Part 3 here.

The purpose of this series is to prove that Congressional representative for California’s 32nd District, Judy Chu, has a close relationship to a network of former members of a violent, pro-Chinese Marxist-Leninist group, the Communist Workers Party.

More importantly, I want to demonstrate that this network has made conscious efforts to infiltrate the US labor movement and the Democratic Party to the highest levels, and to use its influence to the advantage of China and allied communist powers.

Judy Chu’s position and influence may well be one of this network’s greatest achievements.

One of Judy Chu’s closest allies is Kent Wong – Director of UCLA’s Center for Labor Research and Education. In the early 1980s, Wong was a leading member of the Communist Workers Party and later almost certainly an executive committee member of the New Democratic Movement, the CWP’s vehicle for infiltrating the Democratic Party.

Wong is one of the country’s most influential labor movement figures and has been a driving force in building ties between the US labor movement and the communist controlled labor unions of China and Vietnam.

The Chu/Wong relationship goes back many years, but reached one its highest points in October 13, 2011, when Judy Chu, Kent Wong and their respective radical spouses, were all invited to a White House dinner in honor of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.

Kent Wong and Judy Chu have collaborated for some time, often through the radical controlled Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA). One of several AFL-CIO subsidiary organizations formed by Democratic Socialists of America supporters in the labor movement, APALA’s founding president and long time leader was Kent Wong.

On April 26, 2012, at the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, D.C., APALA members and supporters “celebrated the group’s 20 years of addressing the workplace affecting the 660,000 APA union members and as the bridge between the broader labor movement and the APA community.”

The ceremonies also honored AFSCME President Gerald McEntee (a DSA supporter) and Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA) for their important roles in APALA’s founding and growth.

Chu, a longtime activist in her union, American Federation of Teachers, where she also worked with Kent Wong, is a “strong supporter of APALA and its work,” according to Kent Wong’s successor as APALA leader Gregory Cendana.

APALA was created as a tool of the pro-Chinese far left.

According to Kent Wong, writing in “Legacy to Liberation: Politics & Culture of Revolutionary Asian Pacific America” by Carol Antonio, page 90-91:

The formation of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA) in 1992 was a milestone in providing a voice for Asian Americans within the labor movement…The establishment of APALA has its roots in the Asian American Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Revolutionary movements of the 1960s and 1970s, domestically and internationally nurtured the Asian American Movement…Asian American activists were involved in the civil rights movement and the movement against the Vietnam War…Asian Americans led and joined Marxist study groups around the country. Asian American activists gained inspiration from the Vietnamese struggle for liberation, and from the Chinese revolution and the teachings of Mao Zedong. Asian American activists played prominent roles in a number of emerging Marxist-Leninist organizations in the 1970s…Many Asian American activists left college to work as grass roots organizers in the Asian American community, or to seek jobs in factories, to build a workers movement. In the 1980s, Asian activists began to set up Asian labor committees in key cities around the country…From 1991 to 1992, there were a series of national meetings of Asian American trade unionists…The founding convention of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance in 1992, surpassed everyone’s expectations…

On May 17, 2002, an APALA public hearing was held at the Monterey Park City Hall:

This event was symbolic for the Asian Pacific American Immigrant community because it was the first hearing held over the issues of Asian Pacific American labor. It was also the first big wave of public appearances for the community. The hearing included two panels of speakers.

The first panel included speakers Kent Wong and Judy Chu.

On November 13, 2009, APALA convened the first National Asian Pacific American Worker’s Rights Hearing, “a historic gathering of over 200 APA trade unionists and community allies.” The hearing was convened in the Samuel Gompers room of the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington D.C. and was co-convened by APALA and the AFL-CIO in partnership with over 20 national and local organizations to “provide the first national platform for APA workers focused on the right to organize and the rights of immigrant workers.”

Hearing panelists included Kent Wong and Judy Chu.

Saturday, April 9th, 2011, at the Japanese American National Museum, 369 East 1st St., Los Angeles, APALA held a hearing on the “stories and testimonies of Asian Pacific American workers and their struggles to organize.”

Panelists included Kent Wong and Judy Chu.

Like many former CWP members, Kent Wong is very closely involved with the US’ largest Marxist organization, Democratic Socialists of America. This is not surprising, as the CWP dissolved itself in the Democratic Party, civic groups, churches and the labor movement, to effect a Gramsci style takeover of America’s institutions from within – a strategy identical to DSA’s.

What is most disturbing though is Kent Wong’s collaboration with DSA, to move the American labor movement into alliance with the communist/government controlled labor movements of China and Vietnam.

Under the old anti-communist leadership of the AFL-CIO, American labor was strongly hostile to China, for political, economic and human rights reasons. It was always tough to sell America’s workers on why they should support communist Chinese workers, who undercut their products on the world market and supplied the bullets that killed their fathers and uncles in Vietnam.

After Democratic Socialists of America took over the American labor movement in 1995, a major shift in relations with China and Vietnam was slowly put in motion. Kent Wong and his California labor movement colleagues have led the way.

Kent Wong and DSA member Elaine Bernard wrote an article: “Labor’s mistaken anti-China campaign” for the DSA/CWP influenced New Labor Forum, Fall/Winter 2000, in which they called for an alliance between American and Chinese labor to fight global capitalism and international institutions.

On May 24, 2000, the American labor movement suffered a significant defeat in their attempt to block Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) status for China. The House of Representatives voted 237-197 to approve PNTR for China. This was the labor movement’s largest legislative campaign in years, which mobilized resources of the American labor movement from coast to coast… For the U.S. to challenge China’s entry into the WTO because of political and human rights abuse amounts to hypocrisy. China should not be singled out for some of the very same human rights abuses that occur in the U.S., such as widespread use of prison labor… Labor needs to encourage critical engagement with China, not isolation…The American labor movement should take a bold step and seek to open up dialogue and cultivate relationships with workers and trade unions in China… Through engaging in more dialogue and exchange with Chinese workers and unions, the American labor movement could identify new leaders of China who embrace a similar perspective on global corporate domination, and the need to defend human rights and labor rights. The main threat to economic security, dignity and human rights of U.S. workers is domestic and global corporations and their institutions: the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank. We need to keep our eyes on the prize, move beyond the Cold War, move beyond unilateralism, and move toward genuine international labor solidarity.

Kent Wong and Elaine Bernard followed their words with actions.

Wong and a delegation that included Elaine Bernard and and another DSAer, Ruth Milkman, director of the University of California’s Institute for Labor and Employment, were invited by the state-run All China Federation of Trade Unions for a nine-day trip beginning March 20, 2002.

Wong was back in October of 2002, heading a group that included California Labor Federation president Tom Rankin and SEIU national president Andy Stern. On this trip, Wong and company enjoyed an audience by Wei Jianxing, ACFTU chairman and member of the Chinese Communist Party’s Politburo Standing Committee.

The delegation, also included DSA member Paul Booth, an assistant to the president of AFSCME, APALA enabler Gerald McEntee, and had its expenses within China paid for by the government-controlled Chinese “union.”

The purpose of the China trip was “to explore possible ways of having a dialogue and communication between unions,” said delegation leader Kent Wong.

In July 2007, Kent Wong participated in a delegation of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor to establish formal relations with the Shanghai Municipal Trade Union Council. The delegation was led by California’s most powerful union leader, DSA friendly Maria Elena Durazo, and met with union leaders in Shanghai and Beijing, visited four different work sites and met with labor representatives at the national, provincial, municipal and local levels.

In November that year, California Faculty Association President Lillian Taiz, Kent Wong and Linda Tubach for United Teachers of Los Angeles traveled to Shanghai as part of a week long conference titled: “China, Australia, and the United States Teaching Unions on Education Work.”

Linda Tubach, incidentally is a long time radical activist, supporter of the Communist Workers Party aligned Greensboro Justice Fund and is part of Judy Chu’s campaign team.

Kent Wong participated in a “historic meeting” between the AFL-CIO offshoot, Change to Win labor federation and the All China Federation of Trade Unions in August 2009. An agreement signed by CtW Chair Anna Burger and ACFTU Vice Chairwoman Sun Chunlan at ACFTU headquarters in Beijing “promotes cooperation between the two federations on key projects, such as joint research on multinational corporations operating in the United States and China.”

It was the first time in history that such an agreement has been signed between trade union federations in the two countries.

Kent Wong’s UCLA Labor Center pledged to work with SEIU and the Teamsters, as well as with ACFTU, to conduct research on labor standards, labor law enforcement and collective agreements in the multi-service, express delivery and commercial banking industries. In late 2010, the Labor Center would participate in a “binational US-China conference, hosted by the ACFTU, to explore ways research findings can improve labor standards.”

In other words, the American unions agreed to pass on information on American business to their Chinese counterparts.

In Beijing, Andy Stern and Kent Wong met with faculty members from the Labor Relations College of Renmin University and also visited the Migrant Workers’ Center.

The delegation also included DSA member and SEIU official Ginny Coughlin.

Kent Wong led an education union trip to China in 2010. The delegation visited Shanghai, where it was hosted by the Shanghai Teachers Union. Kent Wong, American Federation of Teachers President Gus Goldstein and California Federation of Teachers Community College Council President Carl Friedlander, all CFT Executive Council members, participated in the signing of a partnership and exchange agreement between CFT and the Shanghai Teachers Union and were joined in the delegation by leaders of the California Faculty Association and California School Employees Association.

Kent Wong has also worked hard to forge ties with communist Vietnam.

On 10 December 2007, at the headquarters of the government controlled Vietnam General Conference of Labor, Mr. Nguyen Hoa Binh, VGCL Senior Vice President, awarded the Medal “For the Cause of Building the Trade Union organization” to Professor Kent Wong, Director of the Center for Labor Research of the University of California, Los Angeles.

…as an active activist of US trade union movement, Professor Kent Wong has made efforts for helping Vietnamese trade unions to contact and step by step establish links with trade union organisations such as: Change-To-Win Federation (CTW), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees and Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union (UNITE-HERE); Labour Associations in Los Angeles. His works showed a noble heart, a valuable sentiment of solidarity to Vietnamese workers and trade unions.

“It is my great honor to be given the noblest award from the Vietnam trade union movement. I will try my best to further promote relationship of cooperation between [the] trade union movement of Vietnam and the US,” said Kent Wong at the ceremony.

In November 2008, a delegation of US trade unions led by Kent Wong, was “warmly received by Mr. Dang Quang Dieu, Member of Presidium, Deputy Director of Socio-Economic Policies Department of the VGCL.”

Mr. Dang Quang Dieu highly valued the visit of the delegation, considered it a new development step in the cooperative relationship between trade union movements of the two countries.

In April 2011, Tim Paulson, of the San Francisco Labor Council; Kent Wong, from the UCLA Labor Studies Department; DSAer Elaine Bernard, Chair of the Harvard Trade Union Program; Abel Valenzuela, Jr., Chair of the UCLA Cesar Chavez Chicano Studies Department; and Greg Mantsios, Director of the Joseph S. Murphy Institute for Worker Education & Labor Studies at The City University of New York, arrived in Hanoi for meetings with leaders from the national Vietnamese General Federation of Trade Unions.

This visit was in return for the San Francisco and Alameda Labor Councils and APALA twice hosting leaders from the VGTU for labor exchanges. Kent Wong had organized this conference with American and Vietnamese labor scholars to “exchange ideas regarding organizing policy, the role of labor education and labor law between the two countries — one country controlled by capital and the other gradually allowing corporations to “invest” in its economy.”

Clearly Kent Wong, is a leader of a socialist movement to re-orient US organized labor towards communist China and Vietnam. His communist background and alliance with Democratic Socialists of America Marxists indicate that his campaign is a conscious one, aimed at helping those powers achieve influence within the United States.

Kent Wong’s ties to Judy Chu and her involvement with Marxist controlled Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, indicate that that she is an important part of comrade Wong’s network.

Part 5 here.

Trevor Loudon is the author of Barack Obama and the Enemies Within and is nearing completion of a new title: “The Enemies Within: Communists, Socialists and Progressives in the US Congress.”