[lbo-talk] Does Trade With China Matter?

[Stephen E Philion]

nathan wrote
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.

--here you miss the key point that jonathan raised earlier about 
taiwanese workers' experience w/ afl-cio concern about their ability to 
organize free trade unions and 2) the difference you see is really not 
that great i'm afraid. it's not a matter of doding and weaving, it's 
just a matter of noting the thin standards applied to justify this call 
for stopping trade with China and not doing the same with other 
countries that are notorious abusers of labor rights.
------------------------------------------
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

--sure, no one denies or approves of that here. but you find even worse 
in countries south of the border and in many asian nations...
-----------------------------------------------
I doubt it-- China has been privatizing away on its own quite happily,
irrespective of the WTO. 

--au contraire...thus the tensions over the WTO negotiations that, even 
after entry into the WTO on America's terms, exist and frustrate 
foreign capital to this day.  
-----------------------------------------------
I don't see any grounds for building solidarity when anyone who formed 
an organization for solidarity would likely be jailed. 

--how do you organize solidarity in countries south of the border then? 
---------------
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.

--nothing amazing at all. i've not heard of calls for boycotts of 
investment south of the border...indonesia...i've heard of boycotts of 
specific companies, sure. usually boycotts of countries are only for 
those that are our designated enemies or 'threats' of one sort or 
another.  and gimme a break nathan, you might not be well read on China 
literature, but try coming up with a better slur than 'china defender' 
of people like jonathan lassen, john gulick, or myself. i can't speak 
for Gulick, but lassen and I both have had plenty and plenty of 
experience with real life labor activists on both sides of the taiwan 
straits...we're not speaking as defenders of any goddamned ruling 
elite...the record plainly shows that.

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