>"Independent unions" -- independent of what, though.
>The AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center
>is still jointly funded by the U.S. Agency for International
>Development and the National Endowment for Democracy. When will
>AFL-CIO become independent?
I'd be happy to se the whole NED defunded, but the few million the AFL-CIO gets from it is pretty insignificant compared to the budget of billions of dollars for the unions from its members.
But you illustrate my point-- to equate the miniscule amount of funding like the NED to the complete and total subserviance of government-run unions in countries like China is exactly the problem of rhetoric I was highlighting.
During the Cold War, the AFL-CIO were not asshole anticommunist bastards because they received money from the CIA; they chose to take money from the CIA because they were asshole anticommunist bastards. In most cases, the AFL-CIO was actually more conservative on foreign polcy than the government, so it's hard to argue that the money was making the decision for them. Arguments over labor aristocracy are more on point for analyzing that phenomena than looking to government funding.
-- Nathan Newman