Social Protectionism

Max Sawicky sawicky at epinet.org
Thu Mar 16 12:13:09 PST 2000


The AFL thinks it is easier to organize sanctions on foreign goods than change U.S. law re: secondary boycotts. They also think it is better to try and organize under difficult circumstances than lobby politicians re: labor law in general and secondary boycotts in particular. They could be wrong, but nothing you have said speaks to that question.

It's easy to prescribe postures from the outside, but hard to determine what is most effective when you have actual, limited resources you must decide how to allocate.

Your outside-the-fray pronouncements thus have little weight. Try doing what the AFL does for ten years and then tell me how you think their strategy should change. You might as well be playing "Class Struggle -- The Game."

mbs

-----Original Message----- From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Charles Brown Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2000 1:42 PM To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Subject: RE: Social Protectionism


>>> Rakesh Bhandari <bhandari at Princeton.EDU> 03/16/00 12:50PM >>
Max, isn't it illegal in many cases to organize boycotts against union busters in the US. If we think it's so important to boycott such foreign producers--and to organize massive Seattle size rallies towards this end--why not so much pressure to revise US law?

**********

CB: Right on Rakesh. Secondary boycotts are illegal in the U.S. Let the AFL get busy organizing and denouncing that. This law is so crazy that it was used successfully against the NAACP which organized secondary boycotts to pressure of civil rights. Notice this is a way not to use the state to demand rights and concessions from the bourgeois and their governments.

CB



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