From: nyt%nyxfer%igc.apc.org@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu (NY Transfer News)
Subject: NEWS:Agee Says CIA Targets US Unions/ww
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Resent-From: "Rich Winkel" <MATHRICH@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu>
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 22:17:01 GMT



Via The NY Transfer News Service * All the News that Doesn't Fit


AGEE SAYS CIA TARGETS U.S. TRADE UNIONS

By Sue Bailey
New York

Former CIA officer Philip Agee says the CIA is now targeting the
Teamsters union as part of a general strategy to weaken all trade
unions in the U.S.

Agee spoke at a Nov. 5 forum titled "The CIA, the Police and the
Courts: Their Role in Union Busting." He was one of several
speakers to talk about the recent court move to impose William
Webster, the former head of the CIA and FBI, to control the
Teamsters union.

Rosa Maria de la Torre, a shop representative of the UAW District
65 Legal Services Staff Association, chaired the meeting. She
said, "The Teamsters union with its 1.5 million members faces the
most unprecedented government interference in a union that this
country, or probably any other country for that matter, has ever
seen."

The forum was sponsored by the Movement for a Peoples Assembly, a
nationwide coalition of Black, Latino, Asian, Native and white
activists and representatives of community, labor, women's,
lesbian and gay, and disabled organizations.

The MPA has been actively building solidarity with the Teamsters
union in an effort to turn back this illegal government takeover
of the union. The struggle began in August after Federal Judge
David Edelstein appointed Webster to a so-called Independent
Review Board, which has powers equal to the democratically
elected president and executive board of the union--and has the
authority to overrule these officers.

MPA spokesperson Gavrielle Gemma explained: "In any other country
in the world, if you put the head of two secret police agencies
onto a court-appointed board that has the stated purpose of
overseeing the largest union in that country, there would be huge
headlines. It would be clear that this was a fascist move.
Webster headed agencies that broke unions around the world and
persecuted union militants and peoples' activists here in the
U.S."

Agee talked about why trade unions are targeted by the CIA. "The
unions represent the working class movement and they are the
source of potential instability," he said. And stability is what
the CIA is supposed to secure. "Unions, as anyone can imagine,
have long been among the progressive forces, and therefore are
seen as a threat to the stability."

The CIA has been involved in subverting the union movement since
the time it was founded, Agee said. Just after World War II, when
the CIA was established, a major task was to set up alternative
structures to the unions, which were heavily influenced by
communists.

(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted
if source is cited. For more info contact Workers World, 46 W. 21
St., New York, NY 10010; "workers" on PeaceNet; on Internet:
"workers@mcimail.com".)


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