[latest responses preceded by ***mbs:] Max B. Sawicky wrote: >No nation's trade policy can be controlled by a labor movement unless >that movement is united on a national level.
DH: But no national union movement can be strong unless it has strong cross-border alliances. That's not dreamy lefty rhetoric, Max, that's very practical politics. The AFL-CIO has a long history of the near-opposite - America Firstism, Cold War footsie with some wretched patsy unions, etc. Hasn't worked too well, has it? ***mbs: actually the Cold War served the AFL, if not the working class, for some time. Things didn't begin to seriously unravel for labor until the '70s. DH: If the UAW had done more to cultivate friends in Mexico over the years, instead of consorting with PRI unions and trying to keep out Mexican parts, it might be in better shape today. ***mbs: I doubt it. Cracking the monopoly of a foreign state over its unions is a lot to ask. DH: You keep quoting Tom G.'s remark about free-trade Dems losing 100,000 votes every time they make an unfortunate utterance, but the electoral track record of protectionists hasn't been all that great, has it? Nor do the poll numbers on NAFTA really go the EPI/AFL way. ***mbs: there has been no full-throated, democratic protect-the-job candidate at the national level. Mondale made some noises about this but got stuck on the other neo-liberal icon of deficit reduction. DH: Besides, U.S. unions love to point their ire abroad, because it's so damn hard to organize at home. It's easier to blame the Chinese or Mexicans than it is to organize McDonald's or nonunion auto parts plants. So by being nationalist, they're not even serving their constituency - they're just feeding them placebos. Doug ***mbs: I agree that trade is used as a crutch by unions to justify less attention to other areas. As far as that goes, I think EPI emphasizes trade too much as well.
