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Beyond International Solidarity: The US Anti-communist Labour Policy in Brazil During the Cold War

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The Internationalisation of the Labour Question

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements ((PSHSM))

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Abstract

The chapter analyses the international history of the Brazilian labour movement from the end of World War II to the late 1960s by focusing on the role of the US anti-communist labour organizations during the Cold War. By examining the activities conducted by the AFL-CIO and ORIT in Brazil, Corrêa reveals their political aims as well the labour conflicts between the US anti-communist trade unionism, the Catholics international labour leaderships and the Brazilian local trade unionists. Besides, the author problematises the thin line between the international labour solidarity actions and the political intervention strategies in order to avoid the spread of “Communism”.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Serafino Romualdi, President and Peons: Recollections of a Labor Ambassador in Latin America (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1967): 270.

  2. 2.

    Paulo Fontes and Fernando Teixeira da Silva, “Brazil, Labor Struggles,” in International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest, ed. Immanuel Ness (Malden, MA and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009): 473–478.

  3. 3.

    The principle of trade union unity establishes that it is not possible to create more than one union organisation of the same professional or economic category in a territory smaller than the radius of a municipality.

  4. 4.

    To learn more about the building and functioning of the corporatist system of working relations in Brazil, see Fernando Teixeira da Silva, “The Brazilian and Italian Labor Courts: Comparative Notes,” International Review of Social History 55, no. 3 (2010): 381–412.

  5. 5.

    W. Michael Weis, Cold Warriors & Coups D’Etat. Brazilian-American relations, 1945–1964 (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico, 1993); Franklin D. McCann, Brazil and the United States During World War II and Its Aftermath: Negotiating Alliance and Balancing Giants (E-Book, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).

  6. 6.

    Romualdi, Presidents and Peons. For more information on Romualdi’s labour path, see Robert J. Alexander and Eldon M. Parker, International Labor Organizations and Organized Labor in Latin America and Caribbean, a History (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2009): 98.

  7. 7.

    See as examples Magaly Rodríguez García, “The AFL-CIO and ORIT in Latin America’s Andean Region, from 1950s to the 1960s,” in American Labor’s Global Ambassadors: The International History of the AFL-CIO During the Cold War, eds. Robert Anthony Waters, Jr. and Geert Van Goethem (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2013): 137–164; Dustin Walcher, “Reforming Latin-American Labor: The AFL-CIO and Latin America’s Cold War,” in American Labor’s Global Ambassadors: The International History of the AFL-CIO During the Cold War, eds. Robert Anthony Waters, Jr. and Geert Van Goethem (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2013): 123–136.

  8. 8.

    See for instance the role played by the AFL–CIO in the overthrow of Chedi Jagan’s government in British Guyana: Stephen G. Rabe, U.S. Intervention in British Guiana: A Cold War Story (Durham: University of North Carolina Press, 2006): 37–38. See also Robert Anthony Waters, Jr., “More Subtle Than We Knew: The AFL in the British Caribbean,” in American Labor’s Global Ambassadors: The International History of the AFL-CIO During the Cold War, eds. Robert Anthony Waters, Jr. and Geert Van Goethem (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2013): 165–176.

  9. 9.

    On the action of the United States in the Brazilian civil–military coup, see J.K. Black, “Lincoln Gordon and Brazil’s Military Counterrevolution,” in Ambassadors in Foreign Policy: The Influences of Individuals on U.S.-Latin American Policy, eds. C.N. Ronning and A.P. Vannucci (New York: Prager, 1987): 95–113.

  10. 10.

    See examples in Kim Christiaens, Orchestrating Solidarity: Third World Agency, Transnational Networks & The Belgian Mobilization for Vietnam and Latin America 1960s–1980s (PhD thesis, KU Leuven, 2013); James N. Green, We Cannot Remain Silent: Opposition to the Brazilian Military Dictatorship in the United States (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010); Mazé Torcquato Chotil, L’exil ouvrier. La saga des Brésiliens contraints au départ (1964–1985) ([Auchy-lez-Orchies]: Éditions Estampuis, 2015).

  11. 11.

    George Morris, CIA and American Labor (New York: International Publishers, 1967).

  12. 12.

    Romualdi, President and Peons: 271.

  13. 13.

    The partnership resulted in the creation of the Free Trade Union Committee, which was responsible for promoting an organisational policy for ‘free and democratic’ trade unions in Europe, Asia and South America in the post-war period.

  14. 14.

    Roger Southall, Imperialismo or Solidarity? International Labour and South African Trade Unions (Cape Town: UCT Press, 1995): 38.

  15. 15.

    Ernesto Semán, Ambassadors of the Working Class: Argentina’s International Labor Activists & Cold War Democracy in the Americas (Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2017).

  16. 16.

    John P. Windmuller, “Labor: A Partner in American Foreign Policy?” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 350 (November 1963): 104–114.

  17. 17.

    ILO Convention No. 87 adopted four basic proposals: the right to start trade unions; the right to manage trade unions; the right to act in trade unions; and the right to join or to quit any given trade union membership.

  18. 18.

    Windmuller, “Labor: A Partner”: 110.

  19. 19.

    Howard J. Wiarda, O modelo corporativo na América Latina e a latino-americanização dos Estados Unidos (Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro: Vozes, 1983): 51.

  20. 20.

    Patricio Herrera, “El asedio de la clase obrera organizada en los inicios de la Guerra Fría: El caso de la CTAL, 1943-1953,” Revista Divergencia 6, no. 5 (2016): 34.

  21. 21.

    Alexander and Parker, International Labor Organizations: 109–110.

  22. 22.

    Henry A. Landsberger, International Labor Organizations. Reprint Series, no. 243 (New York: Cornell University, no date): 105.

  23. 23.

    Alexander and Parker, International Labor Organizations: 110.

  24. 24.

    ORIT, Mirando nuestra America (ORIT, Mexico, 1953): 15.

  25. 25.

    ORIT, Mirando nuestra America: 15.

  26. 26.

    On the role of US trade unionism in supporting Guatemala’s coup d’état, see Semán, Ambassadors of the Working Class: 206.

  27. 27.

    Landsberger, International Labor Organizations: 111.

  28. 28.

    Landsberger, International Labor Organizations: 110.

  29. 29.

    Landsberger, International Labor Organizations: 114.

  30. 30.

    Landsberger, International Labor Organizations: 113.

  31. 31.

    [IFCTU], “Declaration of Principles, Manifesto, Program, Resolutions adopted by the XVth World Congress of the IFCTU,” Supplement of Labor 45 (1964): 39.

  32. 32.

    Robert J. Alexander, A organização do trabalho na América Latina (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 1967): 289–290. See also [NN], “CLASC unmasked,” Labor 2 (1967): 41–49.

  33. 33.

    John Windmuller, American Labor and the International Labor Movement, 1940–1953 (New York: Institute of International Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University, 1954): 121.

  34. 34.

    Semán, Ambassadors of the Working Class: 195.

  35. 35.

    García, “The AFL-CIO and ORIT”: 137.

  36. 36.

    See Larissa Rosa Corrêa, Disseram que voltei americanizado: relações sindicais Brasil-Estados Unidos durante a ditadura militar (Campinas: Editora da Unicamp, 2017); Angela Vergara, “Chilean Workers and the US Labor Movement: From Solidarity to Intervention, 1950s–1970s,” in American Labor’s Global Ambassadors: The International History of the AFL-CIO During the Cold War, eds. Robert Anthony Waters, Jr. and Geert Van Goethem (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013): 201–216; and Victoria Basualdo, “El movimiento sindical argentino y sus relaciones internacionales. Una contribución sobre la presencia de la CIOSL y la ORIT en la Argentina desde fines de los ‘40 hasta comienzos de los’ 80,” Revista Mundos do Trabalho 5, no. 10 (2013): 199–219.

  37. 37.

    Magaly Rodriguez Garcia, Liberal Workers of the World, Unite? The ICFTU and the Defense of Labour Liberalism in Europe and Latin America (1949–1969) (Bern: Peter Lang, 2010): 2.

  38. 38.

    IFCTU, What Is, How It Works, What It Does (ICFTU, 5th ed., 1965).

  39. 39.

    Regarding the Vargas administration’s cooperation with US anti-communist actions, especially the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz, President of Guatemala, see Roberto Baptista, Jr., Antissovietismo: reflexos e práticas compartilhadas de repressão no sistema interamericano (1945–64) (PhD thesis, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, 2005: Chapter III).

  40. 40.

    The new regulation replaced Decree No. 1.402, created by Vargas himself during the Estado Novo in 1939, which, in addition to introducing new rules for unionisation, did not allow official class entities to join international labour organisations (art. 52). Congress passed law no. 1.646 on 16 July 1952.

  41. 41.

    Tribuna da Imprensa, 9 December 1952: 12.

  42. 42.

    Semán, Ambassadors of the Working Class: 194.

  43. 43.

    “Volta dos sindicatos argentinos ao movimento livre do continente,” Tribuna da Imprensa, 10 October 1955: 6.

  44. 44.

    Tribuna da Imprensa, 8 November 1956: 2.

  45. 45.

    Romualdi, President and Peons: 279.

  46. 46.

    They were the leaders Deocleciano Cavalcanti and Syndulpho Pequeno, from the National Federation of Urban Transport Workers; Angelo Parmigiani, President of the National Confederation of Trade Workers; and Ary Campista, President of the National Confederation of Industry Workers. The delegation went to Washington, DC to collaborate on the preparation of an emergency plan for the recovery of the ICFTU activities in Brazil. In the new programme, Brazilian trade unionists should be the majority in the organisation’s executive committee. New satellite offices should be established in the states of São Paulo, Bahia, Pernambuco, Minas Gerais and Rio Grande do Sul. See further Renato Colistete, “Trade Unions and the ICFTU in the Age of Developmentalism in Brazil, 1953–1962,” Hispanic American Historical Review 92, no. 4 (2012): 685.

  47. 47.

    With increasing frequency, the three publications by the ORIT and the CIOSL—‘Mundo del Trabajo Libre’, ‘Datas y Cifras’ and ‘Noticiário Obrero Interamericano’—made known the ongoing fight of the ORIT in favour of agrarian reform. ORIT, El Movimento Sindical Libre del Continente y la Reforma Agraria. ORIT, Departamento de Organización y de Publicaciones de la ORIT (Mexico, DF: ORIT, 1962).

  48. 48.

    ORIT, El Movimento Sindical Libre.

  49. 49.

    Corrêa, Disseram que voltei americanizado.

  50. 50.

    Corrêa, Disseram que voltei americanizado.

  51. 51.

    On the matter of trade union unity, see the classic work by Evaristo de Moraes Filho, O problema do sindicato único no Brasil (São Paulo: Alfa-Ômega, 1978).

  52. 52.

    Maristela Basso and Fabrício Polido, “A convenção 87 da OIT sobre Liberdade Sindical de 1948: Recomendações para a adequação do direito interno brasileiro aos princípios e regras internacionais do trabalho,” Revista do Tribunal Superior do Trabalho 3, no. 78 (2012): 124–219.

  53. 53.

    John P. Windmuller, “International Trade Union Organizations: Structure, Functions, Limitations,” in International Labor, eds. Solomon Barkin, William Dymond, Everett M. Kassalow, Frederic Meyers, and Charles A. Myers (New York, Evanston, and London: Harper & Row, 1967): 81–108.

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  1. Pontifical Catholic University, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    Larissa Rosa Corrêa

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  1. Larissa Rosa Corrêa
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Correspondence to Larissa Rosa Corrêa .

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  1. Institute for History, Leiden University, Leiden, Zuid-Holland, The Netherlands

    Stefano Bellucci

  2. Department of History, Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland

    Holger Weiss

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Corrêa, L.R. (2020). Beyond International Solidarity: The US Anti-communist Labour Policy in Brazil During the Cold War. In: Bellucci, S., Weiss, H. (eds) The Internationalisation of the Labour Question. Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28235-6_9

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