> From: "Tim Shorrock" <tim.shorrock at ipgdirect.com>
> newman wrote:
>
> >One of the tropes of Sweeney-bashing around the trade issue is the claim
> >that the unions only target foreign countries and non-US labor abuses.
> >Which is just flat out wrong and makes the arguments associated with such
> >arguments pretty suspect.
>
> Dream on. ICEM does great work but it is not the AFL. Same with
> HERE, which
> has indeed done extraordinary work overseas. Same with the USWA, UAW. Its
> not Sweeney bashing to say his AFL has not incorporated
> organizing into its international programs
> (which are still funded by the State Dept). Ask them
> yourself.
Now you are making an odd distinction. All the international unions who elected Sweeney are doing good international work. The international union federations that Sweeney's AFL-CIO is a member of are doing good international work. But the AFL-CIO itself is not doing organizing. Which is of course true, since technically, the AFL-CIO has no members to organize and does no organizing itself. It is a pool of funds (rather small in reality compared to what the sum total budgets of its member unions) used for joint lobbying, electoral work, and publicity of key organizing campaigns.
Sweeney acts as a spokesperson for the labor movement but the reality is that he has less direct power and a smaller budget than any of the larger international union leaders. There were many people who were surprised that Sweeney even wanted to leave his old position at SEIU, where he controlled a far larger budget and a vaster organizing army, for the AFL President position, which may have stronger media and symbolic power, but was traditionally the servant of the international presidents, not their leader. He has managed to raise its profile, but when most people refer to the "AFL-CIO", they usually mean the international unions as well, since that is where the decisions and power of the US union movement lie.
In regard to the PetroChina issue, the ICEM has endorsed that campaign, part of the "great work" they do, yet Sweeney gets slammed for promoting it. These fine distinctions all may make sense for those playing inside-baseball in the DC union intermural conflicts, but are really irrelevant to most of the debates on unions and trade policy.
BTW what is Asian Assets Direct, for which you are Managing Editor? From the web site, it looks like a breakoff from Dow Jones promoting investment in Asia. While you can reasonably have your old union critiques of Sweeney and the PetroChina campaign, it is reasonable to wonder when the critique is coming from someone at an outfit promoting privatization and capitalist investment in the region. If nothing else, it reinforces the point that for all Rakesh and others try to link Sweeney et al to some sort of pro-imperialist plot, at every turn they seem to be on the other side from the capitalist class promoting more and faster corporate presence in international trade and investment.
-- Nathan Newman
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