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Blue-Collar Empire: The Untold Story of US Labor's Global Anticommunist Crusade
The untold history of how the CIA used American unions to undermine working-class militancy at home and abroad during the Cold War
There is power in a union. Not only the power to secure pay raises and employee benefits but also the power 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.
To subvert overseas unions, Washington found an enthusiastic partner in the AFL-CIO’s anticommunist officials, who for decades expended incredible energy trying to block revolutionary ideologies and militant class consciousness from taking hold in the workers’ movements of Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia.
Blue-Collar Empire tells the sweeping story of the AFL-CIO’s global anticommunist crusade—and the devastating consequences for workers at home and abroad.
There is power in a union. Not only the power to secure pay raises and employee benefits but also the power 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.
To subvert overseas unions, Washington found an enthusiastic partner in the AFL-CIO’s anticommunist officials, who for decades expended incredible energy trying to block revolutionary ideologies and militant class consciousness from taking hold in the workers’ movements of Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia.
Blue-Collar Empire tells the sweeping story of the AFL-CIO’s global anticommunist crusade—and the devastating consequences for workers at home and abroad.
352 pages, Paperback
First published September 24, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
October 17, 2024
The most important Labor History book written in years. I've been following Jeff Schuhrke's incredible work for outlets like Jacobin for years and to see his research assembled here is a bit intimidating in the scope it manages to cover in fewer than 300 pages. This damning history of the betrayal of the global working class by the top leaders of US Labor in the name of anticommunism is absolutely crucial for all organizers in the US to study. We must know our failures if we are to overcome them, and this book should instigate a reckoning. US labor has a chance now, as our government carries out a regional genocide, to finally break from imperialism and stand with our fellow workers around the world. The history presented here is absolutely critical for enabling that process. And it's a great read too!
An absolute must.
An absolute must.
August 25, 2024
Relentless endeavor to link the AFL-CIO and postwar labor fuckery to the CIA. All the names, dates, and organizations you'll ever need to understand how the intelligence apparatus strangled solidarity around the world, especially in South America; in pursuit of empire. Reads like a textbook, which is tough, but you'll get an anecdote just often enough. Great reference for anyone who is wondering what the hell happened to their paid lunch hour.
April 7, 2025
book club book <3
October 6, 2024
This is a very even-handed, just-the-facts narrative of the AFL-CIA period, that also finds some space to profile internal union opposition to the status quo. Schuhrke's research is pretty thorough, and he manages to avoid simply knocking on union leadership as just a bunch of Meanies and Lovestones. This replaces Ronald Radosh's "American Labor and United States Foreign Policy" as the essential book on the subject.
August 30, 2024
In his new book Blue Collar Empire the labor historian, journalist, and union activist Jeff Schuhrke documents how many AFL and CIO leaders actively conspired with the U.S. government to undermine militant unions around the world. Indeed, they were not only willing participants in the government’s crusade against so-called “communist” unions, but in some cases were even more enthusiastic about that crusade than the government itself.
AFL-CIO leaders carried out this crusade in the name of what they called “free trade unionism.” They argued that militant, “communist-dominated” unions were not really fighting for the interests of their members, but were secretly working on behalf of foreign governments to impose a “totalitarian” political agenda. In contrast, they claimed, “free” trade unions like those in the U.S. were independent of government influence and a force for democracy.
As Schuhrke’s detailed history shows, however, the American Federation of Labor — which established a “Free Trade Union Committee” in 1944 to carry out its international work — had close ties with the U.S. government going back at least to World War I, when AFL President Samuel Gompers worked closely with President Woodrow Wilson and corporate leaders to suppress labor opposition to the war.
Schuhrke expertly guides the reader through the dizzying array of committees, confederations, agencies, institutes, centers and foundations set up by the AFL-CIO and the U.S. government over the decades to split (or directly suppress) militant labor movements and undermine pro-worker governments around the world. He also provides concise, and often heartbreaking, accounts of their “accomplishments” in various countries.
In the final section of the book, “Free Market Revolution,” Schuhrke makes it clear what the consequences were for U.S. workers of the labor movement’s anticommunist crusade.
The section begins with an account of the AFL-CIO’s role in the 1973 military coup that overthrew the democratically-elected government of Chile. Work stoppages by associations of professional workers, which were given lavish support by the AFL-CIO’s “American Institute for Free Labor Development,” were used by General Augusto Pinochet to justify the military coup he led on September 11, 1973. Following the coup, Pinochet’s government not only murdered thousands of trade unionists, it also embarked on a thorough imposition of “neoliberal” economics, privatizing the public sector, slashing safety nets, and suppressing unions.
This economic approach would be brought back to the U.S. less than ten years later with the government of Ronald Reagan. Reagan’s policies of union-busting, economic deregulation and free trade decimated the U.S. labor movement and ushered in more than four decades of corporate globalization. The mainstream of the U.S. labor movement, used to seeing the U.S. government and corporations as partners, and militant unions in other countries as enemies to be undermined, not brothers and sisters in struggle, was unable to respond in any meaningful way.
Ultimately, as Schuhrke writes in his introduction, leaders of the AFL-CIO “chose to be partners in the making of an unequal international order dominated by capital.” There is, of course, another choice that unions can make — the choice of genuine international solidarity between workers, which has always been made by more progressive unions like my own union (UE) and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). Blue Collar Empire is a compelling account of the costs that workers everywhere in the world paid for the wrong choice, and the importance of making the right one going forward.
(This is an abridged version of a longer review I wrote for the UE NEWS.
AFL-CIO leaders carried out this crusade in the name of what they called “free trade unionism.” They argued that militant, “communist-dominated” unions were not really fighting for the interests of their members, but were secretly working on behalf of foreign governments to impose a “totalitarian” political agenda. In contrast, they claimed, “free” trade unions like those in the U.S. were independent of government influence and a force for democracy.
As Schuhrke’s detailed history shows, however, the American Federation of Labor — which established a “Free Trade Union Committee” in 1944 to carry out its international work — had close ties with the U.S. government going back at least to World War I, when AFL President Samuel Gompers worked closely with President Woodrow Wilson and corporate leaders to suppress labor opposition to the war.
Schuhrke expertly guides the reader through the dizzying array of committees, confederations, agencies, institutes, centers and foundations set up by the AFL-CIO and the U.S. government over the decades to split (or directly suppress) militant labor movements and undermine pro-worker governments around the world. He also provides concise, and often heartbreaking, accounts of their “accomplishments” in various countries.
In the final section of the book, “Free Market Revolution,” Schuhrke makes it clear what the consequences were for U.S. workers of the labor movement’s anticommunist crusade.
The section begins with an account of the AFL-CIO’s role in the 1973 military coup that overthrew the democratically-elected government of Chile. Work stoppages by associations of professional workers, which were given lavish support by the AFL-CIO’s “American Institute for Free Labor Development,” were used by General Augusto Pinochet to justify the military coup he led on September 11, 1973. Following the coup, Pinochet’s government not only murdered thousands of trade unionists, it also embarked on a thorough imposition of “neoliberal” economics, privatizing the public sector, slashing safety nets, and suppressing unions.
This economic approach would be brought back to the U.S. less than ten years later with the government of Ronald Reagan. Reagan’s policies of union-busting, economic deregulation and free trade decimated the U.S. labor movement and ushered in more than four decades of corporate globalization. The mainstream of the U.S. labor movement, used to seeing the U.S. government and corporations as partners, and militant unions in other countries as enemies to be undermined, not brothers and sisters in struggle, was unable to respond in any meaningful way.
Ultimately, as Schuhrke writes in his introduction, leaders of the AFL-CIO “chose to be partners in the making of an unequal international order dominated by capital.” There is, of course, another choice that unions can make — the choice of genuine international solidarity between workers, which has always been made by more progressive unions like my own union (UE) and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). Blue Collar Empire is a compelling account of the costs that workers everywhere in the world paid for the wrong choice, and the importance of making the right one going forward.
(This is an abridged version of a longer review I wrote for the UE NEWS.
September 29, 2024
An easy read on an important subject. Well-written and feels understandable enough to give to someone less familiar with labor history and the parties/sects in the US. Enough to make anyone hate Meany and the rest of the AFL-CIA bureaucrats. These people killed US labor at the same time they killed labor in countless other countries. Now we must rebuild.
dnf
April 3, 2025Unfortunately I ended up DNFing this book @ 40%. It was obviously very well-researched and informative. However, as I am not American and have limited knowledge of the history of the unions in the US, I found it hard to keep up with all the different figures mentioned, and the sheer number of acronyms made my head spin. I think this book would be an ideal fit for someone who has a base understanding of unions in the US already and/or someone who is interested in quite dense nonfiction books. I wouldn't recommend it as an entry point to the topic but rather a book that builds on existing knowledge. I may return to it in future once I have more understanding of the topic.
Thank you to NetGalley and Verso Books for an eARC copy.
Thank you to NetGalley and Verso Books for an eARC copy.
April 7, 2025
Five stars is not enough for this book.
This year, I've been doing a weekly gratitude challenge that gives me a prompt to reflect upon. This week, it was "A book." Serendipitously, I also just wrapped up a six-session book club where I read and digested this book with a fantastic group of people. This review is my way of getting two things done at once–my weekly gratitude challenge as well as my Goodreads review.
I am grateful for the author Jeff Schuhrke and for the incredibly researched history he details in this book. In recent years, I have become more interested in international labor solidarity and curious how best to unite the workers of the world. Thanks to this book, I now have a deeper understanding of how certain US labor leaders sabotaged such solidarity within the US and also abroad in order to maintain the capitalist status quo. This book is an absolute must-read for anyone with a conscience who wants move forward from the violently unequal world we live in today, in order to build a new one. It has inspired me to think critically about the role of unions in today's progressive movements, and encouraged me to imagine how we can do better at this critical juncture in history.
Nothing left to say but thank you Mr. Schuhrke, to my book club (the White Collar Anti-Imperialists), and to all those who contributed to such a phenomenal publication.
This year, I've been doing a weekly gratitude challenge that gives me a prompt to reflect upon. This week, it was "A book." Serendipitously, I also just wrapped up a six-session book club where I read and digested this book with a fantastic group of people. This review is my way of getting two things done at once–my weekly gratitude challenge as well as my Goodreads review.
I am grateful for the author Jeff Schuhrke and for the incredibly researched history he details in this book. In recent years, I have become more interested in international labor solidarity and curious how best to unite the workers of the world. Thanks to this book, I now have a deeper understanding of how certain US labor leaders sabotaged such solidarity within the US and also abroad in order to maintain the capitalist status quo. This book is an absolute must-read for anyone with a conscience who wants move forward from the violently unequal world we live in today, in order to build a new one. It has inspired me to think critically about the role of unions in today's progressive movements, and encouraged me to imagine how we can do better at this critical juncture in history.
Nothing left to say but thank you Mr. Schuhrke, to my book club (the White Collar Anti-Imperialists), and to all those who contributed to such a phenomenal publication.
March 1, 2025
Incredible history of the US Labor/AFL-CIO's international work advancing US cold war objectives - undermining militant unions and supporting regime change all over the world in order to advance Capitalism and US hegemony. I thought I knew a little about this having worked in Central America and in the US Labor Movement, but I had no idea how extensive and ultimately tragic labor's focus on cold war politics was. As the author states at the end of the book: "The AFL-CIO repeatedly demonstrated that it was an instrument for waging the Cold War first, and a vehicle to advance the lot of the working class second." This was done at an incredible cost to workers in the US and all over the world.
Really thorough and fascinating history - for anyone interested in labor history, Cold War politics, international relations and movement building. I can tell this will be one of the best books I read this year.
Really thorough and fascinating history - for anyone interested in labor history, Cold War politics, international relations and movement building. I can tell this will be one of the best books I read this year.
December 16, 2024
In *Blue-Collar Empire*, Jeff Schuhrke reveals how the CIA and the U.S. government used American labor unions to undermine working-class movements during the Cold War. The book highlights the dual role of unions, which not only fought for workers' rights but also had the power to disrupt economies and influence governments.
Schuhrke details how the U.S. sought to control labor movements globally, partnering with anticommunist leaders within the AFL-CIO. Their efforts aimed to block revolutionary ideas in workers' movements across Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia, ultimately shaping labor politics worldwide.
Through thorough research and engaging storytelling, Schuhrke illustrates the impact of these strategies on workers both domestically and abroad. He also addresses the ethical challenges faced by unions that prioritized anticommunism over genuine worker interests.
Overall, *Blue-Collar Empire* is a vital read for those interested in labor history and the political dynamics of the Cold War, offering a compelling look at the intersection of labor rights and global power struggles.
Schuhrke details how the U.S. sought to control labor movements globally, partnering with anticommunist leaders within the AFL-CIO. Their efforts aimed to block revolutionary ideas in workers' movements across Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia, ultimately shaping labor politics worldwide.
Through thorough research and engaging storytelling, Schuhrke illustrates the impact of these strategies on workers both domestically and abroad. He also addresses the ethical challenges faced by unions that prioritized anticommunism over genuine worker interests.
Overall, *Blue-Collar Empire* is a vital read for those interested in labor history and the political dynamics of the Cold War, offering a compelling look at the intersection of labor rights and global power struggles.
December 9, 2024
I greatly enjoyed reading this book, although the title is a little misleading. Blue-Collar Empire primarily focuses on key figures in the AFL and their work among international labor institutions and how they tried to subvert the labor movement abroad. It does not elaborate too much on the involvement of the AFL with the CIA as institutions as much as I would have liked it to.
Despite that, this book serves as a good introduction the US labor movement, it's class collaborationist mentality, and the historical actions of what can be called the "labor aristocracy." Rather than achieve emancipation of the international working class, many labor leaders would rather continue imperialism and colonialism, but get a bigger slice of the pie that's going to the capitalist class.
Despite that, this book serves as a good introduction the US labor movement, it's class collaborationist mentality, and the historical actions of what can be called the "labor aristocracy." Rather than achieve emancipation of the international working class, many labor leaders would rather continue imperialism and colonialism, but get a bigger slice of the pie that's going to the capitalist class.
November 2, 2024
A must read for all labor unionists. As we rebuild our movement from the carnage of neoliberal economics, failed organizing, and self destructive Cold War escapades, we would do well to heed the lessons that Jeff Schuhrke lays out in his detailed history. In our next chapter of the American labor movement, let us put class solidarity before national loyalties and build labor unions “dedicated to replacing capitalism with socialism and militarism with peace.” Let us not replicate the mistakes of the past but go forth boldly into a more cooperative and unified future as a working class movement.
August 27, 2025
Fantastic breakdown on the nature by which US Labor willingly abandoned the pursuit of worker liberty in favor of alignment with US Empire. Schuhrke really gets into the weeds of the means by which what was supposed to be the organ of radical solidarity against the business elite wholly aligned themselves with that class and the CIA to destroy labor movements abroad.
A worthwhile read for anyone interested in union organizing and better understanding how US Labor lost so much of a prominence in the present era.
A worthwhile read for anyone interested in union organizing and better understanding how US Labor lost so much of a prominence in the present era.
January 31, 2025
Good, if not just a tad redundant. Used to be a non fiction guy but those days are behind me. Really interesting especially Vietnam and Kenya. Really insightful especially in today's landscape. Fuck Jay Lovestone.
May 6, 2025
Learned a ton about the US labor movements role in international affairs (which I honestly knew very little about). Definitely covered a ton of info and people which was a little hard to keep track of at times, but I think I may just prefer more in-depth books than survey-style books.
May 22, 2025
an incredible chronicle of the craven and rabid drive the afl-cio, and later organizations like usaid and ned, has to serve the goals of capitalists and the us state department both domestically and abroad; much to the detriment of the global working class.
October 23, 2024
tight history book explaining the impotence of US labor movements in relation 2 its us gov and corporate ties focusing on division rather than solidarity... wonder why
January 4, 2025
this was clearly very well researched and i did learn a lot, but it never really gripped me in the way i expected it to. overall very solid, but not the most engaging read at certain points
AFL-CIA is one of the best Maoist Standard English sayings and it should be used a lot more imo
AFL-CIA is one of the best Maoist Standard English sayings and it should be used a lot more imo
February 22, 2025
Probably one of the most important reads for a revitalized labor movement
May 27, 2025
Made me mad as hell.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews