used to ensure that the concessions that US capital or US labor wants are granted (for example what I have called export content laws, i.e., production must use some great deal of US ingredients if access to US market is to be granted), not to protect US labor from competition or advance human rights abroad.
The threat of exclusion is used to break down other countries' trade barriers, as Sweeney himself has put it.
That is, the social clause should be understood in the tradition of Super 301 and other unilateral, bully tactics--which is I think how most of the world sees it. Even if this is not how AFL CIO intends social clause to be used, this is how it will be used by the capitalist state.
And what explains US labor's declaration of sufficient enough improvment in Bangladeshi working conditions to allow substantial quota increases? No proof that child labor has been eliminated. No indication that the exploitation of adults is not as repulsive as exploitation of children was. Can't say that US labor at least has the right not to compete with child labor since exports weren't competitive anyway. We should see how arbitrarily countries are declared good and bad in this system.
As I said, US labor cannot seriously want to block China out for reasons of employment since its best bet to avoid overproduction of capital, i.e. justaposition of idle capital and idle workes as Marx puts it, is availability of Chinese labor so as to expand the base of valorization which has become shrunken in relation to the huge mass of capital that is being accumulated.
No, the AFL CIO will not boycott the IPO of all American companies that invest in China. They want those companies to invest there as long as they create a stream of imports, in particular of capital goods, from America.
US labor is not fighting to keep China permanently out of world trade; it is fighting prevent to permanent normalized trade relation (i thought it was permanent most favored nation status--PMFN). The AFL CIO merely wants annual negotations to keep the pressure on China, to keep threat of exclusion always alive. Towards what ends will this threat of exclusion be used? When will the AFL CIO look the other way or accept dubious reports of labor improvements?
As for thinking that outside of China, all other countries in the WTO will rally behind the social clause, this is pretty damn silly reason for excluding China.
Yours, Rakesh