Is Cosatu playing with the devil? Investigating the AFL-CIO and its Solidarity Center by Kim Scipes
The US labour centre, the AFL-CIO has a Solidarity Center in South Africa. Few unionists know what it does or stands for. Kim Scipes, in this revealing article, exposes some of its worldwide operations and wonders why Cosatu has a relationship with it.
The AFL-CIO, the major labour center of the United States, has an office of its Solidarity Center in Johannesburg. There is no American trade unionist outside of the highest levels of foreign policy leadership that has the slightest idea of why the Solidarity Center is in South Africa, or what it is doing there. Yet the Solidarity Center uses the fact that Cosatu [Congress of South African Trade Unions] works with them to undercut American union criticisms of the reactionary foreign policy of the AFL-CIO (AFL). The question must be asked: is Cosatu playing with the Devil?
