Blue Collars for a Red-Free Western Europe: American Labor Union Propaganda in Support of the Marshall Plan, 1947-1949
Open AccessOne of the Truman Administration's most important foreign policy achievements was the Marshall Plan for European Recovery, an effort to rebuild the economies of sixteen Western European nations which had been destroyed during the Second World War. One of the earliest supporters of the Marshall Plan was American organized labor, represented by the two largest union federations, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). This paper argues that American labor propagandized for the Marshall Plan for a variety of reasons. One reason was to support their privileged place in American domestic politics at a time when that was being threatened by domestic legislation, such as the Taft-Hartley Act, which mandated closed shops, security clauses, right-to-work legislation, and banned many forms of striking. By supporting an Administration foreign policy goal, making a demonstration that they were still a relevant political power, they could protect their domestic influence. Second, in trying to influence opinion on the Marshall Plan, American labor unions could extend their influence into Europe, effectively colonizing what had been up until then a more leftist-influenced labor atmosphere. Third, they could stake out a position as having outwardly criticized three important political enemies: domestic anti-labor conservatives, who they often painted in their propaganda as isolationist reactionaries; the Soviet Union and its allied labor organizations, which had consistently tried to infiltrate American unions; and domestic American fellow travelers, who they believed served the interests of Moscow.
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