Yes, absolutely I'm nervous about this, on three fronts.
First, the Trumka/Patterson strategy on using 'working capital' to influence how funds invest their money has been very slow to get off the ground because of the AFL's top-heavy centralized management style, where everything is decided by Sweeney's central committee. Plus Patterson himself is one of these control freaks who can't let anything get done without getting glory for himself (the guild unit at the AFL considers his shop the worst place to work in that building).
Second, the AFL has yet to use this investment strategy to influence behavior at U.S. corporations or banks, or in countries more within the American sphere of influence - ie Indonesia, South Korea etc. Supposedly that is what will follow from the PetroChina brouhaha, but I doubt it. China will get Patterson (who runs their Office of Investment) big press play; but not Korea. As a union activist told me the other day, "this is a strategy against a country, not a company."
Third, there's the 'yellow peril.' China is the easiest of targets. It leaves everyone at the AFL, from the left-liberal crowd to the old Cold Warriors, tingling with excitement because they have this illusion of political power. But its dangerous - the AFL's new 'campaign for global fairness' quotes approvingly speeches by Tom Delay denouncing Clinton on China while AFL lobbyists work hand in glove with the right-wing Republican/CIA crowd that now sees China as public enemy #1. A lot of the better people at the AFL are wary of this campaign too. Yeah, China has its problems - unions have very little power, workers are under strict control, executions multiply by the day etc. But hey, that's sounding like the USA.
Putting all of labor's eggs into fighting China's entry into the WTO instead of developing a true cross-border strategy of corporate campaigns and organizing is, in my view, a wasted and hypocritical effort. I hate to see The Nation (Greider and Katrina in particular) describing this as oh-so-progressive - but nobody on the Left, it seems, wants to believe that Sweeney can do anything wrong. Its the Nader syndrome all over again.