Happy Labor Day to all workers! The power to change the world is in our hands!
Unfortunately, there are those who try to infiltrate, coopt, or impersonate workers movements to advance the interests of transnational capitalism and US/NATO imperialism. This often happens through the Solidarity Center, which poses as the voice of US labor internationalism, but actually receives very little funding and no oversight from rank-and-file US unions. The Solidarity Center is 95% funded by the US government, and that’s who it represents – not North American workers.
In South America in 2021, the last year records are publicly available, the Solidarity Center received $975,000 through the National Endowment for Democracy for activities in Colombia and Venezuela. It received another $975,000 for its activities in Ecuador and Peru. But even though these figures are already higher than usual, they are dwarfed by the recent $12 million awarded by the Department of Labor to the Solidarity Center for its activities in Peru, Brazil, and Colombia. (The Colombia Solidarity Center office doubles as the headquarters for Venezuela.) Particularly, for those grants destined for Venezuela, there is no information about what specific labor organizations or movements they support. It is a funding black box. In Colombia and Peru, we are seeing evidence that the Solidarity Center and other US funded organizations and agencies are working to depoliticize Left unions and move them towards the right.
Wisconsin Bail Out the People Movement 