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As we discussed in our first episode of this series, there’s a long, sordid history of collaboration between the upper leadership of the AFL-CIO and the US National Security State, specifically the CIA.  Over several decades during the Cold War, through the American Institution for Free Labor Development (AIFLD), the CIA used US labor to infiltrate, subvert, and destroy independent labor movements in numerous countries around the world. We continue the discussion of that history in this episode, largely drawn from the new book El Golpe: US Labor, The CIA, and The Coup at Ford in Mexico by Rob McKenzie.  The collusion between the AFL-CIO and the CIA continued all the way up through the 90s, and in this episode we cover how that relationship led to the involvement of the CIA in violently crushing a nascent rank and file labor movement at Ford in Mexico in 1990.  The history of this collaboration is dark, but understanding it is vital to building a revived, transparent, worker-led labor movement in this country that will learn from the class collaborationist mistakes of the past.

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