Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: New Books in American Politics
Episode: Jeff Schuhrke, "Blue Collar Empire: Labor Internationalism, the Global Cold War, and the Untold History of the AFL-CIA" (Verso, 2024)
Description: How the CIA used American unions to undermine workers at home and subvert democracy abroad.Blue Collar Empire: Labor Internationalism, the Global Cold War, and the Untold History of the AFL-CIA (Verso, 2024) tells the shocking story of the AFL-CIO's global anticommunist crusade--and its devastating consequences for workers around the world.Unions have the power not only to secure pay raises and employee benefits but to bring economies to a screeching halt and overthrow governments. Recognizing this, in the late twentieth century, the US government sought to control labor movements abroad as part of the Cold Wa...