The International History of the AFL-CIO during the Cold War (original) (raw)
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It's time to come clean: open the AFL-CIO archives on international labor operations
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Workers and world order: the tentative transformation of the international union movement
Review of International Studies, 2000
The activity of workers' organizations and labour issues is once again on the international relations agenda in fields ranging from labour standards at the WTO, to the terms of regional integration, to corporate codes of conduct, to civil society coalition building. This article argues that the role of the international union movement is transforming from a supporter of US capitalism to a brake on neoliberal industrial relations, to potentially advocating a different form of political economy in alliance with other groups. This transformation has taken place partially because unions have has been expelled from the corridors of power in key states and partially because of their encounter with a series of social movements. The cases of the ICFTU's activity in engaging international organizations and MNCs are used as examples to illustrate this trend. The implications for activity in, and the theory of, the global political economy are potentially significant. of US withdrawal. 7 For its part, US organized labour, as represented by the AFL-CIO, supported the government position by actively undermining foreign labour activity premised upon more confrontational or redistributive principles. 8 During the Cold War era most Western unions participated in what Maier calls the politics of productivity. 9 This refers to the political practice of subsuming class conflict by ensuring growth and productivity gains in the economy. It reflected a belief that proper technical management of the economy would create the conditions for prosperity which would eliminate the need for harmful distributional battles. The origins of the policy can be traced back to the uneasy compromise between labour and business that emerged from the Depression and the war-time experience of planning.