The National Labor Federation (NATLFED) is an umbrella term used to describe a variety of organizations in the United States dedicated to social, cultural, and political activism. Founded in 1972 by organizers who broke away from Cesar Chavez's United Farm Workers Organizing Committee, NATLFED began with the emergence of the Eastern Farm Workers Association in Long Island, New York. Today, NATLFED functions nationwide as individual entities (or "mutal benifits associations") with names like:
- Western and Eastern Service Workers Association
- California Homemakers Association
- Temporary Workers Organizing Comittee
- Coalition of Concerned Medical and Legal Professionals
- Women's Press Collective
- National Equal Justice Association
The NATLFED entities conspicuously lack a web presence, preferring to do all of their business at arms' length.
Many of these groups were started by Provisional Communist Party founder Gino Parente (Gerry William Doeden). Since its founding, NATLFED integrates control over the individual front groups by requiring every Operations Manager to also be member of the Provisional Party.
Perhaps the most salient feature of the NATLFED entities is their practice of extremely aggressive recruitment. The NATLFED entities send representatives to residential neighborhoods, shopping centers, university campuses, and other venues introducing themselves and soliciting volunteers and resources. The entities then periodically interview regular volunteers, asking them to increase their commitment to the organization's goals. Organizers often encourage students to drop out of school and others to quit their jobs to permit full-time volunteer involvement, and some do. Besides recruitment and organizing, the entities solicit resources (food, chlothing, medical services) from vendors and professionals and distribute these to people in poorer neighborhoods free of charge.
NATLFED became controversial in 1996, when the NYPD raided their headquarters in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, seizing numerous weapons and arresting 28 people. The FBI also raided the same location, 1107 Carroll Street, in 1984. The owner of the property and adjacent buildings at the time was Foxfire Enterprises, and they retain ownership today. Since Parente's death, there has been little information about how current operations of NATLFED are run. Entity groups once connected to Parente are often labeled as "Cults". Indeed, as many former "Cadre" members acknowledge, there was sometimes a hidden and -- for lack of a better description-- evil side of NATLFED that placed manipulative people in powerful positions to accomplish their goals. But on the other hand, most people who criticize the organizations of NATLFED fail to put in to perspective the many invaluable services they provide to marginalized people who otherwise would have nothing.
External links
Last updated: 07-15-2005 19:49:58
