Not under US law. In fact, the UAW used to have a Canadian affiliate, the CAW, until the northern brothers and sisters got disgusted with what they considered to be the spineless attitude of the US union, and split.
>
>Anyway, I have always had mixed feelings on
>"Natonalism" (the left wing kind)--on the one hand,
>the problems and conditions are unique to each
>locality, but at the same time, the conditions that
>make a socialist society will exist for quite some
>time--especially if one is established that go aainst
>the "International Community" (read "USA"), there will
>be attempts to destroy any good that ma come out of
>it.
>
True, but I don't see why this impugns "left wing natioanlism," in part because you haven't said what that might be.
>I wonder if unions should start spending union dues on
>internatonal orginizing rather than paying for silly
>Democrats ad campaigns?
That would be nice. Don't hold your breath.
Although US Unions can be
>pretty nationalist...
Really? I thought all those Buy American bumberstickers they passed out at Solidarity House (UAW International HQ) were an expression of solidaity with workers in Mexico and Brazil . . . .
it almost seemed that unions
>took the same line--worried that "Mexicans will steal
>our jobs" and whatnot.
There's no "almost" about it. Under Sweeney, the AFL-CIO has been getting marginally better on this.
>
>I wonder also, and this may be blasphemy here on this
>list, if a lot of the fears of "Globalization" are
>based on the US being one of the "better off" of
>nations showing there chauvanism. If the real
>revolution comes, one should probably (me being one of
>the first ones) expect some, if not most of our middle
>class priveleges to go away--such as losing our "good
>jobs" to the "foreigners", who incidentally are much
>worse off than we (meaning the US) ever would be---at
>any rate--many of us on this list probably have middle
>class biases that we don't even know we have.
Sure. No question. AT the same time, there si absolutely no percentage in telling US workers, who have it hard by theur own lights, that they should be prepared to do worsde because US capitalists have been exploiting poor people in Indonesia. The trick is to get US workers and Indonesian workers to identifyw ith each other.
>
>In the call for "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity"one
>should expect to lose some of our comforts, at least
>for a time---for the majority of the world however, it
>would of course translate into much greater
>comforts--which is who we're fighting for in the first
>place.
>
Same point.
--jks _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com