China PNTR & AFL 'funding' for IPS

[Tim Shorrock]

Nathan obviously cannot argue the China PNTR issue in a principled way, so
I'll leave him to his delusions. Meanwhile, I checked with the Institute for
Policy Studies and the Interhemispheric Resource Center about Nathan's
recent assertion on this list that "Much to the complaint of rightwingers,
who mounted recent publicity campaigns against it, the AFL-CIO is a direct
funder and supporter of the Institute for Policy Studies and
Interhemispheric Resource Center." According to senior people with both
organizations, neither IPS or IHRP receive any labor funds, nor have they
solicited funds from the AFL-CIO or any unions. One of those I communicated
with told me today that "We have had a rocky relationship with the AFL-CIO
over the last several years, largely because of our failure to adopt the
labor line with respect to China trade policy, and also because some
criticism of protectionist measures, actual and proposed."

Nathan, I suggest a little more care in your reporting and in your
characterizations of principled people on the left and within the labor
movement.

TS

Nathan wrote:
>Sure, you may prefer a better labor policy in China, but you seem to defend
it politically as a ncessary evil to defend China's "legitimate national
interests."  Yet the irony is that, while you try to play this as a "US
versus China" issue, the US government and the Chinese government were not
opposed on PNTR.  They were in agreement.

I'm sorry-- I don't buy "national interests", just the interests of workers
and individuals fighting the collaboration of various elites from China to
the US in suppressing them.   And in the case of PNTR, those elite interests
were on the same side in supporting PNTR, while the AFL-CIO was opposing
both.

- -- Nathan Newman

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 11:52:51 -0400
From: "Nathan Newman" <nathan at newman.org>
Subject: Re: The Histadrut: Continuity and Change

- ----- Original Message -----
From: "Yoshie Furuhashi" <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>