Conclusion to a longer piece by David Bacon posted to PEN-L by Stephen
Philion:
The AFL-CIO left Seattle making opposition to China's membership in
the WTO, and new administration trade agreements with China, the
centerpiece of its trade policy. This may be a declaration of political
independence, but it's one which lines up with the old China lobby, instead
of with those calling for a fundamental reordering of the international
economic system.
COSATU's Vavi questions its hypocrisy. He notes that the Chinese
government and labor movement supported the liberation struggle against
apartheid in South Africa. He asks why China's record on human or labor
rights is any worse than many other countries, whose WTO membership and
trade agreements the AFL-CIO has not opposed. "We are disturbed by the
obstacles to workers seeking to organize independent unions, and limits on
the ability to demonstrate freely, and we intend to talk to Chinese unions
about these problems," he says.
In Vietnam, where unions have been more militant in defending
workers' interests, and the government has backed away from an all-out
dismantling of socialism, foreign investment has started to slow. The
AFL-CIO did not oppose Vietnam's WTO membership, or Cuba's. Opposing it
for China is not going to force Chinese unions to oppose government
economic policy. And saying that solidarity with Chinese labor is
impossible because the All China Federation of Trade Unions is not a
legitimate union body smacks of old coldwar, China-lobby prohibitions.
Like the old government-affiliated unions in Mexico, the Chinese
labor movement has been tied to the government and its political party
since 1949. As the government has become committed to economic reforms,
those unions clearly face a choice - between old political relationships
and fighting for the needs of workers under the guns of privatization and
the explosion of sweatshops in the new economic zones.
U.S. unions would obviously like to see the Chinese rely less on
transnational corporations as a source of capital for economic development.
If they have cooperative relationships based on mutual respect and
self-interest, they will have a more receptive audience that they will if
they treat people with whom they disagree as though they had no right to
exist.
The AFL-CIO's campaign on China's WTO membership won't move workers
in either country an inch closer to a common front against transnational
corporations. Instead, U.S. workers need to better understand Chinese
unions and develop relations with them.
Over and over, U.S. workers and unions need to ask ourselves how we
can achieve closer relations with workers in other countries, even if we
don't agree with all the policies of their labor movements. The first step
is opposing the WTO system on principle.
The global trade structure is controlled by developed countries,
and used to impose an unjust international economic order on developing
ones. It is a cruel illusion to expect that same structure to ensure
economic justice.
===
My Comment: Stephen, you prefaced Bacon's article with the following words:
"This is an outstanding article, one which takes the labor movement where
it is and, given that, where it might be able to go." Doesn't Bacon's call
for the need to relate to official Chinese trade unions as they *are* make
Henry Liu's remonstrations more understandable?
Louis Proyect
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