Union Leaders Seek Globalization

0 Comments | Insight on the News, July 23, 2001 | by Sheila R. Cherry

The AFL-CIO is leading the move by of U.S. labor unions to attempt to partner with union workers around the world. But critics contend this is hurting the American worker.

With membership rolls on the wane and corporate mergers on the rise, union leaders, like multinational employers, are searching for solidarity abroad. As they form global partnerships they are starting to admit that some American jobs may have to be sacrificed -- for the greater good of securing labor rights (and union membership) for oppressed foreign workers.

According to the Associated Press (AP), AFL-CIO membership, including 64 affiliate unions, has declined to its lowest level in 60 years. The members of smaller unions affiliating with the AFL-CIO to protect their membership from raids by competing labor organizations haven't matched the number of affiliate members deserting the ever-more-political federation. The AP recently pointed out, for instance, that in March the United Brotherhood of Carpenters, which had nearly 324,000 members in 2000, left the AFL-CIO because the unionized carpenters wanted to put financial emphasis on organizing workers instead of influencing politicians.

Randy Wanke, director of the conservative National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, also criticizes AFL-CIO and other union leaders for using worker dues to advance political agendas. He charges that the large labor organizations "are so closely tied to the Democratic Party that if the Democrats are in power, they [the unions] are in power." But since these same unions unnecessarily have made themselves the enemies of Republicans they tend to be regarded as pariahs when the GOP is ascendant. Wanke says this is reflected in appointments to the National Labor Relations Board, which regulates what unions can do with the dues they collect.

"Big labor's political activism is funded with union dues from the paychecks of hardworking Americans," says Wanke. "As is the case with many other issues, workers who support President [George W.] Bush's push for `free trade' are forced to fund a political battle that runs counter to their beliefs." At the same time, say other critics, continued union support of Democrats who favor free-trade initiatives that mean exportation of union jobs suggests the politicized union leaders put the interest of the Democratic Party above that of American workers.

Peter Bakvis is the Washington director of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), a Brussels-based international union consortium with affiliate unions in 148 countries. The AFL-CIO, cofounder of the ICFTU, is the only U.S. affiliate of the organization, which Bakvis describes as "the international voice of the trade unions."

According to Bakvis, union internationalists have a broader focus than worker concerns about runaway manufacturing plants. With an expanding multinational membership, the ICFTU has made itself an influential lobbying voice within the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations and the World Bank. It advocates collective bargaining and resists wage-depressing child and slave labor. In 1996, the ICFTU organized a one-day strike by workers in 15 countries in solidarity with several thousand Bridgestone/Firestone union workers who had been fired in the tire maker's U.S. plants.

Nevertheless, what gives U.S. workers the most headaches these days is the competitive job loss that occurs when U.S. employers move operations to low-wage countries with child labor and sweatshops and without expensive regulation of environmental hazards and workplace safety. Competitive job loss is not a priority for a globalized organization such as the ICFTU, which is seeking to represent workers wherever the jobs go. Bakvis notes that he has no illusions that a common wage structure can be built into the trade-agreement process. But the clout from unionizing a few hundred million Chinese, Indians and Indonesians, for example, is undeniable.

Negotiating rights for workers who previously had none naturally is seen as an opportunity to expand union membership and international influence. Two-thirds of ICFTU's membership now is in developing or transitioning countries. "If a plant were to move from one country to another for reasons to do with access to better raw materials or even a more productive labor force, we could understand that; that is part of the market system. What we object to, however, is when governments and corporations work hand-in-hand to deny the rights of workers to organize themselves," says Bakvis. But union critics say the union leaders just want their cut and, if they get it, then it matters little whether the union jobs are in the United States or Sri Lanka.

"What we're really trying to promote is the basic human right of all workers freely to associate and join institutions of their own choosing," insists Mark Anderson, president of the Food and Allied Service Trades, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO. "We're doing it -- and I don't mean this naively at all -- we're doing it because it's the right thing to do." Unions cannot exist in Vietnam or Burma, union leaders say, because those governments won't allow it. Some countries literally allow slave labor.