Labor's Cold War Missionaries: The Ifpcw's Transnational Mission for the Third World's Petroleum and Chemical Workers, 1954–1975

This article explores the brief yet illustrious life of the International Federation of Petroleum and Chemical Workers (IFPCW). Based out of Denver, Colorado, the IFPCW maintained international offices from 1954 to 1975 and attempted to organize and educate worldwide workers using an American-style trade union structure. The federation was successful for a short time but was brought to a speedy end by a jurisdictional dispute, ties to the Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. government, and the shifting nature of international politics. The IFPCW's story exemplifies attempts to spread a particularly American form of labor organization and to confront communism in the third world during the height of the Cold War.