Professor Waters Presents in Belgium

Dr. Robert Waters organized a panel on Latin America and the Caribbean, and presented a paper at the AFL-CIO and the International Cold War: Problems, Paradigms, and Pragmatic Responses sponsored by the Congress Center Het Pand at the University of Ghent on October 7 and 8.

According to the Conference website: The international workshop The AFL-CIO and the International Cold War: Problems, Paradigms, and Pragmatic Responses at Congress Center Het Pand in Ghent (7-8 October 2011), will explore the Cold War international history of U.S. labor’s relations with worldwide organized labor. Scholarly papers based on a rising tide of scholarship in the field of international labor history will show how labor history can break the boundaries of national borders to be truly international in focus.

To draw attention to this reinvigorated field of study, the organizers have brought together scholars whose work spans five continents to offer a global approach to the phenomenon of an 'activist' American trade union movement. The participants have used recently opened labor archives that have been generally overlooked by Cold War scholars. The presentations will demonstrate how the AFL-CIO played a significant and usually overlooked role in Cold War international political history.

Topics covered include the relationship between the AFL-CIO and the CIA

Solidarity
the Algerian Revolution
the Brazilian Coup of 1964
the Chilean Coup of 1973
'Slave Labor' in the Soviet Union
Modernization
South Vietnam
women workers
post-war Italy
post-war France
Latin American labor
neutralism in sub-Saharan Africa

Scientific Committee:

Prof. dr. Geert Van Goethem (Amsab-ISH/ Ghent University)
Prof. dr. Robert Waters (Ohio Nothern University),
Dr. Magaly Rodriguez Garcia (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)

Waters' paper, titled More Subtle than We Knew: The AFL in the British Carribean explored the role of the American Federation of Labor in opposing the Cheddi Jagan regime in British Guyana. The Conference website can be found here.