AFL-CIO Support for Solidarity: Moral, Political, Financial

Abstract

In response to the most important worker uprising of the twentieth century—the rise of the Solidarity trade union movement in Poland—America’s labor movement, the AFL-CIO, carried out an unparalleled and comprehensive campaign of international solidarity and assistance that was essential to Solidarity’s survival and ultimate victory over communism. This is not a controversial thesis. Many Solidarity leaders, including Lech Walesa, have said the same thing: Without the AFL-CIO and its president, Lane Kirkland, Solidarity would not have survived martial law.1 Others can make a similar claim on a more global scale about the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), which coordinated key help to the union. But the ICFTU’s campaign relied heavily on the AFL-CIO and certainly no effort by any other national trade union federation compares in scale to its campaign.2 Even today, the AFL-CIO’s leadership, which otherwise shies from the Federation’s previous internationalism, cites Poland as a positive example of past AFL-CIO international activity.KeywordsForeign PolicyFree TradeTrade UnionInternational Labor OrganizationMost Favored NationThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.