AFL-CIO is Spanish for union busting; how the U.S. and big labor fight communism by opposing popular unions and setting up unpopular ones

Washington Monthly, Sept, 1987 by Frank Smyth

It would be heartwarming to think that UNOC's success is based on a groundswell of support for Duarte, but other factors, such as AIFLD money, are behind it. For instance, AIFLD pays $4,000 a month to the construction federation controlled by UNOC leader Ricardo Soriano, a key organizer of parallel unions, according to high-ranking sources within his federation. AIFLD denies giving money to individual unions or leaders.

Workers note that failure to join the new union can be self-destructive. Holdouts are threatened with dismissal or accused of being communist sympathizers. In El Salvador, where right-wing death squads rarely wait for documentary evidence of communist sympathy, the mere accusation, can be hazardous to one's health. Opposition leaders who refuse to join the union have found themselves in prison, where they can be held incommunicado for two weeks. Labor activists comprise the largest group of political prisoners, according to the government's own prison lists. Unionists interviewed in Mariona prison claimed they had been subjected to psychological and occasionally physical torture. U.S. State Department sources say that abuse, such as prolonged food or sleep deprivation or immersion in filthy water, occurs in about one of five cases of imprisonment in El Salvador and Americas Watch claims such techniques are the dominant interrogation tools.

Finally, it has been helpful to UNOC that the body that certifies new unions is the Salvadoran government. In some cases it has authorized pro-government unions, or eliminated anti-Duarte ones, without holding real elections. For example, management set up a union at the 1,000-employee Industrias Unidas, one of the largest textile plants in El Salvador. To influence the outcome of a union election to be held in March 1986, AIFLD's deputy director Donald Kessler promised the union an $8,000 "loan.' According to The Wall Street Journal, Kessler told the union point-blank: "If we're elected, you'll get the loan.' On March 16, though, union officials backed by AIFLD walked out of the election. The Ministry of Labor ordered a second election in May, at which point the AIFLD-backed leaders left the general meeting and held a separate vote among their own supporters. Four days later, without explanation, the Ministry of Labor recognized that union.

The textile plant's original unionists, mostly unarmed women, went on strike to protest the decision. After 12 days, the government sent 159 national guardsmen to occupy the factory. Three days later the strike ended. The management of the factory, which was owned by a Japanese firm, then fired several hundred workers, destroying the original trade union. As in many other cases, replacements were hired only when they produced a recommendation from a friend or family member in the Christian Democratic party and agreed to join the new union.

UNOC's new parallel unions have made only minor inroads into workplaces still dominated by long-standing trade unions. But UNOC controls many peasant cooperative organizations, much of the construction industry, most municipal workers in San Salvador, and some individual firms such as the textile and candy factories. The more left-wing National Union of Salvadoran Workers dominates most of the public sector workforce, an equally large share of peasant organizations, and El Salvador's urban industrial base.