators?”
Education level
Favor
Oppose
No opinion
College
21
72
5
High School
30
63
7
Grade School
35
48
17
Occupation
Favor
Oppose
No opinion
Professional/Business
23
70
7
White collar
25
68
7
Farmers
36
48
16
Manual
32
61
7
“Should we begin to reduce, month by month, the number of soldiers in Vietnam?”
Education level
Favor
Oppose
No opinion
College
57
27
16
High School
59
29
16
Grade School
61
21
18
Occupation
Favor
Oppose
No opinion
Professional/Business
55
27
18
White collar
59
25
13
Farmers
54
23
23
Manual
61
25
14
Source: Gallup Opinion Index, Princeton, New Jersey, Report no. 49, July 1969, p. 11.
Notes:
1. AFL-CIO, Sixth Constitutional Convention Proceedings, pp. 126-133, 562-575. The Convention opened with speeches by Vice President Humphrey and Secretary of State Dean Rusk.
2. New York Herald Tribune, January 29, 1950, p.16; IUE Papers, Rutgers University, Box 1”Speeches, Statements and Addresses of James B. Carey”, file folder 11.
3. See John Bennett Sears, “Labor Opposition to the Cold War: The Electrical Unions and the Cold War Consensus,” Unpublished PhD dissertation, Temple University, 1988, pp. 52-75 for the CIO’s decision to give active support to the Marshall Plan.
4. New York Times, December 7, 1955, p. 43; December 10, 1955, p. 1.
5. Sears, “Labor Opposition”, chapter 8.
6. See for example Harry Kelber, “AFL-CIO’s Dark Past: Do Solidarity Center’s Covert Operations Help American Labor on Global Problems?” The Labor Educator, December 13, 2004, www.laboreducator.org/.
7. While the attendance at the first meeting indicated the breadth and the level of anti-war sentiment currently existing in the labor movement, it is also true that one can find direct links to the resisters who were active during the early Cold War years. For instance, one of USLAW’s original organizers was Amy Newell, former UE organizer, former general secretary treasurer of the union, and the daughter of UE organizers Charles and Ruth Newell.
8. See Michael Zweig, “Iraq and the Labor Movement: The Remarkable Story of USLAW” at www.USLaboragainstthewar.com/ for a discussion of the reasons for USLAW’s success with a slightly different emphasis.
9. The tour was recorded in the DVD “Meeting Face to Face” available from USLAW.
10. Philadelphia Inquirer, January 17, 2003, p. A14, “Labor is opposing a possible Iraq War”.
11. The unions represented on the Philadelphia CLC Committee on Iraq were, in addition to the Council itself: International Longshoreman’s Association (ILA) local 1291; American Federation of Teachers (AFT) locals 3 and 2026; American Postal Workers Union; AFSCME local 1971 and district 1199C (Hospital Workers); Building Trades Council; Communications Workers of America (CWA) local 38010; HERE local 274 (whose representative opposed the resolution); United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) local 1776.
12. Zweig, “The Remarkable Story of USLAW”, p. 4.
