unions

[Doug Henwood]

A pal inside The Building - AFL-CIO HQ - tells me that 1) yesterday's 
rally was a Teamster rally, not an AFL-CIO affair, something the 
press has been lax in pointing out, 2) AFL-CIO people were appalled 
that Buchanan would speak at a labor rally, 3) they do not endorse 
the rhetoric of the rally, preferring instead to fight in a 
"principled and forward-looking way," 4) the AFL-CIO has no control 
over what its member unions do or say, and 5) it's a very diverse 
movement, so one should never draw conclusions about "organized 
labor" on the basis of a single data point.

Becker of the Steelworkers was the low point of the Seattle rally, 
going on in a very ugly way about how imports were "inundating our 
shores" and threatening the American way of life. The Teamsters had 
some ugly banners about Mexican trucks there, too. Both seem more 
like where American labor was, not where it's going. Or so I hope.

Doug