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AMERICAN INSTITUTE FOR
FREE LABOR DEVELOPMENT

‘13 years of massive
social espionage’

By FRED HIRSCH
MEXICO CITY — The leading

‘Spokesman on Latin American

Matters for the AFL-CIO has
launched an attack against ‘‘non
totalitarian political and labor
movements in the western world,

particularly in Europe’’ for their

aid and support to exiled Chilean
trade unionists and “CUT (-
Central Unica de Trabajadores)
clandestine operatives in Chile.

In the unprecedented move,
Andrew McLellan, Inter-
American Representative of the
AFL-CIO, backs up those trade
union leaders in Chile, sanctioned
by the Pinochet government
against being ‘‘attacked systemat-
ically from abroad by exiled
totalitarian leaders of the dis-
solved CUT, who falsely accuse
them of being collaborators with
the junta.’’ He identifies the CUT
labor leaders as ‘‘Communists
and Maoists’? who ‘“‘also de-
nounced the AIFLD (American
Institute for Free Labor De-
velopment) and its parent organi-
Zation, the AFL-CIO, making un-
founded charges that, in col-
laboration with the U.S. Gov-
emment, they played roles in the
overthrow of the Allende regime
and now support the military
junta.

Luis Figueroa, President of
CUT, Chile’s outlawed labor con-

federation, charged in Mexico,
early last year, that AIFLD was
responsible for “‘thirteen years of
massive social espionage.’’ That
contention has been thoroughly
documented by U.S. trade union
groups organized in solidarity
with the workers of Chile.

One such study, basing itself on
signed AIFLD Contracts and
Progress Reports, was widely dis-
tributed to delegates at last year’s
AFL-CIO convention. The same
document, which has never been
refuted, showed up in Mexico
City at the last Congress of the

ICFTU (international Confedera-.

tion of Free Trade Unions). It has
been reprinted by Chilean trade
unionists, liberated from Pinochet
concentration camps, and given
worldwide distribution early this
March.
ICFTU is Target

Andrew McLellan aimed his
anger pointedly at the [CFTU,
revealing that they had already
spent $193,000 of a $1,625,240
budget in support of exiled CUT
representatives and clandestine
trade union work against the
junta, inside Chile. While
McLellan failed to tell where the
figures came from, he very likely
has authoritative sources. He was
a coordinator of AFL-CIO activ-
ity in Guyana during the downfall
of the Cheddi Jagan government,

_ agenerous wage policy ..

and was accused of offering a
five-figure bribe during the in-
tense AFL-CIO penetration
against the liberal Juan Bosch
administration in the Dominican
Republic.

Philip B.F. Agee, in his 1975
book, Inside the Company, CIA
Diary, names Mr. McLellan as a
“close collaborator with the CIA
in labour operations.”

The ICFTU formalized its aid
to Chile’s CUT during its Mexico
City Congress. The western
world labor body was warmly
welcomed to Mexico by President
Echeverria, who expressed com-
plete agreement with ICFTU
plans for an investigative trip to

- Chile and organization of a supply

ship filled with food for the
families of concentration camp
victims. The trip to Chile was
jointly planned withthe CUT, with
the firm agreement that no con-
tact would be made with the junta
or its trade union spokesmen.
Jack Jones, top British labor
leader was the initiator of the
action.

McLellan, mistakenly but re-
peatedly, referred to CUT leaders
under the joint label of “‘Com-
munists and Maoists.’’ While
there certainly are Communists in
the CUT, McLelland’s in-
formants have apparently not told
him that the only Maoist Chileans
now are junta officials. The CUT
has consistently denounced the
government of Mao Tse-tung for
tossing out Allende’s ambassador
to China, recognizing the junta,

_ and for then giving Chile eco-

nomic aid and trade.

McLellan even disagrees with
top specialists in the U.S. De-
partment of Labor, an agency
which works closely with
AIFLD. Looking back to the
years just previous to the Pino-
chet coup, Mr. McLellan de-
nounces, “‘the Allende regime’s
anti-union measures,’’ and takes
aim at CUT President Figueroa
for having ‘‘betrayed the labor
movement by signing ... an
agreement with the Allende gov-
ernment to halt all wage
demands.”’

Historic CUT contract
That historical CUT contract
with the deposed constitutional
government was said by labor de-
partment experts to be a settle-
ment for: ‘‘1) worker participa-

‘tion in government agencies for

economic and social planning...
and would have given all workers
the right to participate in man-
agement, 22) representation of
organized labor in the administra-
tion of social security agencies, 3)
: 66.7%
increase in minimum wages, and

’ increases in other wages corres-

ponding to the increase in the
consumer index for 1970, 4) in-

‘“ereases in family allowances,

food allotments ... and retire-
ment pensions, 5) greater pro-
testion to Workers against dis-
charge ... 6) redrafting of the

C07ro0g4

labor code . . . and 7) plans for the
government and organized labor
to jointly find jobs for 180,000
workers’’ (approximately of the
work force).

The hard hit U.S. labor move-
ment would not be likely to con-
sider a similar settlement by the
AFL-CIO a betrayal’ of their
interests.

McLellan, whose statement is
printed in full in the official jour-
nal of the International Affairs
Department of the AFL-CIO, de-
fends ‘‘the courageous leaders’’
permitted to continue functioning
under Pinochet. He specifically
praises Ernesto Vogel of the rail-
road workers, for his ‘‘estab-
lished record of free trade union
activities and responsibilities.’
Vogel has been sent abroad
several times as a junta spokes-
man after the CUT, representing
90% of Chilean organized work-
ers, was shut down. Vogel was a
special guest of the last AFL-CIO
convention and has gone on
record in favor of Decree Law
198, outlawing union involvement
in politics, placing union meetings
under military and police super-
vision and prohibiting collective
bargaining, strikes and elections.
Vogel was quoted in the Chilean
El Mercurio offering his opinion
of D.L. 198. He said it was ‘‘ex-
tremely favorable to the de-
velopment of trade unions in the
country”’ and its acceptance ‘“‘is

an indication of how well the-

workers understand the sacrifices
the soldiers have made to rescue
the country from the claws of
Marxism.”
Why the Attack?

Rumbles froiti inside AFL-CIO
headquarters in Washington indi-
cate that top U.S. labor officials
may be feeling shaky about con-
tinued increases in their AIFLD
budget from the State Depart-
ment. This attitude may account
for their unusual attack on all

_ those who oppose AIFLD and the

joint labor-government Chile

policies.

There has been growing pres-
sure from rank and file trade
unionists who write letters to
Congressmen, expressing a
failure to understand how plotting
against elected foreign govern-
ments and supplying servile trade

union movements to dictator-.

ships, such as,in Chile, can help
them to put meat and potatoes on
the table or cut down the length of
lines at the unemployment
offices.

One reason why such a man as

_Andrew McLellan is willing to

take on the world labor move-
ment over the issue of solidarity
with the CUT is the practical dif-
ficulty that clandestine CUT or-

*, ganizing causes to AIFLD, which

as greatly increased its Chile
operations with cooperation from
the junta.

Last summer CUT organizers
managed to put together broad
protest and illegal strikes against
Pinochet policies. The junta over-
reacted, arresting many people,
including a number of Chileans
working with AIFLD. Pinochet
himself then announced blanket
restrictions against even AIFLD
training seminars. A CBS corres-
pondent learned, inside junta of-
fices, that the situation brought a
rash of telegrams from the AFL-
CIO, and El Mercurio reported
that the Deputy Director of the
AIFLD made a fast appearance in
Chile. Pinochet’s clampdown was
immediately reversed.

It is doubtful that McLellan’s
spirit of cooperation with the
existing powers that be in Chile
will spread to other sectors of the
international labor movement.
Thus far every world labor
federation and their national
components have given support
to. the CUT and denounced the
Chile junta. They have isolated
Chile, and unionists working with
the junta, while the AFL-CIO
seems to: be rapidly isolating
itself.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—SEPTEMBER 10, 1976—Page 9

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