AFL-CIO goes after wrong target
Globalization = Wal-Martization
By Milt Neidenberg
What has happened to jobs in this debt-fueled,
debt-ridden economy? This has become a hot-button issue,
economically and politically, for President George W. Bush and
his rival, Sen. John Kerry.
Even as the capitalist parties jockey for leadership of the
global imperialist system, there is no job growth at home, only
shrinkage. U.S. trade practices have emerged as a significant
factor.
In February, Gregory Mankiw, chairperson of the White House
Council of Economic Advisors, stirred a boiling pot when he
stated that the outsourcing of jobs is a long-term plus for the
economy. Under pressure from the Bush administration, he
quickly backed off from this statement. The timing of his
remarks--in an election year--was an embarrassment to Bush, who
had pledged time and again that jobs were his primary
concern.
Mankiw made his remark while on a trip through industrial
states that had lost hundreds of thousands of manufacturing
jobs.
Outsourcing is seen as a plus not just for a capitalist
economy showing signs of crisis but, more important, for the
giant transnational corporations and their interlocking
relations with Wall Street banks and investment brokers.
It's all about Fortune 500 profits. Outsourcing means
eliminating and downsizing jobs, wages and benefits.
Secretary of State Colin Powell publicly supported
outsourcing on his recent trip to India, where he met with
Indian leaders and spoke to college students. Ans-wering a
student who asked what his position is on outsourcing, Powell
said: "Out-sourcing is a natural effect of the global economic
system and the rise of the Internet and broadband
communications. You're not going to eliminate outsourcing; but
at the same time when you outsource jobs it becomes a political
issue in anybody's country."
The March 17 New York Times commented that the United States
"has intensified its drive to open Indian markets and wants to
sell advanced civilian space and nuclear technology, but only
if India imposes controls so that the technology is not passed
on to other countries."
There is nothing natural about the predatory role of the
giant transnational corporations. Flush with cheap paper
dollars, they roam the earth, seizing and privatizing the
property and resources of developing nations. This is "natural"
only under monopoly capitalism.
Globalization U.S.-style means opening markets for the
military-industrial complex, exporting jobs, cutting labor
costs for service-oriented transnational corporations, and
making India fit into U.S. imperialist aims in South Asia.
Powell's India trip was an attempt to exploit the historical
underlying tensions between India and China. China is
challenging the United States in the global markets. The flood
of Chinese exports to the United States reached $124 billion
last year. It was $1.6 billion higher this Janu ary than the
previous January. Most aggra vating to the United States is
China's refusal to adjust its currency to favor the
transnational corporations.
Rigged rules, double standards
After Powell's trip to India, the Bush administration, on
behalf of the $70 billion semiconductor industry, filed a
complaint with the World Trade Organization charging China with
protectionist policies. What hypocrisy!
U.S. and European agribusiness barons receive $1 billion a
day in agricultural subsidies, allowing them to dump cheap
surpluses in Africa, East Asia, South Asia, Latin America and
the Caribbean. Small farmers and peasants are being forced off
their lands by U.S. tariff barriers that cost them about $100
billion a year, according to the organization Make Trade
Fair.
To date the WTO has ignored claims of illegal protectionist
practices. Transna-tional corporations have established their
own rules on intellectual property to ensure that poor
countries are unable to benefit from the
scientific-technological revolutionrevolution that has
intensified productivity and cost millions of jobs here.
Trading in the global markets is a stacked deck. According
to economists at Alliance Capital Management LP, "Con-trary to
conventional U.S. beliefs, the research found that American
manufacturing workers weren't the biggest losers." Jobs here
had suffered "an 11 percent drop. But Brazil had a 20 percent
decline. Japan's factory work force shed 16 percent of its
jobs, while China's was down 15 percent."
After looking at employment trends in 20 large economies
from 1995 to 2002, the economists concluded that "more than 22
million jobs in the manufacturing sector were eliminated."
Wal-Martizing the world
Slogans like "free trade vs. fair trade" cover up U.S.
imperialism's predatory objectives in the globalization of
trade.
"Free trade" is nothing more than Wal-Martizing: a race to
the bottom for workers here and for the hundreds of millions
who are jobless, landless, poor, and hungry in the developing
and undeveloped world. Backed by the WTO, the Inter national
Monetary Fund and the World Bank, the greedy billionaires
repatriate their obscene profits back here, leaving the
oppressed countries with huge debts and at the mercy of the
transnationals and banks.
"Fair trade" is non-existent as long as it is dominated by
transnational corporations like Lehman Brothers, General
Motors, Home Depot and Boeing, to name a few that have recently
outsourced their information technology to Indian
companies.
Recently, the AFL-CIO filed a complaint under a section of
the U.S. Trade Act of 1974. The complaint alleged practices of
failing to recognize trade unions or enforce minimum wage, and
engaging in forced labor. Unfortunately, the complaint wasn't
against Wal-Mart, which just topped the Fortune 500 list for
the third time in a row. It wasn't against other transnational
corporations, the Wall Street banks behind them, or the
hundreds of non-union, sweatshop companies that have violated
this law with impunity.
The complaint is aimed at People's China. It is a classic
example of how the AFL-CIO, under President John Sweeney, is
closing ranks with the Democratic Party and its front runner,
John Kerry, who is gathering allies under the banner of "fair
trade." This could end up in the patriotic, protectionist,
anti-communist frenzy of a "Buy America" campaign.
The unions promoted the "Made in America" label in the 1970s
when the transnational corporations were exporting jobs,
factories and capital. The shoe towns in the Northeast, the
apparel and clothing manufacturing cities in the South, and the
industrial states in the Midwest are still hurting from that
policy. It didn't save jobs then and it won't save jobs
now.
This strategy is failing the 13 million organized workers in
this country, who come from many national backgrounds. It is
divisive. It will isolate the labor movement at a crucial time,
when international solidarity generally is on the rise.
For example, the March 20 Global Day of Action against war
and occupation was a monumental success. Marches took place in
over 250 U.S. cities and in 65 countries around the world.
At the 2003 World Social Forum in Brazil, the participants
viewed their opposition to the policies of the transnational
corporations as a process that would generate worldwide
struggle. "Globalization in solidarity" became part of their
statement of principles.
A crisis is looming as one quarter of U.S. industrial
capacity remains idle. Debts and deficits continue to rise. And
the jobless rate stays high even in a "recovery."
With the United States now a debtor nation, the ruling class
here will become more vulnerable to crises and divisions. The
labor movement needs a broad-based strategy to exploit these
weaknesses. It will take a classwide, independent
mobilization.
The powerful Local 10 of the Inter na tional Longshore and
Warehouse Union has proposed a Million Worker March on
Washington. The many thousands of protesters on March 20 in San
Francisco cheered when an ILWU leader raised it there.
It's an idea whose time has come. Here is a perspective that
would send a powerful message to Washington and Wall Street,
Republicans and Demo crats--the executive board of U.S.
imperialism--that the labor movement will not be a passive
player in the stormy days that lie ahead.
Reprinted from the April 1, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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