File spoon-archives/aut-op-sy.archive/aut-op-sy_2001/aut-op-sy.0112, message 170


From: "michael pugliese" <debsian-AT-pacbell.net>
Subject: AUT: FW: [PEN-L:20797] Chinese working class, replies to Steve P. and Rakesh
Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 05:47:39 -0800




>--- Original Message ---
>From: Stephen Diamond <SDiamond-AT-scu.edu>
>To: Pen-l-AT-galaxy.csuchico.edu
>Date: 12/19/01 3:51:18 PM
>

>I wrote:
>
>Wong and Bernard ignore the actual independent labor
>insurgency underway in China right now and they charge anyone
in their way with being a racist, national chauvinist, etc. etc.
>
>Steve P. wrote:
>
>--Uhm, actually the argument that has been put forth by a number
of
>persons on the left in the US is that if the US unions can have
relations
>with the Mexican union movement, which itself is reknowned for
>encompassing a  large # of company/Party unions, why not China?
The idea
>is that, especially with the changes in foreign policy directions
that
>Sweeney has at least attempted to push the AFL-CIO, the door
is then open,
>much more open, to work with non-company unions and/or labor
>sympathizers/activists in countries such as Mexico or China.
>
>Steve D replies:
>
>Well, interestingly, Wong and Bernard ignored Mexico altogether
- yet I would think that those on the left would see Mexico as
a prime example of the value of supporting independent labor
efforts outside of state-dominated trade union groups.  However,
it is also certainly the case that the CTM (the Mexican labor
group backed by the PRI government for many decades) was never
quite the same rigidly state and party controlled organization
as the ACFTU in China.  Nonetheless, I have always supported
independent organizing in Mexico and believe that the AFL-CIO
made a mistake to ally themselves for so many years with labor
groups like the CTM simply out of narrow Cold War views.  That
is a mistake that has been explicitly recognized and discussed
by the top AFL leadership and, I believe, is in the process of
being changed with some important progress.
>
>You seem to suggest that working with the ACFTU and the CTM
could lead to working with independent efforts.  If that is the
case I am not sure I understand the logic.  I actually think
that the AFL-CIO is now closer to having a consistent international
labor policy than it has had for many years, favoring those efforts
that result in stronger independent unions that make a real attempt
to defend their members interests.  As an example, the recent
effort to help the workers at KukDong, the apparel plant that
supplies Nike, organize an independent union, throwing out the
CROC, which has long been affiliated with the PRI and frequently
enters into secret sweetheart deals with employers.
>
>¯-------------------------
>
>I wrote:
>
>the China Labour Bulletin reports that the ACFTU usually tries
to
>>find excuses for the layoffs and pitiful severance pay handed
out by the
>>party or state officials, when it isn't actually in on the
restructurings
>>itself!
>
>
>Rakesh wrote:
>
>but steve you know that according to radical critics such as
lynd, 
>glaberman and james, mattick sr and others (i liked the histories
by 
>wm forbath law and the shaping of the american labor movement
and 
>rhonda levine class struggle and the new deal) , this is what
the 
>wagner act sanctioned form of collective bargaining turns US
business 
>unions into--tools for the social control of the working class.

>However I am not prepared to defend the argument that you are
simply 
>mistaking the pro union stand in the NLRA for a pro working
class one.
>
>It was interesting that in the important New Politics exchange
Paul 
>Buhle was criticized for both embracing and repudiating radical

>analysis of the unions.  At any rate, I wouldn't want to turn
the 
>other's unions into a depository for our fears and anxieties
about 
>our own.
>
>My reply:
>
>I am very familiar with the arguments made by Lynd, James, et.
Al. I always learn something about the labor movement when I
read these critiques, but I also come away with a sense that
it is the working class itself that bothers these people.  They
seem to get frustrated because workers do not always match their
"rrrevolutionary" politics.  In any case, while I think trade
unions often make compromises and also occasionally make decisions
that can undercut more effective worker organizing I do not think
that one can fairly draw the conclusion that trade unions are
an institution for the "social control of the working class."
>
>One simple test of this question is if unions are such an effective
tool for social control, why do employers fight to oppose them
so bitterly? There is a very interesting discussion of this question
in a new book by Massimo de Angelis that makes this kind of "social
control" argument from an Italian autonomist perspective.  While
the book makes some intriguing arguments (in particular about
the impact of wage-productivity bargaining) it is also clear
that he does not really understand what happens inside a workplace
when workers try to organize some elementary form of self-defense.
 Nor does he really seem to understand why this is such a threat
to employers.
>
>




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