Legacy of reaction
Kirkland & the Cold War
By Milt
Neidenberg
Former AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland died on Aug. 14. What
is his legacy? And most importantly, what can be learned by
assessing his leadership, which began in 1979 following the
death of his predecessor, George Meany?
Since the birth of the American Federation of Labor in 1886,
Lane Kirkland was the only president to ever be swept out of
office. The others all died in office, replaced by an heir
apparent--beginning with Samuel Gompers in the mid 1920s.
The significance of Kirkland's resignation must be seen in a
broad historic context.
For the last 60 years, with few exceptions, the labor
leaders were indispensable allies of U.S. imperialism in its
predatory wars. They were the best exponents of the aims of
Washington, Wall Street and the Pentagon.
In World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and right
up to the assault on Yugoslavia, their support has helped
divert billions of dollars away from the economic and social
needs of the workers and poor of all nationalities. In most
cases they encouraged their members to be foot soldiers for the
imperialist objectives.
Patriotism coupled with anti-communist, anti-Soviet frenzy
was deeply entrenched in the labor bureaucracy long before
Kirkland added his contribution. But labor was unprepared for
the reactionary days after World War II.
The passage of the anti-labor Taft-Hartley Act in 1946, only
a year after President Harry Truman ordered the atomic bomb to
be dropped on Japan, was no accident. It was planned by a
Democratic president and a Democratic Congress, and
orchestrated by Wall Street. The message was clear. The
so-called honeymoon was over--both with the Soviet Union and
with the organized labor movement in this country.
The Congress of Industrial Organizations and the AFL, which
had not yet merged, were getting stronger in their struggles
with corporate America. In 1946 they had led over 5,000 strikes
involving 5 million workers.
Taft-Hartley seriously undermined the workers' efforts to
get back in wages and working conditions what they had
sacrificed during World War II. The legislation included
loyalty oaths that led to the purge of thousands of militant
union members, communists and socialists from union offices and
leadership. Twelve unions, mainly the most progressive, were
expelled from the CIO.
The law encouraged states to pass the infamous, anti-labor,
"right to work" scab laws that have made union organizing
difficult to this day, particularly in the South. It outlawed
secondary boycotts that had been successfully used during the
1946 strikes.
In 1959, the Landrum-Griffin law further strengthened the
power of Wall Street and corporate America to intensify their
attacks on the labor movement. Most importantly, it gave big
business the green light to continue its offensive--an
offensive that has gone on now for over 50 years.
Kirkland: Exporting
counter-revolution
Lane Kirkland took over the AFL-CIO presidency in 1979. The
following year President Ronald Reagan took office. One of
Reagan's first executive orders was to fire the air traffic
controllers during the PATCO strike. The air traffic
controllers' union was broken without a word of fight-back from
AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland.
The die was cast. Kirkland was to spend the next 16 years
cooperating and collaborating with Wall Street, Washington and
the Pentagon. He moved the AFL-CIO further in a conservative,
racist and right-wing direction.
He bolstered the forces in the labor movement that aligned
themselves with the Reagan-Bush administration.
It was in foreign policy that Kirkland truly distinguished
himself. His mindset and dogma were centered on the Cold War
policies of each successive administration.
Kirkland restructured the AFL-CIO Department of
International Affairs to carry out U.S. imperialist aims. He
used the DIA to get funds from the Central Intelligence Agency,
State Department, Agency for International Development and
other government bodies in order to export counter-revolution
and other imperialist foreign policy objectives.
Congress created the National Endowment for Democracy, which
financed the DIA and other agencies Kirkland created.
The money involved was greater than the entire AFL-CIO
budget. Kirkland spent more on "anti-subversive" operations in
other countries than the total domestic budget of the
AFL-CIO.
Kirkland built agencies within the DIA. The Free Trade Union
Institute was an overall conduit for dubious funds.
The most prominent agency he created was the American
Institute for Free Labor Development, under the auspices of the
Department of International Affairs. The policies of the AIFLD,
which received millions in taxpayer money, jelled with the
objectives of the CIA--particularly in Latin America and the
Caribbean.
Kirkland also formed the Labor Committee for a Free Cuba to
undermine the Cuban Revolution. He spent millions of dollars to
bribe counter-revolutionaries and anti-Castro groups into
forming a phony trade union in the name of "freedom and
democracy." He followed the same strategy in Costa Rica, El
Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua.
These policies were calculated to undermine the progressive
struggles of workers and peasants who were fighting for
economic and social justice.
In the Dominican Republic and Chile, Kirkland aided
Washington and Wall Street in their drive to carry out
successful coups to replace democratically-elected
governments.
Thousands of Chilean unionists who supported President
Salvador Allende, for example, were rounded up and killed
during the CIA-backed counter-revolution. The AIFLD, with the
blessing of Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet, was then
invited to help train a labor movement under the fascist
junta's control.
Kirkland worked closely with Oliver North's "Project
Democracy" and was part of the Iran-Contra plot that led to the
deaths of thousands of workers and peasants who supported the
Sandinista government in Nicaragua.
But his crowning "success" was the prodigious amount of time
and money he contributed to Solidarity, the anti-communist
union that helped the U.S. overturn the workers' state in
Poland.
This was noted in the Aug. 15 New York Times obituary about
Kirkland's death. None other than Henry Kissinger--the
architect of U.S. imperialist policies, the close confidante to
Nixon, Reagan, and Bush--praised Kirkland's contributions,
saying he had "a big effect on American policy makers."
Kirkland improved on all the labor sins of his predecessors,
particularly George Meany--the Cold-War, right-wing,
conservative union president who once boasted that he had never
walked a picket line.
All this and more is the legacy of AFL-CIO President Lane
Kirkland.
Workers paid the price
The key lesson from Lane Kirkland's tenure as AFL-CIO leader
is that the members suffered heavy losses. This master of
political intrigue and deceit who collaborated with the highest
councils in corporate America and government--Democrats and
Republicans--was unable to wring any concessions from on high
for the many millions in the work force.
On the contrary, Congress passed Clinton's anti-worker trade
agreement, NAFTA. And big business continued to shut down
plants, lay off millions, export factories to exploit workers
and peasants abroad, and accumulate profits at an obscene
rate.
Poverty and racism continued to grow while he was in
office.
As difficult as it may be, the lesson of all this is that
labor must break with the Washington-Wall Street-Pentagon axis
and take the road of independent class struggle along with its
allies in the multinational oppressed communities.
An alliance with the movements for civil rights, women's and
lesbian/gay/bi/ trans liberation would shift the balance of
power dramatically. And the economic and social justice so
desperately needed could become a reality.
In 1995 a rebellion broke out against Kirkland and his
allies in the highest councils of the AFL-CIO. Within months it
was clear his administration was so discredited that he and his
heir apparent, Thomas Donahue, had to go.
Kirkland resigned prior to the 1995 Constitutional
Convention held in New York. Donahue was defeated by John
Sweeney in the presidential election held at that time.
While Kirkland retired in disgrace from the labor movement,
he was not forgotten for his contributions to U.S. imperialism.
He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. And he was
offered the ambassadorship to Poland by President Clinton,
which he declined.
Truly his legacy of reaction must never be forgotten--or
repeated.
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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