Blue Collar Empire: Labor Internationalism, the Global Cold War, and the Untold History of the Afl-CIA

How the CIA used American unions to undermine workers at home and subvert democracy abroad

Blue-Collar Empire tells 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, educator, journalist, and union activist who teaches at the Harry Van Arsdale Jr. School of Labor Studies, SUNY Empire State College in New York City. He is a frequent contributor to In These Times and Jacobin, and his scholarship has been published in Labor: Studies in Working-Class History and Diplomatic History.