>Ed wrote:
>
>Unions were out in some force in Quebec City. They do not want to see
>capital move from the United States and Canada to Jamaica and Brazil. It
>means a loss of jobs for their members and a further decline in their
>powers. However, the movement of capital to cheaper labour abroad has been
>only one of a number of factors accounting for the decline of unions, and
>not likely the most important factor. The industrial structure of advanced
>economies, the nature of work, and the character of employer-employee
>relations, have all changed greatly over the past few decades and would
>all seem to have eroded labour power.
The police claim there was 30,000, the organizers say there was 60,000
demonstartors in Quebec city. By most accounts there was about 150-200
Black Block Anarchists that put on the theatrics for themselves and the
cameras. As we know the "violence" got all the media attention while the
huge labour march was "ignored". The labour organized march had
representatives of unions from all over the America! not just Canada and
the US. There is an understanding by unionists in both the North and the
South that a corporate promoted "free" trade deal is not going to help
working or poor people. Some will improve their standard of living in the
developing countries, the usual elites that will always benefit from
whatever deals they decide to accept on "behalf" of their people...
As an aside, I think a good case can be made that the high standards of
living in the developed world are a direct result of extra parliamentary
actions taken by unions and other supporting civil society movements over
the last 150 years. The corporations didn't stop putting children in mines
or locking women in sweat shops out of a humanitarian desire to improve the
lot of working people...they did it because they were forced to do it by
years of labour actions and extra parliamentary presure...
Over all as others have been saying in this thread the democracy clause is
window dressing in direct response to public pressure in the streets...from
where I am coming from the people in the streets are our brightest and best
and the real hope for a civilization based on other values that the
corporate bottom line.
John Sharkey
