{"id":317468,"date":"2026-06-22T12:00:56","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T11:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=317468"},"modified":"2026-06-17T07:58:45","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T06:58:45","slug":"the-u-s-labor-movement-as-a-force-for-peace-and-international-cooperation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2026\/06\/the-u-s-labor-movement-as-a-force-for-peace-and-international-cooperation\/","title":{"rendered":"The U.S. Labor Movement as a Force for Peace and International Cooperation"},"content":{"rendered":"

16 Jun 2026 – <\/em>Although the U.S. labor movement is sometimes depicted as hawkish and xenophobic, this characterization ignores its repeated attempts to grapple with the global problem of war.<\/p>\n

On June 9, 2026, for example, delegates at the annual national convention of the AFL-CIO, the 15-million member<\/a> labor federation with which most American unions are affiliated, voted to adopt Resolution 9, \u201cWe Want a Just and Peaceful World.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Declaring that \u201cworking people must never be treated as pawns in geopolitical power struggles,\u201d the resolution promises that \u201cwe will stand with workers and communities harmed by war\u201d and \u201cwill advocate for an end to wars that threaten workers\u2019 livelihoods, security and rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Gaza,\u201d notes the AFL-CIO statement, \u201cwe demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire; full, safe and sustained humanitarian access; a halt to arms transfers that may facilitate violations of international law by all parties; and a credible political process grounded in international law and UN resolutions to achieve a just and lasting peace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Furthermore, it declares, the AFL-CIO \u201cwill engage forcefully in international institutions,\u201d such as the United Nations and the International Labor Organization, and \u201cwill advocate for continued U.S. government and labor engagement in international negotiations,\u201d including those focused on climate change and energy under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement.<\/p>\n

Assailing demagogic \u201cefforts to divide working people through fear, exclusion, and racist anti-migrant rhetoric,\u201d the labor federation opposed \u201cdiscriminatory travel bans and migration policies,\u201d denounced \u201cthe abandonment of refugee and asylum commitments under international law,\u201d and demanded \u201cdue process for all.\u201d\u00a0 It promised to \u201cseek . . . foreign policies that promote peace and halt support for repressive governments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three months earlier, rebuking the U.S. and Israeli governments for initiating a war with Iran, the AFL-CIO issued a statement<\/a> calling for an end to the conflict and demanding \u201cstrict respect for international law, the United Nations Charter, and the U.S. Constitution that call[s] for the people\u2019s voice through Congress in any war authorization.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, organized labor\u2019s expressions of support for peace and international cooperation are not always accompanied by major labor movement campaigns to secure them.\u00a0 Within the U.S. labor movement, domestic policy concerns, which have a direct impact upon American workers, tend to outweigh foreign policy concerns.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, during most of the Cold War, much of the AFL-CIO leadership was, in fact, quite hawkish<\/a>, rallying around the flag and supporting U.S. military intervention in Asia, Latin America, and Africa.\u00a0 AFL-CIO president George Meany<\/a> worked vigorously and successfully to get the labor federation to give \u201cunqualified support\u201d to the U.S. war in Vietnam and, in 1972, to reject backing the peace candidacy of Senator George McGovern, the Democratic nominee for President.<\/p>\n

Even so, for more than a century, a significant number of prominent American union leaders have been peace proponents.\u00a0 These include Eugene Debs<\/a> (president, American Railway Union), a sharp critic of the Spanish-American War and of World War I, who, thanks to this stance, became the nation\u2019s best-known political prisoner.\u00a0 Another was \u201cBig Bill\u201d Haywood<\/a> (leader of the Industrial Workers of the World), who condemned World War I and, to escape Debs\u2019s fate, fled the country.<\/p>\n

In later years, peace-oriented labor leaders included Walter Reuther<\/a> (president, United Auto Workers and vice president of the AFL-CIO), a world federalist who also served on the board of the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (better-known as SANE) and opposed Meany\u2019s hawkish approach<\/a> during the Cold War.\u00a0 Another, William Winpisinger<\/a> (president, International Association of Machinists), became co-chair of SANE, as well as a champion of conversion from a military to a peacetime economy.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Samuel Gompers, the founder and long-time president of the American Federation of Labor, began his labor career as a strong advocate of peace.\u00a0 In 1893, answering the question \u201cWhat does labor want?\u201d Gompers replied<\/a>:\u00a0 \u201cWe want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals.\u201d\u00a0 A few years later, he sharply criticized America\u2019s imperialist role<\/a> in the Philippines.<\/p>\n

On numerous occasions, American labor activists expressed similar views.<\/p>\n

Even during the Vietnam War, when the AFL-CIO leadership and numerous unions voiced hawkish sentiments, substantial dissent grew<\/a> within the labor movement.\u00a0 Several large unions broke with AFL-CIO policy and, by 1970, the leaders of 22 U.S. unions had joined a call for the withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Vietnam.<\/p>\n

Antiwar activism within labor\u2019s ranks flared up again in the 1980s.\u00a0 A National Labor Committee<\/a> in Support of Democracy and Human Rights in El Salvador emerged and denounced the Reagan administration\u2019s military aid to rightwing, repressive governments battling leftwing rebels in Central America.\u00a0 Responding to such pressure, the delegates at the 1985 AFL-CIO national convention voted overwhelmingly for a resolution<\/a> that challenged U.S. government policy by calling for \u201ca negotiated settlement, rather than a military victory\u201d in the region.\u00a0 Also, by 1986, well over half of the AFL-CIO\u2019s affiliated unions<\/a> backed the U.S. peace movement\u2019s Nuclear Freeze campaign, which called for a halt to the nuclear arms race.<\/p>\n

The Iraq War triggered another surge of peace activism within the labor movement.\u00a0 In January 2003, as a U.S. military invasion of Iraq loomed, some 125 delegates from various labor unions met at Teamsters local 705 hall in Chicago and formed U.S. Labor Against the War<\/a> (USLAW).\u00a0 After the invasion began that March, the new organization grew quickly and became a powerful voice within union locals, individual unions, and the AFL-CIO\u2019s state affiliates.\u00a0 It grew so powerful, in fact, that, at the labor federation\u2019s 2005 convention, the delegates voted overwhelmingly for a resolution demanding the \u201crapid withdrawal\u201d of U.S. troops from the conflict.<\/p>\n

Consequently, this June\u2019s AFL-CIO call for a just and peaceful world is in line with much of labor\u2019s past.\u00a0 And the labor movement shouldn\u2019t be written off as a force for peace and international cooperation in the future.<\/p>\n

________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

Lawrence S. Wittner (<\/em>https:\/\/www.lawrenceswittner.com\/<\/em><\/a> ) is Professor of History Emeritus at SUNY\/Albany and the author of <\/em>Confronting the Bomb<\/em><\/a> (Stanford University Press).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

16 Jun 2026 – Although the U.S. labor movement is sometimes depicted as hawkish and xenophobic, this characterization ignores its repeated attempts to grapple with the global problem of war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":317469,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[119,70],"class_list":["post-317468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anglo-america","tag-peace","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317468"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":317470,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317468\/revisions\/317470"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}