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In Iraq, where 50 per cent of NED funding is now directed, the [AFL-CIO] Solidarity Center plays an active role backing a US occupation despised by Iraqi workers.  It recognizes only one of several union centers.  That federation is the only center participating in the government empowered by the Bush Administration, and the only one to state support for the occupation.   Choosing to support one union over others violates the AFL-CIO's own primary principle recognizing the rights of workers to choose who will represent them.  That principle is called “Freedom of Association.”

These activities are carried out in the name of AFL-CIO rank and file, and are paid for with tax dollars.  Whether we are in the AFL-CIO or not, as workers we feel that the AFL-CIO, is OUR organization.  It is outrageous that the AFL-CIO accepts funding and backing for its so-called  “Solidarity Center” from the Bush Administration or from any administration whose agenda sells out the interests of workers for the sake of corporate interests and political power.  We all know that the Bush Administration does not give one dime to any group that does not advance its anti-worker agenda at home and abroad.

The AFL-CIO should never use our credibility as workers to undermine the struggles of workers abroad – to serve as a government weapon for Corporate America.   The struggles of workers abroad to improve their conditions are part of our own struggle in the US for a better future.  It is totally unacceptable that Solidarity Center activities are done behind the backs of US workers, without any honest reporting and with closed books. It is unaccountable to AFL-CIO unions and certainly to the rank and file.  It does not report finances in the manner demanded, by law, of every local union. 

We are affronted by the anti-democratic measures that were used by top-level AFL-CIO leaders to prevent a full and honest floor discussion at the 2005 AFL-CIO National Convention in Chicago of the "Build Unity and Trust With Workers Worldwide" resolution.  That resolution to account for and end foreign activities tied to government agencies was submitted with unanimous approval by the 2004 Convention of the California State AFL-CIO, representing 2.4 million workers.  We cannot accept this distortion of trade union democracy that enables top-level AFL-CIO officials to make deals with the Bush Administration (or any other) to intervene against the will of workers abroad and the sovereignty of nations.

Therefore, in accord with the unanimous vote in the California Labor Federation, we join the call for:

1) The Solidarity Center to immediately terminate its collaboration with the Bush Administration and the NED, withdraw as one of the four core institutes of the NED, refuse to re-enter such relationships in the future and stop all collaboration with the agents of US government foreign policy and corporate globalization;

2) The AFL-CI O to open its books about all projects, past, present, and future, undertaken by the Solidarity Center and predecessor groups that carried out AFL-CIO foreign operations.  These would include, but not be limited to, operations that preceded the coup against Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973, the attempted coup against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela in 2002, operations in Haiti leading up to and following the coup, and current activities in and/or related to Iraq.  We want detailed reports on a country-by-country basis wherever the Solidarity Center is active—and an immediate termination of any operations that are not specifically intended to help workers in that country.

Open Letter to the AFL-CIO