As the book recounts, it was during the 1960s that American unions began to take on a much more direct role abroad. While U.S. labor was supported in its quest to fight “communism” abroad by a variety of sources, including the dues of its own members, the CIA and the State Department, its external funding ballooned under the Kennedy administration because its mission overlapped well with the Alliance for Progress. A “Marshall Plan” for Latin America that sought to provide $20 billion in economic and technical assistance to anti-communist governments in Latin America, the Alliance provided funds to the American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD), described by Schuhrke as “the largest, most generously funded, and most consequential overseas initiative the Federation would undertake during the entire Cold War.”
Through the AIFLD, U.S. labor battled for the hearts and minds of the Global South, often training Latin American unionists in courses dedicated to “U.S. democracy,” “collective bargaining,” and, most importantly, “countering left-wing arguments.” It also provided direct aid to anti-communist Latin American workers by extending credit to community development projects, financing agrarian cooperatives, and paying for the construction of urban housing in scores of Latin American cities.
Schuhrke grasps and highlights that U.S. developmental aid, whether from the Alliance for Progress or U.S. labor programs, was never just about providing financial assistance. As was the case across Africa and Asia as well, in Latin America, labor leaders trained by the U.S. played a direct role in the coups, dictatorships, and civil wars that brought immense death and destruction to the region. Between 1962-1964, the AIFLD directly trained and financed the leaders of a crippling strike in the colony of British Guiana that eventually brought down the elected socialist government of Cheddi Jagan. In the Dominican Republic, unionists trained by the AIFLD called openly for a coup against Juan Bosch, backed that coup when it came, and even invited the U.S. military occupation that came soon after (and led to the founding of NACLA itself). Around the same time, the AIFLD trained 33 Brazilian unionists in Washington who, less than a year later, “helped ensure” that the US-backed overthrow of left-wing leader João Goulart “went smoothly.” All of these stories, and more, are brought to light by Schuhrke, who, in his telling, unearths new actors and highlights underexplored contradictions.