The AFL-CIO and the China Trade Relations Act
By Milt Neidenberg
The AFL-CIO has embarked on a furious campaign to oppose
the Permanent Normal Trade Relations Act, which would
normalize trade relations with the People's Republic of China
and speed that country's entry into the World Trade
Organization.
President Bill Clinton has assembled an array of powerful
forces--including Wall Street, its allies and congressional
supporters--to overwhelm the AFL-CIO opposition. Getting the
act passed in Congress is a must for a substantial section of
the ruling class. Their plan is to exploit the markets in
China where there are over 1 billion people.
This is what progressives, class-conscious workers and the
activist youths who battled in Seattle and Washington must
oppose as they continue to fight the International Monetary
Fund, World Bank and the World Trade Organization. The forces
of capitalist globalization would like to turn China into one
huge sweathshop.
The corporate-owned media have charged the AFL-CIO with a
return to protectionism and isolationism. They charge the
labor leaders with a rerun of the Cold War times of AFL-CIO
Presidents George Meany and Lane Kirkland.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney has emphatically denied
this. But leaders from the Auto Workers, Steel Workers,
Teamsters, and Union of Needletrades, Industrial, and Textile
Employees have created such an anti-Chinese frenzy to defeat
the bill that there's a grave concern that there is some
truth to the charge.
These union leaders say China has conspired with
transnational corporations to bring about an exodus of U.S.
factories, used low-paid Chinese labor to produce for the
market in this country, repressed independent unions,
illegally exported goods produced in forced-labor camps, and
so on.
These unsubstantiated and virulent charges have begun to
isolate the AFL-CIO from other sectors of the international
labor movement.
The attacks smack of such rampant racism that Zwelinzima
Vavi, general secretary of the Congress of South African
Trade Unions, questioned the hypocrisy of the campaign. Vavi
noted that the Chinese government and labor movement
supported the liberation struggle against apartheid in South
Africa.
Vavi suggested a meeting with the Chinese unions to
discuss these so-called problems. To date there has been no
response from the AFL-CIO leadership.
These AFL-CIO charges against China--itself a target of
U.S. imperialist attacks--divert attention from Corporate
America's ever-expanding prison-industrial complex, child and
sweatshop labor, and the myriad forms of national oppression
that permeate this country.
The attack by union leaders here can only be interpreted
by the 103 million members of the All China Confederation of
Workers as a hostile act. And as one of the largest organized
union movements in the world its influence is
immeasurable.
It's a no-win, dead-end strategy. The AFL-CIO needs to
build international labor solidarity and renew its efforts to
rebuild the labor movement here.
The fight should be against U.S. corporate globalization.
China is not the enemy.
Fairer capitalist exploitation?
The shame of it all is that Teamster President James P.
Hoffa is providing much of the leadership for the anti-China
campaign. He has enlisted a myriad of forces led by Pat
Buchanan--racist, anti-Semitic, anti-communist,
anti-immigrant, anti-gay and anti-abortion.
Along with other right-wing and anti-labor forces, their
agenda has nothing in common with the welfare of the labor
movement.
Unfortunately the AFL-CIO leaders have not disavowed the
Buchanan elements or denounced Hoffa for involving the
Temasters in this dangerous coalition. On April 12, during
the Washington marches and rallies against the IMF, World
Bank and WTO, Hoffa disgraced the AFL-CIO's biggest union by
inviting Buchanan to be a featured speaker at a separate
rally.
At a time when the labor movement is under attack--with
more strikes being forced on it and Corporate America
mounting increasing resistance to labor's efforts to organize
the unorganized--this can only isolate labor from the growing
struggle against corporate globalization, the IMF, World Bank
and WTO.
And it misleads the multinational, service-oriented,
women, young and low-paid immigrant workers who are turning
to the labor movement to be organized. The AFL-CIO leaders
have put the struggles of these workers on hold as it pursues
the anti-China policy.
Politically it is a no-brainer. These union leaders have
put together a coalition that lumps a sector of Democratic
Party pro-capitalist politicians with right-wing and cold-war
militarists who want to overthrow China's socialist system.
It's a nightmare that can only come back to haunt the labor
movement.
The AFL-CIO slogan, "Wage a campaign for global fairness,"
is going nowhere. Is there any fairness when it comes to
corporate profits and global exploitation?
Will the transnational corporations and their investment
bankers listen to the pleas of the billions of workers who
face hunger, disease, unemployment and all the other social
ills? Will they accept language in their trade agreements
that penalize them when they violate basic human and labor
rights?
The 1 percent that owns the majority of the wealth will
continue to plunder the resources of the Third World and
emerging markets for production and super-profits.
Yet according to AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney, this
"campaign for global fairness" must be the response to make
"the global economy work for working families." That is what
he told the 10,000 union members rallying in Washington on
April 12.
Sweeney did expose these corporate forces in the April
issue of America @ Work--the national magazine of the
AFL-CIO--before the protests against the IMF and World Bank.
In his column "Out Front" he wrote that it is wrong when "a
global economic system rewards companies for abusing workers,
despoiling the environment and encouraging government
repression of basic freedoms."
He continued, "Today, the same spirit of greed, and
contempt for workers and their communities that created
America's Rust Belts is shaping our global economy."
Yes. Corporate policy has created rust belts across the
country, decimated communities and the environment, and
ravished the resources. The corporations have been rewarded
with tax relief and abatements, tax write-offs on layoffs and
plant closings, and other freebies too numerous to
mention.
It's been going on since long before China decided to
exert its rights to Permanent Normal Trading Rights with the
United States and to become a member of the WTO.
Rust belts stem from many corporate and government
policies. And these policies began decades ago when the
high-tech revolution was introduced into the basic
industries.
In the giant integrated steel plants, the basic oxidizing
furnaces replaced tens of thousands of steel workers.
Mini-steel mills grew up, providing cheaper non-union
labor.
Auto, rubber and other related industrial workers were
decimated by similar revolutionizing changes that increased
production and speedup on assembly lines. The Big Three auto
makers became predators in the international markets.
And the process continues.
Is China or an emerging Third World country to blame for
this? Of course not. Then why has the AFL-CIO opened such a
virulent attack on China?
One fact is clear. While Sweeney and his Executive Council
members attack Corporate America and its allies, the AFL-CIO
has in effect an unspoken agreement that it calls the social
contract. Implicit in the social contract are
management-rights clauses in union contracts, which let these
corporations shut down plants and lay off tens of thousands
of high-paid industrial workers with impunity. These rights
are considered untouchable and off limits to any
negotiation.
Under this social contract, workers can only bargain for
the price of their labor power. And when their labor is no
longer needed they are scrapped like any other commodity.
That includes shutting down any and all of the facilities
their labor built.
The government provides the laws to assure these
capitalist property rights, along with anti-union
legislation.
Herein lies the critical need: for the most profound
discussion of strategy and tactics in this complex and
difficult period of global domination by U.S. corporations
and banks.
Thirteen million members and 68 international unions make
up the AFL-CIO. Together they constitute a powerful force--if
they would unite to embark on an independent course that
prepares them for the deepening of the class struggle. The
fight for jobs, job security, organizing the unorganized and
all the other social and economic needs must take place here
in the citadel of the United States.
How is all this to be accomplished? The first step is to
recognize the enemy. It's not the People's Republic of China.
The enemy is right here in the United States, surrounded by a
population of over 250 million workers and oppressed
people.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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