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Right Web

Tracking militarists’ efforts to influence U.S. foreign policy

Thomas R. Donahue

last updated: November 22, 2010


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    • Committee for Free Trade Unionism: Chair
    • Shanker Institute: Board of Directors
    • National Endowment for Democracy:Former board member
    • AFL-CIO:Former president

Please note: IPS Right Web neither represents nor endorses any of the individuals or groups profiled on this site.

Thomas R. Donahue is a long-standing union organizer who has been involved in organized labor since the 1940s. Donahue was a prominent anti-communist during the Cold War, and has been affiliated with a number of prominent neoconservative groups, including the Hudson Institute and Freedom House’s American Committee for Peace in Chechnya. He has also been involved in various democracy promotion organizations, having served on the boards of the National Endowment for Democracy and the Albert Shanker Institute, a union-affiliated non-profit that supports and education and democracy initiatives.[1]

According to his bio on the website of the Shanker Institute, Donahue “served as secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO from 1979 to 1995 and AFL-CIO president in 1995. From 1967 to 1969, he was Assistant Secretary for Labor-Management Relations at the U.S. Department of Labor. He was executive secretary and first vice president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) from 1969 to l973, and from 1973 to 1979 was an executive assistant to then-AFL-CIO president George Meany.”[2]

In 1995, after then-AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland was pushed out by other union leaders after 16 years at the helm, he chose Donahue as his successor. Eager for a change at the top, union members elected John Sweeney instead.[3]

In 1997, Donahue joined the National Endowment for Democracy’s Board of Directors and was elected Vice Chair in 2002.[4] The AFL-CIO was one of the founders and core institutes of NED. Many labor figures have played key roles within NED, most notably Carl Gershman, Lane Kirkland, and Donahue.[5]

Donahue is the founder of the Committee for Free Trade Unionism (CFTU) and serves as its chairman. The committee targets its trade union activism on current and former communist governments, with an emphasis on Cuba, Burma, Vietnam, North Korea, and China.[6]

Donahue is married to Rachelle Horowitz, vice chair of the board of the National Democratic Institute. She was a leader of the conservative faction of the Socialist Party that splintered off in the early 1970s, eventually becoming Social Democrats USA.[7]



Please note: IPS Right Web neither represents nor endorses any of the individuals or groups profiled on this site.

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Thomas R. Donahue Résumé

    Affiliations

    • Committee for Free Trade Unionism: Founder and Chairman
    • Shanker Institute: Member, Board of Directors
    • Council on Foreign Relations: Member, Former Board of Trustees
    • National Endowment for Democracy: Former Member, Board of Directors
    • Hudson Institute: Former Member, Board of Trustees
    • American Committee for Peace in Chechnya: Former Member
    • AFL-CIO: President, 1995; Secretary-Treasurer, 1979-1995; Executive Assistant to then-President George Meany, 1973-1979
    • Service Employees International Union (SEIU): Executive Secretary and first Vice President, 1969-1973

     

    Government

    • State Department’s Advisory Committee on Labor Diplomacy: Former Chairman, 2000-2005
    • President’s Committee on Sustainable Development: Member
    • Task Force on Sustainable Communities: Co-Chair
    • U.S. Trade Representative’s Labor Advisory Committee: Chairman, 1989-1995
    • U.S. Department of Labor: Assistant Secretary for Labor-Management Relations, 1967-1969

     

    Business

    • International Construction Institute's Committee on Pension Education Research and Technical Assistance: Chairman

     

    Education

    • Manhattan College, B.A.
    • Fordham University School of Law, J.D.
The Right Web Mission

Right Web tracks militarists’ efforts to influence U.S. foreign policy.

Sources

[1]Albert Shanker Institute, http://www.ashankerinst.org/.

[2]Albert Shanker Institute, “Board of Directors,” http://www.ashankerinst.org/shankerboard.html.

[3]“Lane Kirkland, Former AFL-CIO Head, Dies at 77,” New York Times, August 15, 1999,
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45b/071.html.

[4]NED, “2006 Democracy Service Medal,” http://www.ned.org/events/democracy-service-medal/2006.

[5]Venezuela Analysis, “Unholy Aliance,” http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/1239.

May 24 2012


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Tensions have been reaching near fevered pitch over Iran’s nuclear program as Israeli leaders and their supporters in the United States have pressed for military action to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons. However, a number of factors have been working against the hawks, including recent progress at the P5+1 talks and the lack of enthusiasm for another conflict among a war-weary U.S. public. In recent weeks, a new force has emerged that seems to have made the threat of war even less imminent—the unprecedented wave of dissent from current and former top Israeli officials.

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As pressure mounts to arm rebels in Syria, there is need for a sober assessment of the costs and consequences of the increasing militarization of the conflict there. If history is any guide, a foreign-backed armed rebellion will likely not produce the kind of victory—or engender the kind of support—that the anti-Assad fighters will require to usher in a new Syria. Additionally, there is the very real possibility that many of the rebels—as we’ve seen in Libya—will turn out to be little better than the regime they seek to replace.

Obama to Pro-Israel Lobby Group: ‘Too Much Loose Talk of War’

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Before a skeptical audience of delegates from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, President Obama affirmed U.S-Israeli ties and challenged detractors to impugn his administration’s record of support for the Jewish state. However, while insisting that that the United States would consider military options in the event of Iran’s developing a nuclear weapon, he also warned Israeli allies of “loose talk” about war, which Obama said only empowers the Iranian regime and decreases prospects for a diplomatic solution.

Whither the Liberal Hawks?

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Tehran's threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, coupled with mounting threats from hawks in Israel and the United States, has brought the possibility of war sharply into view. But a number of influential members of the U.S. foreign policy establishment—including several prominent liberal interventionists who supported the invasion of Iraq—are warning against further escalation.

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