Re: : Fighting the China Deal

[Rod Hay <rodhay@xxxxxxxxxx>]

For me the right to organize independent unions is a basic necessity. It should
be raised at every opportunity and in every forum. The WTO is just one of those
places.

Nathan Newman wrote:

>
> The reason the right to organize is a core issue is that without it, all
> this talk about what "developing countries want" is mere cant by the elites
> of those countries who suppress their own workers to the benefit of local
> elites.   Without the right to organize, there is no room for non-government
> democratic voices from the workplaces of the world.
>
> So that is the basic point.
>
> The other point is that I sometimes can't believe we have revived pre-New
> Deal law at the international level and progressives seriously are arguing
> in defense of it.  Back then, conservative federal judges struck down laws
> in some states that barred the sale of goods made with child labor and
> fought against national labor standards in exactly the terms we hear today
> by those who oppose enforceable international labor standards.  And many
> Southerns fought tool-and-nail against national labor laws like the Wagner
> Act based on their comparative advantage of exploitation.
>
> I support expanded trade as a good for developing nations, but I have no
> problem saying that if basic human rights, including the right to organize
> and right to strike are abridged, goods from those countries should be
> barred.  Otherwise, whatever economic gains to those countries that may come
> from trade will go overwhelmingly to the elite.  I am all for economic
> transfers from the developed world to the developing world, but I am against
> economic transfers from working class Americans to the bank accounts of
> multinational corporations and third world millionaires and billionaires.
>
> And if the threat of "punishment" leads to greater freedom and higher wages
> for third world workers, I am all for that kind of punishment.
>
> -- Nathan Newman

--
Rod Hay
rodhay@xxxxxxxxxx
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