Réquiem for the Good Neighbours: The link between the Argentine Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT) and the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in the aftermath of the Rooseveltian dream

Abstract

This article aims to review the relationship between the Argentine Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT) and the American Federation of Labor (AFL) from a transnational perspective in a period in which changes in national, regional and international terms altered the horizon of expectations of the actors themselves. The article sets out to review the way in which the Good Neighbour Policy – a policy established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, which was based on non-intervention in the domestic aႇairs of Latin American countries – was interpreted and its meaning modi¿ed based on the experience of the actors involved in the international relations of the Argentine and North American trade union movements, and how its de¿nition as a horizon of expectation was diluted as the conditions imposed by World War II gave way to the Cold WarThe proposed time frame covers approximately the period from the end of the 1930s, and specially from 1941 when the United States declared the war to the Axis, to February 1947, a moment which is indicated in the proposal as the end of the usefulness of the good neighbour policy for the objectives of the relationship between the two trade union centres, since, in any case, their interpretation of this policy was, at least, contradictory, if not directly opposed. Through the analysis of sources linked to the AFL itself – The American Federationist, letters, reports and memos –, the press of the time – El Líder, El Laborista, La Vanguardía – it reconstructs the way in which good neighbor inÀuenced inter-union relations. By focusing on a transnational perspective, the article also looks at how changes in the relationship between the actors aႇected not only the relationship itself, but also inÀuenced domestic changes.