Episode 50: US Labor Unions, Anti-Communism and the Global Cold War with Jeff Schuhrke

On today's episode we discuss the book Blue Collar Empire: The Untold Story of US Labor's Global Anticommunist Crusade with author Jeff Schuhrke.

Blue-Collar Empire explores how the CIA used American unions to undermine workers at home and subvert democracy abroad through 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.

Jeff Schuhrke is a labor historian, journalist, union activist, and assistant professor at the Harry Van Arsdale Jr. School of Labor Studies, SUNY Empire State University in New York City. He is a frequent contributor to In These Times and Jacobin, and his scholarship has been published at Diplomatic History and Labor: Studies in Working-Class History.

Episode image: President Richard Nixon gestures toward labor leader George Meany during a speech at the 1971 AFL-CIO convention. (Wally McNamee / Corbis via Getty Images)