[lbo-talk] Does Trade With China Matter?

Nathan Newman nathanne at nathannewman.org
Tue Mar 23 14:26:21 PST 2004


----- Original Message ----- From: "Stephen E Philion" <philion at hawaii.edu> --really? ask chinese employers about how easy it is to hold onto -their 'slave' laborers. they change jobs at the drop of a dime. and -strikes do occur in China, quite frequently actually, though not at the -behest of an independent union usually, but wildcats do certainly occur.

Yes, people can flee to new jobs and they can "wildcat", but the very fact that wildcat strikes are the only way they can strike attests to the lack of legal rights for labor organizations.

You can dodge and weave, but the reality is that as pathetic as labor rights are in Honduras or Indonesia, a bunch of workers can get together, declare themselves a union, elect a leadership-- and the government won't automatically haul the elected leadership off to jail or worse. They may all be fired by their employer, but at least the state apparatus is not doing the employers' dirty work.

While in China, the government regularly jails or hospitalizes as insane leaders of independent unions. See: http://www.laborrightsnow.org/Liaoyang4.htm http://www.nosweat.org.uk/article.php?sid=671&mode=thread&order=0

--well, sure, but you make it sound awfully black and white. the -situation on the ground is a lot more complex than workers experiencing -low wages because their level of labor rights is significantly lower -than a worker in Indonesia or Honduras. I mean one can advocate the -right to unionise for Chinese workers and still see this.

As I said, no one is advocating that countries be barred from trade deals because they suffer high unemployment, but whatever contribution to low wages is due to suppression of labor rights is too much. And the fact that the government can privatize so many companies and leave so many people unemployed is not unrelated to the fact that the working class in China is barred from effectively organizing.

The lack of free labor unions does not just deny Chinese workers collective bargaining agreements in individual factories. It denies them a vehicle for political mobilization.

Which is of course why the Chinese government so ruthlessly suppresses them.


>But all labor activists demand is that China stop violating the ILO as a
>condition of trade-- no one argues that unemployment by itself is an
>unfair trade advantage for a country.
--pretty shortsighted actually, WTO conditions on the state sector in --China are much more a problem for American and Chinese workers.

I doubt it-- China has been privatizing away on its own quite happily, irrespective of the WTO. It may use the WTO as a whipping boy, but unlike some countries where it's clear the government would rather not engage in neoliberal economics, China's leaders seem to have plunged in happily in converting to neoliberal policies-- and why not since the elite is getting wealthy doing so.

I'm all for attacking the neoliberal aspects of the WTO, but that doesn't mean I don't support attempts to use it to support labor rights. This is like an argument that you shouldn't advocate national health care because the same government does bad things with the military. You can condemn the latter and advocate for the former.


>Furthermore, ask Chinese labor activists if they want US companies to
>withdraw investments in China now. Or if they think of investment in
>China as a 'threat' to American workers. They don't. I don't see much
>ground for solidarity building with such rhetoric.

I don't see any grounds for building solidarity when anyone who formed an organization for solidarity would likely be jailed. That's the core problem-- the basic right to associate is the building block for any serious cross-border support. Yes, Honduras, Indonesia, and so on -- those are all terrible environments for workers, but the bottom line is that workers there can elect a representative to speak for their concerns and who can work with activists in other countries to fight for mutual advantage for both sets of workers.

Chinese workers lack that basic level of democratic rights to form associations. Having that right isn't the endpoint for getting real economic rights, but without it, everything is a farce.

The end goal is not to pull all investment out of China-- it's to force China on threat of losing its ability to export to the US to agree to respect some degree of the right to organize. The leverage is that the rich elite of China doesn't want to lose its money flow, so that pressure could succeed and help the workers there.

Threats of boycotts against companies and/or countries engaged in sub-standard labor conditions is standard labor practice for the history of labor organizing. I am just always amazed that when the same tactic is applied to China, suddenly all these China defenders treat the tactic as illegitimate.

Nathan



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