Labor and the IMF

[Richard Gibson]

The AFL-CIO never cut its CIA ties. The players are still in place, tho
they did, a couple of years ago, finally stop spending most of their dues
income outside the U.S. The AFT is up to its neck in this, tho some of the
action has shifted from the NED to the Albert Shanker Institute (those
interested in fascism might do well to review his life). The collapse of
the USSR, hardly a bastion of leftist action, did not mean that the commies
in the rest of the world went away, or that class struggle ended. The AFL
understands that, and as a weapon of the bourgeiosie, keeps slugging away
with their usual crap about organizing (on the side of the boss, for
racism, for sexism, against workers taking charge of the process and
product of production). Whatever increased organizing there is, in the U.S,
or elsewhere, has a substance: class collaboration---which is exactly what
the NEA/AFT Education International and all of its twins preaches. 

At 12:46 PM 10/7/98 -0400, you wrote:
>Max Sawicky wrote:
>
>>>Pretty much.  The "changes" at the AFL-CIO are largely cosmetic. . . . >
>>
>>One criterion to judge which I think is useful
>>is where money goes.
>
>I just heard that the AFL-CIO is spending $10 million a year on
>international activities, most of it coming from the National Endowment for
>Democracy and the U.S. Agency for International Development. And what are
>they doing with this money, now that they've no longer got a Cold War to
>fight and radical/independent unions to destroy? Good question. Anyone
>know? My sources said they're just staffing offices that do nothing. If
>they actually did anything to build international solidarity, my guess is
>the U.S. government would cut their allowance. Anyone have any other ideas
>about what they're up to?
>
>Doug
>
>
>
Rich Gibson
Program Coordinator of Social Studies
Wayne State University
College of Education
Detroit MI 48202

http://www.pipeline.com/~rgibson/index.html
http://www.pipeline.com/~rgibson/meap.html

	Life travels upward in spirals. 

	Those who take pains to search the shadows

	 of the past below us, then, can better judge the

	 tiny arc up which they climb, 

	more surely guess the dim

	 curves of the future above them.