>At 1:46 PM -0400 7/19/01, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>>The defense of labor is best executed by class solidarity, regardless
>>of nationality, immigration status, etc., not by nativist attempts to
>>monopolize jobs by excluding "aliens," which are in the end futile.
>>When nativists scab by breaking class solidarity, that is, by
>>excluding "aliens," "aliens" naturally can scab back in retaliation.
>>If "you" don't think of "them" as class brothers & sisters, whey
>>should "they" honor the picket lines when "you" go on strike?
>>
>>Yoshie
>
>Under this form of class solidarity, there would be
>no trade unions worthy of the name.
>
>Real class solidarity means you protect union jobs.
>If you aren't in a union, you protect them towards
>the day when you can be in one, which protecting
>furthers.
>
>In a strike situation, calling for all to be employed
>is an empty gesture. General or mass strike would be
>different, but those are not routine events in labor
>history.
>
>The labor movement is not bad on the full employment
>issue, and it's getting better on immigration. But it
>is not going to call for its own dissolution. That's a
>bit too progressive. Indifference to the use of any
>non-union workers to undercut union wages would be
>equivalent to organizational suicide. Then you would
>see some *real* nativism.
>
>mbs
If protecting union jobs is the only point, anti-immigrant &
pro-protectionist nativism is patently pointless. New immigrant
workers are more pro-union than native-born workers -- hence the
AFL-CIO's new stance. To survive, organized labor has to sign up as
many as it can, native or immigrant, legal or illegal. Many foreign
nations have higher rates of unionization than the USA also. Since
most trade & investment flow within the circle of rich nations, one
might say that it is the USA that is bringing down labor standards of
Japan & Western Europe by its cheap un-organized labor.
The best way to protect union jobs is to sign up & make all union members.
Yoshie
