[lbo-talk] Andrew Stern: Love, Labor, Loss

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

> >Bitch | Lab wrote:
> > >
> > > After bitching about this crap yesterday, the ridiculous  
> boycotts of Coca
> > > Cola on behalf of workers in Columbia (but apparently, these  
> college
> > > students can't et up the gumption to boycott coke on behalf of  
> the workers
> > > here in the states, too? Fuck them.)
> >
> >I must have missed whatever post this refers to.
> >
> >But political activity has to start someplace; why not with  
> solidarity
> >(ridiculous or not) with someone in Colombia? In Guatemala  
> organizers at
> >Coca Cola were being killed; I wasn't aware of whatever events you  
> speak
> >of, but below is one thing I found googling Colombia.
> >
> >Carrol
>
> Because, to harken back to an old discussion, it is not unlike the way
> people in the US --especially men -- will get upset about rapes in
> Afghanistan and elsewhere, claiming that as a reason to support  
> Imperial
> intervention, yet will tell women here in the US that our particular
> feminist struggles are so much fluff. What on earth are we complaining
> about? We have it good. What's your problem bitch?
>
> because this kind of activity is feel-good bullshit that's opposed  
> to Big,
> Bad Meany corporations. If they gave a shit about labor, then why  
> NOT all
> coca cola workers? But, that's not what motivates their concern is  
> it? Why
> wasn't this movement one that worked ON ALL coca cola workers? Is  
> it that
> hard? Or is it just that difficult to get anyone to give a shit --  
> unless
> it's about some exotic other we feel we need to patronize with our  
> liberal
> guilt?
>
> Because there's some good research out there to indicate that  
> political
> activity moves from close to home outward better than the other way  
> around.
>
> because it's bullshit imperialism: we feel bad for the exotic Other  
> and
> don't see the same damn shit going on _to us_.
>
> because it's focusing on the extremes, like the anti-porn folks  
> focus on
> the extreme, rather than taking a look at how it operates in a  
> completely
> ordinary way.
>
> because these students can't imagine also being in solidarity with  
> the coca
> cola plant bottling worker? because these students can't imagine  
> being in
> solidarity with the coke truck driver? What is up with that?
>
> I know what's up with that: because they don't think the coca cola  
> plant
> worker in the US is exploited. They don't think the coca cola plant  
> worker
> needs a union. Because they think people who make crappy wages in  
> the US
> deserve to make crappy wages.
>
> Why can't these students be in solidarity with themselves? Because  
> a lot of
> them are working for these big, bad meany corporations.

Is there any evidence at all, though, that demonstrates that students  
who do anti-sweatshop activism and the like don't get involved in  
local labor solidarity campaigns or even their own union organizing?   
If you compare students who have taken part in anti-sweatshop  
activism and those who haven't, I believe that more of the former are  
involved in local labor solidarity campaigns and go on to become  
union (staff or rank-and-file volunteer) and other organizers than  
the latter.

Liza's book on USAS includes Ohio State University student activist  
experience, and most of the activists involved in it were also  
involved in solidarity with the 2000 strike of CWA Local 4501 (a  
local that represents campus workers at OSU), the Mt. Olive Pickle  
boycott (called by FLOC in 1999), GESO (Graduate Students' and  
Employees' Organization) organizing, JwJ, etc.  Some of them went on  
to become union organizers.

BTW, another criticism made of anti-sweatshop activism is the  
opposite of what you mention: sweatshop workers who work for  
subcontractors for multinationals are not the most exploited in  
developing countries.  John Miller addresses this criticism in
"Commodity Fetishism: A Concept for Organizing against Sweatshop  
Labor and Neoliberal Globalization"
<http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/miller121105.html>.

Yoshie Furuhashi
<http://montages.blogspot.com>
<http://monthlyreview.org>
<http://mrzine.org>