"We will follow a nationalist policy; but we will never be neutral" 1: American labor and neutralism in cold war africa, 1957-1962

Abstract

As African colonies began to move toward independence, external nongovernmental organizations attempted to guide certain aspects of those transitions. Of greatest interest to Western trade unions was ensuring the primacy of "free" trade union principles, that is, unionism that rejected the influence of governing political parties or external ideologies such as communism. Anti-Communist labor leaders from Europe and the United States (some of whom had been attempting to guide union development even during the African colonial period) encountered significant challenges in adapting their models of industrial relations and negotiations to African environments. Many African economies remained predominantly agricultural, and African unionists were overwhelmingly young and largely inexperienced. Their unions faced almost insurmountable barriers ranging from virtually nonexistent financial resources to the perils of participating in crafting labor relations machinery that would simultaneously permit rapid economic development while protecting workers’ rights.