Barbara Shailor

Barbara Shailor was a founder of Jobs with Justice a labor organization/campaign that worked to organize janitors, maintenance personnel, etc. She later became a leader of the AFL-CIO, around 2001, as Director of its' AFL-CIO International Affairs Division.

Died in 2022. Was married to Robert Borosage.

SANE/Freeze founding board

Unity, December 7, 1987

The founding board of SANE/Freeze in 1987 included Butch Wing, Jesse Jackson, William Sloane Coffin, Pam Desch, Nativo Lopez, Barbara Shailor, Aubrey McCutcheon, Susana Cepeda.

JwJ National Meeting, September 7-9, 2001

An article in the marxist/socialist newspaper Socialist Worker , September 14, 2001, Page 15, "Riley brings Charleston Five struggle to JwJ conference", by Lee Sustar, Cleveland, summed up some of the speakers and issues at this conference.

"Charleston Five defense leader Kenneth Riley was the keynote speaker at the "Jobs with Justice National Meeting" Sept 7-9."

"The reason this struggle has been successful so far is because of international solidarity," said Riley, president of International Longshoremen's Association ILA Local 1422 in Charleston, South Carolina."

"The Charleston Five are ILA members who have been under house arrest for 19 months -- and who fact up to five years in prison on trumped-up charges following a police attack on their picket line."

"The previous evening, United Steelworkers of America USWA President Leo Gerard brought the crowd to its feet when he denounced the repressive tactics used against global justice activists as an attempt to 'criminalize dissent.'"

"About 1,000 people, including 150 students, attended JwJ's biggest and liveliest event."

"One highlight was an international solidarity panel, featuring speakers from Haiti, France, South Africa and Brazil and chaired by Barbara Shailor, a JwJ founder who is now director of the AFL-CIO's International Affairs Department."

"It has not been since the '30s, when communists and socialists played a major role in organizing the CIO, that leftists and liberals and trade unions joined forced in demanding greater rights for the poor and working people," she said.

"Shailor's remarks highlighted the changes from the days when the AFL-CIO's international policy reflected the Cold War agenda of the U.S. go vernment." (Sustar's comment)... and "The conference brought together some of the most committed activists in the labor and student movements."

(KW: The AFL-CIO helped to defeat the Communist labor unions in France and especially Italy in their attempts to seize power after WW2. They also gave covert support to other labor movements fighting communist infiltration, as well as open support, depending on how safe it was for their staff to do so.

• - The AFL-CIO helped to modernize the Vietnamese Confederation of Labor CVT in South Vietnam and helped it function as a free labor union. Many CVT leaders and organizers were kidnapped (eventually murdered) or outrightly murdered by the Communist assassination squads of the Viet Cong VC.
• - In the 1980's, the AFL-CIO helped the Polish workers at the Gdansk shipyard fight off the repressive Communist police, and then created Solidarity, the organization mainly responsible for the collapse of the Communist dictatorship in the late '80s.
• - The record of the Communist Party USA controlled unions throughout their history was one of subservience to Moscow's dictates, threatening American security by refusing to load or unload certain ships for Vietnam or from countries that faced Soviet-aided terrorism and guerrilla movements (i.e. the ILWU), and had threatened on more than one occasion to shut down the island of Hawaii where the CPUSA-controlled ILWU held sway for many years).

Lui Cheng 2007 American tour

The American Center for International Labor Solidarity and the National Labor College recently hosted Professor Liu Cheng for Shanghai Normal University to discuss the evolution of the new draft contract labor law in China. Cheng’s visit to the NLC on March 27th was the culmination of a multi-state tour meeting with union leaders and members of Congress.

For the report by Global Labor Strategies analyzing the impact of transnational corporations on the first draft of the Contract Law go to: UNDUE INFLUENCE: Corporation Gain Ground in Battle Over Chinas New Labor Law

Liu Cheng's tour included nearly 45 events over 17 days, in the Bay Area, Boston, Amherst, New York and Washington DC. A partial list of the many sponsoring organizations, and their key contact, includes:

AFL-CIO, Washington DC - Richard Trumka & Barbara Shailor.

Letelier-Moffitt selection panel

The Institute for Policy Studies' 33rd Annual Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Awards, were awarded, Thursday, October 15, 2009.

Members of the selection panel were;

• Sarah Anderson, Institute for Policy Studies
• Fred Azcarate, AFL-CIO
• Marie Dennis, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns
• Joe Eldridge, Chaplain, American University
• Jill Gay, Activist
• Adam Isacson, Center for International Policy
• Peter Kornbluh, National Security Archive
• Isabel Morel de Letelier
• E. Ethelbert Miller, Howard University
• Joy Olson, Washington Office on Latin America
• Barbara Shailor, AFL-CIO
• Joy Zarembka, Institute for Policy Studies

"State Dept. appointee tied to communists, terrorists" - Article WorldNetDaily Oct. 3, 2010

Investigative reporter Aaron Klein, of the online news network WorldNetDaily (WND), wrote an article on Oct. 3, 2010 entitled "State Dept. appointee tied to communists, terrorists: Husband founded radical group that crafted 'stimulus' bill". Klein was talking about Barbara Shailor, recently appointed to the State Department "as a special representative for International Labor Affairs" in May (2010)."

"Prior to her appointment, Shailor was the director of the International Department of the AFL-CIO, the country's largest union, and served as senior advisor to the union's President John Sweeney on foreign and international policy issues. She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations."

He further wrote:

"Shailor herself is tied to some of the same Apollo radicals (named in the article). She reportedly worked closely at AFL-CIO with activist Bill Fletcher, Jr., a former Maoist and current leader of Democratic Socialists of America . Fletcher was also a founder of the Black Radical Congress , closely linked to the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), which advocated for 'progressive social justice, racial equality and economic justice goals within the U.S.'"

"Shailor reportedly worked with Fletcher to shape the AFL-CIO's international work in what the union described as 'dramatically new directions"."

Regarding her husband, Klein wrote:

"A recent State Department appointee is wife to the founder of a radical organization whose leaders include a socialist party founder, communists and a leader of the 1960s anti-American Weather Underground terrorist organization."

"Her husband, Robert Borosage, is a longtime progressive activist who co-founded the Apollo Alliance, far-left group that has been instrumental in helping draft key policies of the Obama administration."

Borosage was, for many years, a leader of the Marxist Institute for Policy Studies , and was prominently featured in S. Steven Powell's book Covert Cadre, about this organization. He was behind many of their most successful penetrations of the media and Congress, and he amassed a well-documented list of support for various communist/marxist causes (which will be listed at his KW page site).

References

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