On Mon, 13 Nov 1995, John L Gulick] wrote:
> For those of you interested in U.S. organized labor's "new direction"
> under the Sweeney/Trumka leadership, see the article in today's _NYT_
> about the labor bosses paying a visit to the Boeing strike in Everett,
> WA. Renewed militancy, perhaps, but with a woefully protectionist
> twist. What is one of the targets of the machinists' strike ? For
> Boeing to halt the contracting out of parts assembly to offshore sites,
> even though many of these offshore operations reflect attempts by
> various developmentalist states to force Boeing to purchase parts from
> firms in countries to which it exports commerical aircraft. So what is
> U.S. organized labor's grand vision of an alternative ? For _all_
> manufacturing activity to take place in the First World ?
I attended the rally in favor of the Boeing strikers and spoke
briefly at it. There was an attempt by the main organizer of the rally,
Jobs With Justice, to involve community based groups in mobilizing for the
rally and we were invited to speak briefly, a very small step forward.
The focus by most of the trade union speakers was that the key strike
issue was as much the cutting of health benefits by a very profitable
company, Boeing, as its increasing contracting out production.
Most of the speakers made clear the problem was corporate power not
workers in others countries.
Nevertheless you raise an important point which I had not
considered. Is opposing contracting out by Boeing, undermining workers and
wages in other countries. I hope not. Contracting out, in most cases, is
an attempt to lower wage costs and undermine unions. This is true whether
contracting out is to smaller firms in the U.S. or to be contracted out,
to be produced in other countries. Shouldn't workers in the U.S. (as well
as elsewhere) try to control the power of capital by limiting its
mobility. Of course at the same time, there should be support by U.S.
workers for labor and other movements in other countries organizing,
improving labor rights and control of capital throughout the world.
I don't what the likely wages and benefits would be in China where
some of the contracting out would go. Is this even relevant information?
> And then there's the full-page ad put together by various Puerto Rican-
> American elected officials demanding that the Clinton Administration retain
> "Operation Bootstrap," the program that gives tax breaks to U.S. corporations
> who site manufacturing facilities in Puerto Rico.
>
> Ah, yes, the sharp theory and practice of U.S. "progressives." One camp
> wants to keep all the high-value jobs and incomes to itself, the other
> wants to help U.S. transnationals, which probably have among the highest
> profit margins in the world, with taxpayer assistance to locate in an
> area where they would probably locate anyway ...
>
John, with regards to your second point, the ad about keeping special
tax breaks for U.S. corporations in Puerto Rico was not for the most part
signed by U.S. progressives. I skimmed the ad in Monday 11/14 New York
Times. It seemed to uncritically laud U.S. foreign investment and the
"modernization" in Puerto Rico. The language of the ad was in no ways
leftist. Thus I am not sure the ad represented the positions of many or
most progressives in the U.S. It certainly did not represent any position
I remember of people active in the solidarity movement with Puerto Rico
that was quite strong in the 1970's. I trust or at least hope the passage
of time has not caused a shift to a position lauding U.S. corporate
domination and dependence.
My main interest is in discussion of my first point, contracting out of
work and the boeing strike.
Peter Bohmer
