Mexican American Political Association
March 02, 2007
NCLR’s Embrace of Bracero-type Program a Trojan Horse
_
“Is this indentured alien – an almost perfect model of the economic man, an ‘input factor’ stripped of the political and social attributes that liberal democracy likes to ascribe to all human beings ideally – is this bracero the prototype of the production man of the future?” – asked Ernesto Galarza, the legendary author, labor organizer, community leader, and founder of the National Council of La Raza in his seminal work, “Merchants of Labor” in 1964, wherein he described the managed migration of Mexican farm workers in California from 1942 to 1963.
Fast forward to the current national debate around federal immigration reform and we encounter Galarza’s creation, NCLR, morphed into a naked apologist for that sector of corporate America, which is clamoring for modern-day braceros – and not solely reserved for agriculture. But, then again, it probably couldn’t have been otherwise. NCLR has been marketed by American big business as the “largest Hispanic civil rights organization in the U.S.” – a figment of a not too sophisticated marketing strategy, but almost entirely funded and subsidized by the Wal- Marts of the U.S. corporate landscape.
There is nothing in the distant or recent history of similar contract-worker programs in the U.S. that would inspire confidence in any of the current proposals for what NCLR’s CEO, Janet Murguia, has called a “new worker program.” She recently declared in an op-ed piece published in the Washington Post on February 11, 2007, that her “organization and many Latino leaders find ourselves in the interesting position of being principal advocates for a significant new worker visa program as part of comprehensive immigration reform.” Yet, she fails to identify what other “Latino leaders” advocate such a position, or organization that has a track record of advocating for and representing immigrant workers, or immigrant leaders and organizations. She couldn’t because there are none. In the same piece, Murguia lays out the historical experience of bracero programs as “dreadful,” “infamous,” and “synonymous with worker abuse,” yet goes on to advocate for a modern version of the program – an incredible summersault of logic.
We should remember that this is the same organization in the early 1990s – in the name of the Latino community - that was a vociferous supporter of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which has resulted in the loss of millions of American jobs, and the displacement of no less than three million Mexican small farmers from their lands, notwithstanding the opposition by labor and community-based organizations on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border during those debates. This is relevant because it goes to the question of whose interests are served by NCLR’s position on a new bracero program, and whose interests are prejudiced. Simply put, who wins and who loses?
NCLR has no history, trajectory, or reputation for serving individual immigrants in the problems that they encounter in America. It has no first-hand experience in case management in filing wage claims or addressing the systematic violations of the terms and conditions of existing contract-labor programs – H-2A and H-2B, for example. It has no stomach for litigating endemic injustices committed by employers who rob the contract laborers of the value that they create, and that stab to undermine existing prevailing wage standards, and thus, make more tenuous the social standing of native-born workers. Neither has NCLR advocated for the just resolution of the claims made by previous bracero workers who were denied the social security benefits, the funds of which were deducted from their wages, and due them by the U.S. and Mexican governments.
The Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, comprised of agribusiness, and major American corporations, but also includes NCLR, the National Immigration Forum, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and UNITE-HERE, with cozy relations with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, has been at the forefront in advocating for the 21st Century bracero program.
Contrariwise, all other labor unions affiliated with the AFL-CIO and Change to Win, immigrants’ rights coalitions, national and regional Latino organizations, and immigrant-member organizations have steadfastly opposed bracero-type programs.
What we are witnessing today is a debate shaping up similar to that which occurred prior to the passage of NAFTA in 1994. Let’s call it NAFTA II, or NAFTA coming home to roost. A massive “guest-worker” program constitutes nothing more then the importation of bound labor, cheaper than domestic labor, the inverse effect of the massive exportation of manufacturing jobs to cheap labor aboard. Speaking before the American Trucking Association recently, Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, stated that a successful guest- worker program could “give all of you all the truck drivers you can hire.” Trucking companies are currently experiencing driver shortages. This is the real intent of big business with regard to any new contract-labor program, however the advocates of such may seek to soften the name with “guest,” “temporary,” or “new worker.”
U.S. Senator Ernest Gruening, who served in the U.S. Congress during the previous bracero period, observed at the time that, “Although American private enterprise was the beneficiary of an ample and docile labor supply, a large part of the costs were borne by the U.S. Government, i.e., the American taxpayers.” He characterized the program as one in which “corruption and exploitation were its steady concomitants. Gradually the imported labor replaced the domestic.”
Murguia claims that the critics of her position offer “no practical solutions for the flow of migrants that will surely continue or for the abuses these workers will face if they survive the trip across the border.” More than a decade after the approval of NAFTA, a fair trade to the new migrants who come to America to provide valued labor and service is a permanent visa – either employment-based or family relative-based. This would be the best measure to assure that prevailing wage standards are protected, that domestic labor not be undermined, and that labor and civil rights, and civil liberties, are more easily guaranteed. There can be nothing more practical to the migrant worker than permanent legal residency, which provides the minimum modicum of negotiating power with the employer, freedom of movement cross borders, a true statutory path to citizenship, and the ability to immigrate other loved ones.
Only such permanence in visa status will assure that new migrant workers not become a stratified permanent second-class workforce available primarily to benefit employers. Permanent legal resident status in exchange for the valued labor of the migrant worker is what I would call a fair trade, instead of the notoriously unfair “free trade” concept associated with NAFTA.
Nativo V. Lopez, National President of the Mexican American Political Association (MAPA), and the National Director of Hermandad Mexicana Latinoamericana. 2-26-07
_
WASHINGTON POST (Murguía Op-Ed): A Change of Heart on Guest Workers
By Janet Murguía Sunday, February 11, 2007; B07
After President Bush highlighted the need for a temporary-worker program as part of a larger immigration reform in his State of the Union address, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) compared the president's proposal to slavery. Rangel is right to be concerned. Our nation's history with such programs has been dreadful.
Many Latinos still have searing memories of the infamous bracero program, which more than 50 years ago became synonymous with worker abuse. The current guest-worker programs for agriculture and other "non-skilled" labor are not much better. Experience tells us that there is good reason to be concerned that a new worker visa program could repeat these mistakes, creating a permanent, sizable subclass of workers who endure harsh treatment while simultaneously undercutting their American co- workers.
Despite these concerns, after decades of strongly opposing temporary-worker programs for the very reasons that Rangel articulates, my organization and many Latino leaders find ourselves in the interesting position of being principal advocates for a significant new worker visa program as part of comprehensive immigration reform.
Some think we got here as the result of some devil's bargain with our allies among business leaders: They get a new worker program, and we get a path to citizenship for undocumented workers. Not so. We have concluded that a new legal pathway for the future flow of immigrant workers to the United States is the safest, most reasonable path for immigrant workers, for their co-workers in this country, and for a nation hungry for order and control at the border.
We share that hunger. Latinos know that even if we pass immigration reforms that include a path to citizenship for millions of immigrants who work, pay taxes and otherwise contribute to the United States, we will have failed to fix our nation's broken immigration system unless we do what previous reforms did not: Acknowledge that there will continue to be a flow across the border and that we will do everything we can to control and regulate it.
If this year's immigration debate accomplishes what the debate in 1986 did -- marry a legalization program with additional enforcement without addressing the future flow of migrants -- we will have addressed the symptoms of our broken system without repairing it. The cost of this mistake will be enormous: a continued death toll at the border; a sizable flow of undocumented workers who come to this country under harsher conditions; increased harassment of and discrimination against Hispanic Americans often mistaken for immigrants; and exacerbated public frustration that the immigration issue is still not under control.
But we do not have to repeat past mistakes. The immigration reform bill the Senate passed last year contains a much different model of a worker visa program than the unjust model we have lived with for decades. Workers would not be at the mercy of abusive employers in that they could change jobs and alert the authorities to mistreatment. Rather than becoming a permanent second-class workforce, they would have the opportunity to earn a path to permanent status -- and ultimately citizenship -- as one of the only classes of migrants able to petition for themselves rather than relying on an employer or relative to petition for them. There are important labor protections for immigrant workers as well as for their American co-workers, including a requirement that immigrant workers be paid the prevailing wage in an industry to avoid undercutting the wages of American workers employed there. The 110th Congress has an opportunity to build from this strong start and do even better.
We are deeply aware of the risks of going down this path in the immigration reform debate, including accusations that we are selling out one group of immigrant workers to help another. But our critics offer no practical solutions for the flow of migrants that will surely continue or for the abuses these workers will face if they survive the trip across the border. We owe it to migrants, as well as to the nation that their hard work will sustain, to shape a new path for migration that is legal, safe and endowed with protections for immigrant and American workers alike.
The writer is president and chief executive of the National Council of La Raza.
Join us in this prolonged campaign for driver's licenses and visas for our families. The first step in making change is to join an organization that pursues the change we desire. We welcome you to our ranks.
Other organizations leading this movement include: Hermandad Mexicana Latinoamericana, Mexican American Political Association (MAPA), MAPA Youth Leadership, Liberty and Justice for Immigrants Movement, National Alliance for Immigrant's Rights, and immigrant's rights coalitions throughout the U.S..
CONTACT:
Nativo V. Lopez, National President of MAPA (323) 269-1575
Friday, March 02, 2007
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Minute men conspire against each other
« Bring In The Mobs: Press Corps OKs Bloggers | Main | »
Coup Inside the Minuteman Project
The "citizens patrol" Minuteman Project is eating itself alive. Board member Marvin L. Stewart, described as an "accounts receivable technician" at Veterans Affairs and leader of My Lord's Salvation Ministries Inc., has orchestrated a coup to oust the group's chairman, James Gilchrist, over allegations of "gross mismanagement."
Of course, the dispute is over money. Stewart says the Minuteman Project can't account for $400,000 that a direct-mail company helped raise last year for the organization. Gilchrist (pictured left) is disgusted with his former supporters and says it could destroy the whole organization:
"It certainly could come to that," Gilchrist told The Washington Times. "We have led the fight for stricter immigration enforcement, but I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that the people I am fighting against, including the open-border lobbies, are better than the people I'm fighting for."
Gilchrist firmly rejects the idea that $400,000 is missing, and he has asked a Superior Court judge for a restraining order to halt his firing. A hearing is set for March 21 in Orange County. It's not the first divorce for Gilchrist; he already has split with the Minuteman Project's co-founder, Chris Simcox, who started the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Domestic Marshall Plan: Ron Daniels
A Domestic Marshall Plan to Transform America’s ‘Dark Ghettos’
Wednesday, 21 February 2007
by Dr. Ron Daniels
Black Agenda Report
http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=83
Black America must revive the concept of a Domestic
Marshall Plan to reverse the deterioration of the
nation's ‘dark ghettos' - most immediately, to restore
New Orleans' exiled population. Dr. Daniel's suggests
the campaign be called the Martin Luther King-Malcolm X
Community Revitalization Initiative, a mobilization to
begin on April 4. The guiding principle behind the
campaign must be the idea that oppressed people should
exercise the power to control their communities and the
conviction that every person in this country is
entitled to enjoy certain basic human rights, as
articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. A Domestic Marshall Plan to Transform America's
‘Dark Ghettos'
by Dr. Ron Daniels, President, Institute of the Black
World 21st Century
"We will call this proposal the Martin Luther King-
Malcolm X Community Revitalization Initiative."
This article is based on a presentation made by Dr.
Daniels at the Black Family Summit Policy Institute
convened February 1, 2007, by the Institute of the
Black World 21st Century at Howard University. It is a
discussion piece which is intended to assess interest
in and commitment to launching a bold initiative to
compel the American public and the government to
confront issues of racism, poverty and inequality in
this country as dramatically exposed by Katrina.
urbal_renewal_taxi_1970 In January at the Institute of
the Black World 21st Century (IBW) "State of the Black
World Forum" in Washington D.C., during discussion on
creating a "New Force in Black America" to revitalize
the Black Freedom Struggle, New York City Councilman
Charles Barron remarked that neither the Democratic
Party nor the Congressional Black Caucus has clearly
signaled what explicitly "Black issues" they are
prepared to advance since Democrats took control of
Congress. In this regard it is important to remember
that the Six Point Democratic Program for recapturing
control of Congress did not include Katrina/New
Orleans. Moreover, Katrina/New Orleans was completely
absent from President Bush's State of the Union
Address.
While there was no noticeable outcry from Black leaders
protesting this disgraceful omission, Capital Hill
insiders indicate that the Congressional Black Caucus
is focusing on aid/assistance for New Orleans and the
Gulf as a major priority. With Blacks once again
demonstrating unflinching loyalty to the Democratic
Party in the critical mid-term elections, however,
there is still the overarching and compelling question
as to what "race specific" initiatives will be advanced
by the Democratic leadership in Congress to address
crucial Black issues and concerns. Black America needs
an answer to that question, and I believe that one of
the responses ought to be to revive the concept of a
Domestic Marshall Plan targeted at rebuilding New
Orleans and America's "dark ghettos."
"The Six Point Democratic Program for recapturing
control of Congress did not include Katrina/New
Orleans."
I presented this idea at a recent Policy Institute
convened by the Black Family Summit of IBW at Howard
University. In so doing, I reminded the assembled
organization heads, scholars and activists that it is
important to realize that Katrina is a metaphor for the
disaster wrought on Black America's urban and rural
communities by years of benign and blatant neglect.
This was/is manifested by the almost total abandonment
of pro-active and corrective policies for problems of
inner-city and rural communities by Democratic and
Republic administrations. The toll on Black America,
especially on Black working class and poor people, has
been devastating. Many urban inner-city areas are like
zones of desolation and despair, racked by chronic
unemployment, underemployment, poverty, inadequate
health facilities, environmental degradation, poor
performing schools, the infestation of drugs, crime,
gangs, the illicit economy, fear, police occupation and
terror - all feeding a prison-jail industrial complex
where Black and Brown people are the primary fodder. As
depicted on the television series "The Wire," life in
America's dark ghettos can be deadly and destructive of
the aspirations of a people; the tragic consequence of
broken individuals, families and
communities.cityscapeWclouds
Most importantly, contrary to the exhortations of
"America's Dad," Bill Cosby, this is a fate which is
not of our own choosing. Nor are these the same
"ghettos" that past generations grew up in around the
country. As William Julius Wilson observes, in the face
of globalization, massive de-industrialization and the
calculated shrinking of ameliorative public programs
and services under the guise of creating a more
efficient government, the most disadvantaged of our
people are living in communities where "work has
virtually disappeared." Moreover, there is an almost
total collapse of supportive community based
institutions like settlement houses, health care
centers, hospitals and viable schools. And, African
Americans in past generations did not grow up in
communities where guns and drugs were so readily
available and violence and deadly force was endemic to
daily life.
"Ethnic cleansing is afoot in New Orleans."
Currently there is no acceptable response to our plight
by policymakers in Washington. Total neglect or the
conservative mantra of "blame the victim," is the order
of the day. To the degree that there has been a
response, it has been by developers moving in, aided
and abetted by local governments, to displace Black
working class and poor people from their neighborhoods,
scattering them hither and thither as Whites have
decided to recapture the "Chocolate Cities" of this
nation. Gentrification has become the "Negro removal
program" of the 21st century. It is precisely this kind
of "ethnic cleansing" program that is afoot in New
Orleans as local developers attempt to remake this
African city to create a Disney World, theme park
environment.
While we must continue to urge our people who are
imprisoned by these conditions to do all they can to
assume responsibility for rising above and overcoming
the pathology which now afflicts them/us, we must be
clear that the racist and exploitive policies of
government are primarily responsible for our plight.
Ultimately we must compel the government to rescue and
transform this nation's dark ghettos. And this will
require a massive allocation of resources, not only to
improve the physical environment but to heal and
restore broken lives and communities. The
transformation of America's dark ghettos demands
nothing less than a program equivalent to a Domestic
Marshall Plan.
Long advocated by the National Urban League under the
leadership of John E. Jacob but de-prioritized by his
successor Hugh A. Price, the concept of a Domestic
Marshall Plan was derived from the massive and
unprecedented expenditure of U.S. resources to rebuild
Europe and Japan after World War II. Mr. Jacobs
consistently questioned why the United States could not
rebuild urban areas here in America in the same way it
had rebuilt entire foreign nations. The same question
is relevant today. How is it that America can instantly
find billions of dollars to wage an ill conceived, ill
advised and illegal war in Iraq, including billions to
rebuild this strife-riven nation, and not muster
sufficient resources to expeditiously rebuild New
Orleans, the Gulf and transform the dark ghettos of
this prosperous land? Black America must muster the
resolve to compel America to respond in the affirmative
to this question.
"How is it that America can instantly find billions of
dollars to wage an ill conceived, ill advised and
illegal war in Iraq, and not muster sufficient
resources to expeditiously rebuild New Orleans."
Every organization that gathered for the Black Family
Summit Policy Institute, e.g., National Association of
Black Social Workers, National Medical Association,
National Association of Black Psychologists, Mental
Health Healers Alliance, National Association of Black
Veterans, International Association of Black
Professional Firefighters is engaged in treating some
aspect of the malady which afflicts our most destitute
and desperate communities. Each organization has
specific initiatives and programs designed to address
some dimension of the crisis. The value of these
efforts notwithstanding, strategically, I believe it is
imperative that a broad ranging collective of
organizations and agencies come together to adopt a
comprehensive/holistic, consensus strategy/approach to
address the desperate and deteriorating conditions in
America's dark ghettos - an approach that must
prescribe solutions to the physical, cultural,
educational, spiritual and social justice aspects of
the crises.
At a minimum the approach must include affordable
housing, public service employment, job training,
environmentally sustainable community economic
development, quality education based on culturally
inclusive curricula, Black adoptions, drug and alcohol
abuse counseling and treatment, AIDS counseling and
treatment, community based health centers with
facilities for mental health, community organizers,
gang prevention programs, re-entry programs for
formerly incarcerated persons and civic engagement and
empowerment programs. The same approach should apply to
rural communities with an additional focus on Black
land retention and programs to assist and enhance the
viability of Black farmers and agriculturalists.
At the end of his life Martin Luther King and the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference were planning
a Poor People's Campaign as a way of articulating the
concept of an Economic Bill of Rights to guarantee a
basic quality of life for Black people and all
Americans. Similarly, Malcolm X was urging us to
control the politics and social life of our
communities, and to see our struggle not just as a
fight for civil rights but human rights as well. The
idea that oppressed people should exercise the power to
control their communities and the conviction that every
person in this country is entitled to enjoy certain
basic human rights, as articulated in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, should constitute guiding
principles for our approach to resolving the crises in
our communities.
"It is time to draw a line in the sand to rescue and
transform our communities."
While the Domestic Marshall Plan concept captures the
spirit of what I am advocating and has a familiar ring
for policymakers and the public, given the scope and
character of the approach envisioned, it might be more
appropriate to call this proposal the Martin Luther
King-Malcolm X Community Revitalization Initiative. In
addition, it is important to have a title which
resonates in the Black community as the base
constituency for this initiative. It is also important
to indicate that this initiative should not be viewed
as a substitute for affirmative action or, ultimately,
reparations, as policy prescriptions to repair past and
present damage to Africans in America as a consequence
of the long and tragic travail of enslavement and
racial apartheid in this country.
It is time to draw a line in the sand to rescue and
transform our communities. It is time to mobilize the
political muscle to demand that the Congress of the
United States and the President implement a
comprehensive/holistic program to rebuild depressed and
oppressed communities in this nation. Accordingly, as
a vital exercise in operational unity, I am suggesting
a Black and people of color led Emergency Mobilization,
April 4th to May 19th as the first phase of a campaign
to create public awareness of the plight of America's
dark ghettos and to demand the enactment of the Martin
Luther King-Malcolm X Community Revitalization
Initiative. We must mobilize Black people to take the
lead in issuing a clarion call to end the war in Iraq,
rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf and invest in
transforming America's dark ghettos, reservations and
neighborhoods.
I am proposing April 4th because it is the date Martin
Luther King delivered his "Beyond Vietnam: A Time To
Break Silence" speech at Riverside Church in 1967, and
the date he was assassinated one year later in Memphis
as he was preparing to launch the Poor People's
Campaign. May 19th is the birthday of El Hajj Malik El
Shabazz, our "Black Shining Prince," Malcolm X who
increasingly viewed the struggle of Africans in America
as a human rights struggle. Hence, we capture the
vision, spirit and courage of two of Black America's
seminal leaders in advancing a powerful concept for the
rebuilding and restoration of America's dark ghettos. I
would also like to dedicate this Initiative to the
memory of Damu Smith, our young ancestor, veteran
social and political activist, founder of the National
Black Environmental Justice Network and Black Voices
for Peace; a stalwart in the struggle for liberation of
people of African descent and oppressed humanity.
The intensive emergency mobilization would be preceded
by working sessionsDL &W Railroad Willow with scholars
and policymakers to flesh out the basic elements of the
MLK-Malcolm X Initiative. IBW would also craft a
proclamation outlining the rationale for the Initiative
and a call to action. The model Initiative and
proclamation would be released April 4th followed by a
National Forum on the subject in Washington, D.C.,
April 6th where leading scholars, policy makers and
activists would address the importance of the
Initiative. A similar forum would be convened by the
New York area IBW Ujima Support Committee April 7th to
kick-off an extensive nationwide education campaign
utilizing Black talk radio, Black newspapers, the
internet and the majority media to promote the
Initiative and mobilize constituencies/participants for
a March/Rally in Washington, D.C. May 19th.
"America has the opportunity to erase the ugly images
of Katrina from the consciousness of the world by
transforming America's dark ghettos."
May 19th would mark the culmination of the first phase
of an ongoing campaign/mobilization to build public
support for the enactment of the Initiative including
injecting the idea into the presidential campaign. The
forthcoming State of the Black World Conference II,
tentatively scheduled for November 28th - December 2nd
this fall in New Orleans, would be another major focal
point for galvanizing support for the Initiative.
Ultimately, Africans in America and our allies must
generate sufficient momentum to force the Democratic
Party, which has taken Blacks for granted for too long,
and a nation which has been in denial about the
debilitating effects of racism, poverty and inequality
on Blacks and people of color, to take an affirmative
stand in favor of this vital Initiative.
America has the opportunity to erase the ugly images of
Katrina from the consciousness of the world by
transforming America's dark ghettos. There is no better
way to achieve this mission than by doing for the
dispossessed in this country what this nation so
magnanimously did for Europe and Japan after World War
II. Americans must demand that the U.S. government end
the war in Iraq, seal the "demonic suction tube" that
is draining vast resources away from urgent domestic
needs and massively invest in rescuing and transforming
America's dark ghettos. Africans in America and the
oppressed must settle for nothing less.
Organizations, agencies and individuals interested in
contributing ideas about this proposed Initiative or
organizing to support the campaign should visit the
website www.ibw21.org Email IBW at info@ibw21.org
____________________
Wednesday, 21 February 2007
by Dr. Ron Daniels
Black Agenda Report
http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=83
Black America must revive the concept of a Domestic
Marshall Plan to reverse the deterioration of the
nation's ‘dark ghettos' - most immediately, to restore
New Orleans' exiled population. Dr. Daniel's suggests
the campaign be called the Martin Luther King-Malcolm X
Community Revitalization Initiative, a mobilization to
begin on April 4. The guiding principle behind the
campaign must be the idea that oppressed people should
exercise the power to control their communities and the
conviction that every person in this country is
entitled to enjoy certain basic human rights, as
articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. A Domestic Marshall Plan to Transform America's
‘Dark Ghettos'
by Dr. Ron Daniels, President, Institute of the Black
World 21st Century
"We will call this proposal the Martin Luther King-
Malcolm X Community Revitalization Initiative."
This article is based on a presentation made by Dr.
Daniels at the Black Family Summit Policy Institute
convened February 1, 2007, by the Institute of the
Black World 21st Century at Howard University. It is a
discussion piece which is intended to assess interest
in and commitment to launching a bold initiative to
compel the American public and the government to
confront issues of racism, poverty and inequality in
this country as dramatically exposed by Katrina.
urbal_renewal_taxi_1970 In January at the Institute of
the Black World 21st Century (IBW) "State of the Black
World Forum" in Washington D.C., during discussion on
creating a "New Force in Black America" to revitalize
the Black Freedom Struggle, New York City Councilman
Charles Barron remarked that neither the Democratic
Party nor the Congressional Black Caucus has clearly
signaled what explicitly "Black issues" they are
prepared to advance since Democrats took control of
Congress. In this regard it is important to remember
that the Six Point Democratic Program for recapturing
control of Congress did not include Katrina/New
Orleans. Moreover, Katrina/New Orleans was completely
absent from President Bush's State of the Union
Address.
While there was no noticeable outcry from Black leaders
protesting this disgraceful omission, Capital Hill
insiders indicate that the Congressional Black Caucus
is focusing on aid/assistance for New Orleans and the
Gulf as a major priority. With Blacks once again
demonstrating unflinching loyalty to the Democratic
Party in the critical mid-term elections, however,
there is still the overarching and compelling question
as to what "race specific" initiatives will be advanced
by the Democratic leadership in Congress to address
crucial Black issues and concerns. Black America needs
an answer to that question, and I believe that one of
the responses ought to be to revive the concept of a
Domestic Marshall Plan targeted at rebuilding New
Orleans and America's "dark ghettos."
"The Six Point Democratic Program for recapturing
control of Congress did not include Katrina/New
Orleans."
I presented this idea at a recent Policy Institute
convened by the Black Family Summit of IBW at Howard
University. In so doing, I reminded the assembled
organization heads, scholars and activists that it is
important to realize that Katrina is a metaphor for the
disaster wrought on Black America's urban and rural
communities by years of benign and blatant neglect.
This was/is manifested by the almost total abandonment
of pro-active and corrective policies for problems of
inner-city and rural communities by Democratic and
Republic administrations. The toll on Black America,
especially on Black working class and poor people, has
been devastating. Many urban inner-city areas are like
zones of desolation and despair, racked by chronic
unemployment, underemployment, poverty, inadequate
health facilities, environmental degradation, poor
performing schools, the infestation of drugs, crime,
gangs, the illicit economy, fear, police occupation and
terror - all feeding a prison-jail industrial complex
where Black and Brown people are the primary fodder. As
depicted on the television series "The Wire," life in
America's dark ghettos can be deadly and destructive of
the aspirations of a people; the tragic consequence of
broken individuals, families and
communities.cityscapeWclouds
Most importantly, contrary to the exhortations of
"America's Dad," Bill Cosby, this is a fate which is
not of our own choosing. Nor are these the same
"ghettos" that past generations grew up in around the
country. As William Julius Wilson observes, in the face
of globalization, massive de-industrialization and the
calculated shrinking of ameliorative public programs
and services under the guise of creating a more
efficient government, the most disadvantaged of our
people are living in communities where "work has
virtually disappeared." Moreover, there is an almost
total collapse of supportive community based
institutions like settlement houses, health care
centers, hospitals and viable schools. And, African
Americans in past generations did not grow up in
communities where guns and drugs were so readily
available and violence and deadly force was endemic to
daily life.
"Ethnic cleansing is afoot in New Orleans."
Currently there is no acceptable response to our plight
by policymakers in Washington. Total neglect or the
conservative mantra of "blame the victim," is the order
of the day. To the degree that there has been a
response, it has been by developers moving in, aided
and abetted by local governments, to displace Black
working class and poor people from their neighborhoods,
scattering them hither and thither as Whites have
decided to recapture the "Chocolate Cities" of this
nation. Gentrification has become the "Negro removal
program" of the 21st century. It is precisely this kind
of "ethnic cleansing" program that is afoot in New
Orleans as local developers attempt to remake this
African city to create a Disney World, theme park
environment.
While we must continue to urge our people who are
imprisoned by these conditions to do all they can to
assume responsibility for rising above and overcoming
the pathology which now afflicts them/us, we must be
clear that the racist and exploitive policies of
government are primarily responsible for our plight.
Ultimately we must compel the government to rescue and
transform this nation's dark ghettos. And this will
require a massive allocation of resources, not only to
improve the physical environment but to heal and
restore broken lives and communities. The
transformation of America's dark ghettos demands
nothing less than a program equivalent to a Domestic
Marshall Plan.
Long advocated by the National Urban League under the
leadership of John E. Jacob but de-prioritized by his
successor Hugh A. Price, the concept of a Domestic
Marshall Plan was derived from the massive and
unprecedented expenditure of U.S. resources to rebuild
Europe and Japan after World War II. Mr. Jacobs
consistently questioned why the United States could not
rebuild urban areas here in America in the same way it
had rebuilt entire foreign nations. The same question
is relevant today. How is it that America can instantly
find billions of dollars to wage an ill conceived, ill
advised and illegal war in Iraq, including billions to
rebuild this strife-riven nation, and not muster
sufficient resources to expeditiously rebuild New
Orleans, the Gulf and transform the dark ghettos of
this prosperous land? Black America must muster the
resolve to compel America to respond in the affirmative
to this question.
"How is it that America can instantly find billions of
dollars to wage an ill conceived, ill advised and
illegal war in Iraq, and not muster sufficient
resources to expeditiously rebuild New Orleans."
Every organization that gathered for the Black Family
Summit Policy Institute, e.g., National Association of
Black Social Workers, National Medical Association,
National Association of Black Psychologists, Mental
Health Healers Alliance, National Association of Black
Veterans, International Association of Black
Professional Firefighters is engaged in treating some
aspect of the malady which afflicts our most destitute
and desperate communities. Each organization has
specific initiatives and programs designed to address
some dimension of the crisis. The value of these
efforts notwithstanding, strategically, I believe it is
imperative that a broad ranging collective of
organizations and agencies come together to adopt a
comprehensive/holistic, consensus strategy/approach to
address the desperate and deteriorating conditions in
America's dark ghettos - an approach that must
prescribe solutions to the physical, cultural,
educational, spiritual and social justice aspects of
the crises.
At a minimum the approach must include affordable
housing, public service employment, job training,
environmentally sustainable community economic
development, quality education based on culturally
inclusive curricula, Black adoptions, drug and alcohol
abuse counseling and treatment, AIDS counseling and
treatment, community based health centers with
facilities for mental health, community organizers,
gang prevention programs, re-entry programs for
formerly incarcerated persons and civic engagement and
empowerment programs. The same approach should apply to
rural communities with an additional focus on Black
land retention and programs to assist and enhance the
viability of Black farmers and agriculturalists.
At the end of his life Martin Luther King and the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference were planning
a Poor People's Campaign as a way of articulating the
concept of an Economic Bill of Rights to guarantee a
basic quality of life for Black people and all
Americans. Similarly, Malcolm X was urging us to
control the politics and social life of our
communities, and to see our struggle not just as a
fight for civil rights but human rights as well. The
idea that oppressed people should exercise the power to
control their communities and the conviction that every
person in this country is entitled to enjoy certain
basic human rights, as articulated in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, should constitute guiding
principles for our approach to resolving the crises in
our communities.
"It is time to draw a line in the sand to rescue and
transform our communities."
While the Domestic Marshall Plan concept captures the
spirit of what I am advocating and has a familiar ring
for policymakers and the public, given the scope and
character of the approach envisioned, it might be more
appropriate to call this proposal the Martin Luther
King-Malcolm X Community Revitalization Initiative. In
addition, it is important to have a title which
resonates in the Black community as the base
constituency for this initiative. It is also important
to indicate that this initiative should not be viewed
as a substitute for affirmative action or, ultimately,
reparations, as policy prescriptions to repair past and
present damage to Africans in America as a consequence
of the long and tragic travail of enslavement and
racial apartheid in this country.
It is time to draw a line in the sand to rescue and
transform our communities. It is time to mobilize the
political muscle to demand that the Congress of the
United States and the President implement a
comprehensive/holistic program to rebuild depressed and
oppressed communities in this nation. Accordingly, as
a vital exercise in operational unity, I am suggesting
a Black and people of color led Emergency Mobilization,
April 4th to May 19th as the first phase of a campaign
to create public awareness of the plight of America's
dark ghettos and to demand the enactment of the Martin
Luther King-Malcolm X Community Revitalization
Initiative. We must mobilize Black people to take the
lead in issuing a clarion call to end the war in Iraq,
rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf and invest in
transforming America's dark ghettos, reservations and
neighborhoods.
I am proposing April 4th because it is the date Martin
Luther King delivered his "Beyond Vietnam: A Time To
Break Silence" speech at Riverside Church in 1967, and
the date he was assassinated one year later in Memphis
as he was preparing to launch the Poor People's
Campaign. May 19th is the birthday of El Hajj Malik El
Shabazz, our "Black Shining Prince," Malcolm X who
increasingly viewed the struggle of Africans in America
as a human rights struggle. Hence, we capture the
vision, spirit and courage of two of Black America's
seminal leaders in advancing a powerful concept for the
rebuilding and restoration of America's dark ghettos. I
would also like to dedicate this Initiative to the
memory of Damu Smith, our young ancestor, veteran
social and political activist, founder of the National
Black Environmental Justice Network and Black Voices
for Peace; a stalwart in the struggle for liberation of
people of African descent and oppressed humanity.
The intensive emergency mobilization would be preceded
by working sessionsDL &W Railroad Willow with scholars
and policymakers to flesh out the basic elements of the
MLK-Malcolm X Initiative. IBW would also craft a
proclamation outlining the rationale for the Initiative
and a call to action. The model Initiative and
proclamation would be released April 4th followed by a
National Forum on the subject in Washington, D.C.,
April 6th where leading scholars, policy makers and
activists would address the importance of the
Initiative. A similar forum would be convened by the
New York area IBW Ujima Support Committee April 7th to
kick-off an extensive nationwide education campaign
utilizing Black talk radio, Black newspapers, the
internet and the majority media to promote the
Initiative and mobilize constituencies/participants for
a March/Rally in Washington, D.C. May 19th.
"America has the opportunity to erase the ugly images
of Katrina from the consciousness of the world by
transforming America's dark ghettos."
May 19th would mark the culmination of the first phase
of an ongoing campaign/mobilization to build public
support for the enactment of the Initiative including
injecting the idea into the presidential campaign. The
forthcoming State of the Black World Conference II,
tentatively scheduled for November 28th - December 2nd
this fall in New Orleans, would be another major focal
point for galvanizing support for the Initiative.
Ultimately, Africans in America and our allies must
generate sufficient momentum to force the Democratic
Party, which has taken Blacks for granted for too long,
and a nation which has been in denial about the
debilitating effects of racism, poverty and inequality
on Blacks and people of color, to take an affirmative
stand in favor of this vital Initiative.
America has the opportunity to erase the ugly images of
Katrina from the consciousness of the world by
transforming America's dark ghettos. There is no better
way to achieve this mission than by doing for the
dispossessed in this country what this nation so
magnanimously did for Europe and Japan after World War
II. Americans must demand that the U.S. government end
the war in Iraq, seal the "demonic suction tube" that
is draining vast resources away from urgent domestic
needs and massively invest in rescuing and transforming
America's dark ghettos. Africans in America and the
oppressed must settle for nothing less.
Organizations, agencies and individuals interested in
contributing ideas about this proposed Initiative or
organizing to support the campaign should visit the
website www.ibw21.org Email IBW at info@ibw21.org
____________________
Thursday, February 08, 2007
International unions
Solidarity Without Borders
Confronted with multinationals and business-friendly trade agreements, unions have begun to act globally
By David Moberg February 7, 2007
With John Lennon's "Imagine" playing in the background, more than 1,000 leaders of service and technology unions from around the world gathered in Chicago in the fall of 2005. As delegates at the Union Network International (UNI) convention, they represented about 15 million workers in 140 countries. The challenge they faced was laid out in bold by the banner before them: "Global companies require global organizing, global unions."
It's an idea that's as old as it is new. Back in 1848, Marx and Engels exhorted the workers of the world to unite, and in the late 19th century, during an earlier wave of globalization, confederations of unions in similar industries--like metalworking--began to form across borders. But in the United States and elsewhere, the idea remains new and alien to many labor leaders, even as those same international union groupings--now called Global Union Federations (GUFs)--confront a seemingly borderless economy dominated by transnational corporations.
Despite the long history of global federations, no real global union exists. "For a union to exist at any place and any time, there are many preconditions," says Ron Oswald, general secretary of the International Union of Foodworkers (IUF), one of the most imaginative global union federations. "First workers [must] know there's a union, and employers [must] know there's a union. I'm not sure any worker or employer knows there's a global union. It's a brand, not a reality. International companies are clearly a reality. International unions have yet to become so."
There are signs that global unions may become more than mere brands. Alexandra Figus is one of the small indicators of progress. Twenty-seven years ago, Figus, 51, emigrated from Poland to Chicago, where she became a janitor and leader in her Service Employees International Union (SEIU) local. Last September, she flew to Warsaw to help organize security guards as part of a multinational security industry unionizing campaign.
"I was so inspired that so many people they want solidarity to take care of their problems," Figus says. "They know a single worker cannot do nothing. They were very interested what was my experience. They listened to me. These are kids of those who created Solidarity. We told them what you can get if stick together."
The long detour
Workers have been acting together across borders for a long time. The eight-hour day movement of the late 19th century was international, and the Haymarket incident in Chicago was commemorated as May Day, the international workers' holiday. But two world wars, a global Depression and the Cold War disrupted globalization of both capital and the labor movement. Unions in richer countries often scored their political gains by creating national welfare states and using national governments to reinforce trade union power.
International solidarity was often a one-way affair, from rich countries to poorer ones, including expressions of solidarity to jailed unionists. U.S. unions often subordinated their work to their country's anti-communist foreign policy. International labor elites focused on groups such as the 88-year old International Labor Organization (ILO)--a Geneva-based United Nations institution composed of government, business and labor representatives who establish rights and standards for workers globally, but can do little to enforce their directives.
The contemporary global economy presents labor with a double challenge in regards to global solidarity. On the one hand, corporations push workers into competition over who gets jobs and investment, especially in highly mobile manufacturing or digitized services. At the same time, unions, even in rich countries, realize that they can--and often must--work together to confront those corporations and to lift the standards of working conditions everywhere.
Last November, the 57-year old International Confederation of Free Trade Unions--the world's largest organization of national union federations--merged with a smaller world federation of unions aligned with Christian Democratic political parties, as well as several independent federations, such as the communist-oriented GGT of France. Stan Gacek, AFL-CIO assistant director of international affairs, calls it a "major quantum leap, in terms of organization of the labor movement on a global basis."
Guy Ryder, general secretary of the newly expanded federation, now called the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), says that the politics of the merger were as important as its size, roughly 168 million workers. "This would have been almost unimaginable even four years ago," Ryder says. "Unions saw the Cold War as an element of division in the labor movement, even 15 years after the end of the Cold War."
The merger also created a closer alliance between the ITUC and the GUFs. As a result, the GUFs will focus more on organizing and bargaining by industry and corporation, leaving broader political work to the ITUC.
"The key on global work is to figure out ways to do global grassroots action, not meetings," says Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America. "For a hundred years, too much has been about sending leaders to meet and dine together, which is great for building relationships, but we're looking for global events, ways for people to act together."
The revolutions in communications and transportation that enabled corporate globalization--such as cheaper airfares and the Internet--make it easier for workers around the world to connect. Korean workers can send videos of their participation at a Haymarket rally in Chicago over their cell phones back to a rally of co-workers in Korea. "We couldn't even begin to think about doing the work we do without the Internet," says Christy Hoffman, an SEIU official who serves as the European-based organizing director for UNI's property services division.
Eric Lee, founder of the LabourStart Web site, which mobilizes labor supporters around global causes, says that the Internet greatly increases the speed and numbers of activists responding to a crisis--like a successful campaign to reverse the firing of an Irish union shop steward for wearing her union pin. It has also increased the involvement of grassroots activists. "International solidarity work has penetrated to the shop floor level," he says, "and hundreds of times as many people are involved in global solidarity work."
A cold splash of reality
Unions are seeking other ways to meet global capital on a more level playing field. In January, several unions--Amicus and the Transport and General Workers Union (T&G), two of Britain's largest unions; IG Metall (the giant German metalworkers union); and the Steelworker and Machinist unions in the United States--announced plans for a new "super union." The proposal is still just a "theoretical concept," says Steelworkers' International Affairs Director Gerald Fernandez, but other unions are also talking about forming joint cross-border unions. And the Farm Labor Organizing Committee already organizes in both Mexico and the United States to represent largely migrant workers in North Carolina and Ohio.
Yet a cold splash of reality is needed. Easier communication and the consolidating forces of global capital may help unite unions, but language, institutional structures, levels of economic development, national identity, strategic differences, and national labor laws and traditions all act as dividers. At a time when the former "international unions" covering neighboring countries like Canada and the United States continue to separate into national unions, creating global unions will not be easy. For the foreseeable future, the challenge will simply be to increase global cooperation and coordination.
Part of the problem is the weakness of what passes for global governance and labor law. Today, the most powerful global governance of the world economy comes from institutions like the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund, which tilt against labor. Although it often appears that corporations write the rules of the new global economy, they still rely on governments to do their bidding. By using their economic and political power to change governments and laws, global unions can change those rules.
Labor unions around the world have agreed that international trade and economic agreements must include protection of labor rights. When no such protections exist, U.S. unions have increasingly used legal avenues to challenge corporations and both the U.S. and foreign governments. The AFL-CIO has taken cases to the ILO contesting the Bush administration's National Labor Relations Board decisions that restrict the right to organize. And Mexican and U.S. unions have filed NAFTA complaints about U.S. violations of the rights of Washington apple pickers and North Carolina state employees. The AFL-CIO also has used trade law to challenge labor rights violations in China and Jordan, but new free trade agreements have removed the threat of suspending trade preferences for violations of worker rights. And some unions have employed a powerful but controversial legal tool, the Alien Tort Claims Act. Used mainly by the International Labor Rights Fund--successfully against Chevron's slave labor practices in Burma--this law permits workers victimized overseas by U.S. corporations to sue in U.S. federal courts.
Though such cases often accomplish little, they build the case that labor rights are human rights, deserving of protection in future trade deals. "Using NAFTA labor or ILO complaints [or] raising our national labor law problems to an international dimension can be helpful if it's part of a broader campaign strategy," says Lance Compa, an international labor law expert at Cornell University.
One strategy for changing the political climate for labor involves negotiation of International Framework Agreements between Global Union Federations and transnational employers guaranteeing basic labor rights. The IUF bargained the first of these agreements in 1988 with Danone, the French food giant, and now various federations have negotiated more than 50 such agreements.
Many strategists saw them as at least improvements on the codes of conduct that transnationals adopted as public relations gambits to fend off criticism from unions and anti-sweatshop groups. At best, they might be first steps towards global collective bargaining. But the deals mainly ratified rights workers had in Europe and were unenforceable in the United States or the global South. "Now we're talking about much tougher agreements," Oswald says, that would guarantee unions access to workers and recognition by the most expeditious means possible.
Still, with few exceptions, global collective bargaining barely exists. The International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) campaigned for many years to force "flag of convenience" ships--which fly flags of countries like Panama to avoid regulation--to pay wages for cargo ship crews that the ITF defined as fair. Eventually a global industry group agreed to bargain directly with the ITF.
Targeting transnationals
The most important global work in recent years has been cross-border campaigning in support of strikes or organizing drives at particular transnational corporations. Most are so-called "comprehensive campaigns" that find chinks in the corporate armor where unions and their allies, usually non-governmental organizations like churches or worker rights advocates, can apply pressure. Such global support has been critical in high-profile U.S. labor victories, like the Steelworkers' battles with Ravenswood Aluminum and Bridgestone/Firestone, the 1997 Teamster strike against UPS and UNITE HERE's campaign at the Brylane clothing warehouse (owned by a French multinational). Currently, the west coast longshoremen are working with Korean unions to help organize Blue Diamond almond workers in California, because Korea is a major market for the company, and the Mineworkers are jointly campaigning with Australian miners to organize Peabody Coal.
In most cases, U.S. unions ask their counterparts to pressure corporations with whom they have some clout. Western European union leaders, however, often do not understand how anti-union businesses are in the United States and are more accustomed to civil consultations with employers rather than confrontations. They have at times complained that the Americans wanted them to risk their close relationships with employers, without getting help in return from Americans.
"The criticism that Europeans and Brazilians have of Americans is, 'You're only into international solidarity when you're about to go on strike or negotiate or there's a plant closing. What about the rest of the time?', " says Ben Davis, Mexico representative of the AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center, which trains and supports unions in many countries.
But relationships are growing more balanced, and campaigns are becoming less reactions to crises and more a part of global strategies. "We've moved from global solidarity to global strategy," says Ginny Coughlin, UNITE HERE's global strategies director. "Instead of making lots of statements, we're making mistakes, running into obstacles, which means we're making progress. We've embarked for the first time in union history on a real cross-border organizing effort in hotels and hospitality."
As UNITE HERE bargained last year with U.S. hotel chains, it also supported a new community-religious-labor organization, London Citizens, which is working with the almost entirely non-union London hotel workforce. Besides helping British workers unionize, UNITE HERE wants to stop U.S. hotel chains from embracing this new London operating model--outsourcing room-cleaning to immigrants minimally paid by the room, rather than offering them fixed wage.
SEIU has recently ramped up its global organizing dramatically. It is working with two GUFs (UNI and IUF) on organizing the transnational corporate leaders in four industries--security guards, school bus drivers, janitors, and (with UNITE HERE) "multi-service companies" that provide food, laundry and other services. Thanks to coordinated global union pressure, the three multiservice giants--Aramark, Compass and Sodexho--have quietly agreed to terms tht will make organizing their workers much easier.
"The huge consolidation [in global service corporations] has made it more possible to organize with fewer players," says Stephen Lerner, SEIU's property services director. If global labor can guarantee workers' rights to organize at each of these companies, there's an opportunity to organize quickly on a huge scale. Also, though the companies are global, the services they provide can't be shifted to low-wage countries, as with industrial or digital service work. "They can't move the buildings," Lerner says. "workers [can] support each other because they're not competing for the same jobs." Ultimately he believes there should be true global unions that match the scope of global companies.
When SEIU encountered resistance from security firms owned by Swedish-based Securitas, they turned for help to the Swedish Transport Workers Union, which was able to mediate talks. "We put our relationship with the company on the line," says Transport Workers International Secretary Lars Lindgren. "We had a good relationship with the company, but SEIU is a sister union, and that comes first."
Securitas agreed to be neutral and recognize the union when a majority of workers in a city signed union cards, and SEIU agreed not to enforce a contract until most employers in the market were organized. Unions are now globally fighting a British-based giant, Group 4 Securicor], that rejects such a deal.
SEIU and the Teamsters, working with the British Transport and General Workers (T&G), had to use shareholder actions and other tactics relatively new for Europeans to win a neutrality pledge from First Group, a British bus company that become a leader in operating yellow school buses in the United States.
Graham Stevenson, T&G national transport organizing director, says that this alliance may help his union stop the company from importing American anti-union management practices. "The useful thing for us is that our members' consciousness has risen a lot," Stevenson says. "We're awash in American capital, but we don't want American labor relations."
The development of these global campaigns creates complex webs. SEIU has at least 15 staff working overseas, mainly in Europe, training organizers and developing relationships with individual unions and the GUFs, which are all poorly financed and understaffed. SEIU also provided IUF with seed money for an organizing fund, which will be replenished by a share of dues from new organizing that the IUF assists.
The Steelworkers have begun developing "strategic alliances" with unions in Australia, Brazil, Germany, Mexico and other countries. The Mexican union helped the Steelworkers in bargaining with companies like Alcoa and Asarco, which is owned by Grupo Mexico. And the Steelworkers have staunchly defended the union's leader, Napoleon Gomez, when the government removed him from his union office for leading a strike over mine safety.
"Mexico is one of our largest trading partners," says the Steelworkers' Fernandez. "If we can't take care of labor rights in our hemisphere, how can we do it in other hemispheres? We have a philosophical basis for assisting them. That's what unions are about. We also have self-interest. Strong unions in Mexico, Canada and the United States make it difficult for multinational corporations to exploit any of us."
Global campaigns can take on a life of their own. When the small Graphic Communications International Union (GCIU) asked the AFL-CIO in 2001 to help develop an organizing plan, they decided to target Quebecor, a Canadian-based transnational printing giant. With UNI's help, they formed a global conference of Quebecor unions and pursued an international framework agreement.
As the company resisted, unions around the world joined in shareholder actions, protests with religious leaders, in-plant petition drives, and global days of solidarity--even a sympathy strike. Governments and client corporations were pressured to threaten cutoffs of lucrative contracts. Organizers trained by Solidarity Center helped win victories in Peru, Chile and Brazil, as well as two elections in the United States. The Teamsters, which incorporated the American part of GCIU, hopes talks will now revive the stalled campaign.
Simply campaigning more, however, won't be enough. Unions need to change both the global political climate and the rules of the global economy. In some parts of the world, particularly Latin America, unions recently have turned more to populist and socialist politics, says Cornell professor Kate Bronfenbrenner, who organized a landmark conference on global comprehensive campaigns.
The global labor movement needs agreement on its broad political agenda. As AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka argues, workers everywhere are boxed in by policies that promote capital mobility, labor flexibility, price stability and privatization of government. When taken together, those policies, at a global and national level, undermine workers' economic power and social welfare protections, make organizing more difficult and limit what unions can do even if they do organize or undertake global campaigns.
"Is the labor movement actually becoming more international, either with regard to employers in organizing and bargaining or in relation to governments in setting policy at both the national and international levels?" asks one high-level union official with extensive global experience. "That's a tough call to say there's been real progress." Yet today more labor leaders and workers around the world at least recognize the need for global unionism, and are looking for ways to give the old idea of worldwide worker solidarity a viable form for a new era.
David Moberg, a senior editor of In These Times, has been on the staff of the magazine since it began publishing. Before joining In These Times, he completed his work for a Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of Chicago and worked for Newsweek. Recently he has received fellowships from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Nation Institute for research on the new global economy.
In These Times
Confronted with multinationals and business-friendly trade agreements, unions have begun to act globally
By David Moberg February 7, 2007
With John Lennon's "Imagine" playing in the background, more than 1,000 leaders of service and technology unions from around the world gathered in Chicago in the fall of 2005. As delegates at the Union Network International (UNI) convention, they represented about 15 million workers in 140 countries. The challenge they faced was laid out in bold by the banner before them: "Global companies require global organizing, global unions."
It's an idea that's as old as it is new. Back in 1848, Marx and Engels exhorted the workers of the world to unite, and in the late 19th century, during an earlier wave of globalization, confederations of unions in similar industries--like metalworking--began to form across borders. But in the United States and elsewhere, the idea remains new and alien to many labor leaders, even as those same international union groupings--now called Global Union Federations (GUFs)--confront a seemingly borderless economy dominated by transnational corporations.
Despite the long history of global federations, no real global union exists. "For a union to exist at any place and any time, there are many preconditions," says Ron Oswald, general secretary of the International Union of Foodworkers (IUF), one of the most imaginative global union federations. "First workers [must] know there's a union, and employers [must] know there's a union. I'm not sure any worker or employer knows there's a global union. It's a brand, not a reality. International companies are clearly a reality. International unions have yet to become so."
There are signs that global unions may become more than mere brands. Alexandra Figus is one of the small indicators of progress. Twenty-seven years ago, Figus, 51, emigrated from Poland to Chicago, where she became a janitor and leader in her Service Employees International Union (SEIU) local. Last September, she flew to Warsaw to help organize security guards as part of a multinational security industry unionizing campaign.
"I was so inspired that so many people they want solidarity to take care of their problems," Figus says. "They know a single worker cannot do nothing. They were very interested what was my experience. They listened to me. These are kids of those who created Solidarity. We told them what you can get if stick together."
The long detour
Workers have been acting together across borders for a long time. The eight-hour day movement of the late 19th century was international, and the Haymarket incident in Chicago was commemorated as May Day, the international workers' holiday. But two world wars, a global Depression and the Cold War disrupted globalization of both capital and the labor movement. Unions in richer countries often scored their political gains by creating national welfare states and using national governments to reinforce trade union power.
International solidarity was often a one-way affair, from rich countries to poorer ones, including expressions of solidarity to jailed unionists. U.S. unions often subordinated their work to their country's anti-communist foreign policy. International labor elites focused on groups such as the 88-year old International Labor Organization (ILO)--a Geneva-based United Nations institution composed of government, business and labor representatives who establish rights and standards for workers globally, but can do little to enforce their directives.
The contemporary global economy presents labor with a double challenge in regards to global solidarity. On the one hand, corporations push workers into competition over who gets jobs and investment, especially in highly mobile manufacturing or digitized services. At the same time, unions, even in rich countries, realize that they can--and often must--work together to confront those corporations and to lift the standards of working conditions everywhere.
Last November, the 57-year old International Confederation of Free Trade Unions--the world's largest organization of national union federations--merged with a smaller world federation of unions aligned with Christian Democratic political parties, as well as several independent federations, such as the communist-oriented GGT of France. Stan Gacek, AFL-CIO assistant director of international affairs, calls it a "major quantum leap, in terms of organization of the labor movement on a global basis."
Guy Ryder, general secretary of the newly expanded federation, now called the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), says that the politics of the merger were as important as its size, roughly 168 million workers. "This would have been almost unimaginable even four years ago," Ryder says. "Unions saw the Cold War as an element of division in the labor movement, even 15 years after the end of the Cold War."
The merger also created a closer alliance between the ITUC and the GUFs. As a result, the GUFs will focus more on organizing and bargaining by industry and corporation, leaving broader political work to the ITUC.
"The key on global work is to figure out ways to do global grassroots action, not meetings," says Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America. "For a hundred years, too much has been about sending leaders to meet and dine together, which is great for building relationships, but we're looking for global events, ways for people to act together."
The revolutions in communications and transportation that enabled corporate globalization--such as cheaper airfares and the Internet--make it easier for workers around the world to connect. Korean workers can send videos of their participation at a Haymarket rally in Chicago over their cell phones back to a rally of co-workers in Korea. "We couldn't even begin to think about doing the work we do without the Internet," says Christy Hoffman, an SEIU official who serves as the European-based organizing director for UNI's property services division.
Eric Lee, founder of the LabourStart Web site, which mobilizes labor supporters around global causes, says that the Internet greatly increases the speed and numbers of activists responding to a crisis--like a successful campaign to reverse the firing of an Irish union shop steward for wearing her union pin. It has also increased the involvement of grassroots activists. "International solidarity work has penetrated to the shop floor level," he says, "and hundreds of times as many people are involved in global solidarity work."
A cold splash of reality
Unions are seeking other ways to meet global capital on a more level playing field. In January, several unions--Amicus and the Transport and General Workers Union (T&G), two of Britain's largest unions; IG Metall (the giant German metalworkers union); and the Steelworker and Machinist unions in the United States--announced plans for a new "super union." The proposal is still just a "theoretical concept," says Steelworkers' International Affairs Director Gerald Fernandez, but other unions are also talking about forming joint cross-border unions. And the Farm Labor Organizing Committee already organizes in both Mexico and the United States to represent largely migrant workers in North Carolina and Ohio.
Yet a cold splash of reality is needed. Easier communication and the consolidating forces of global capital may help unite unions, but language, institutional structures, levels of economic development, national identity, strategic differences, and national labor laws and traditions all act as dividers. At a time when the former "international unions" covering neighboring countries like Canada and the United States continue to separate into national unions, creating global unions will not be easy. For the foreseeable future, the challenge will simply be to increase global cooperation and coordination.
Part of the problem is the weakness of what passes for global governance and labor law. Today, the most powerful global governance of the world economy comes from institutions like the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund, which tilt against labor. Although it often appears that corporations write the rules of the new global economy, they still rely on governments to do their bidding. By using their economic and political power to change governments and laws, global unions can change those rules.
Labor unions around the world have agreed that international trade and economic agreements must include protection of labor rights. When no such protections exist, U.S. unions have increasingly used legal avenues to challenge corporations and both the U.S. and foreign governments. The AFL-CIO has taken cases to the ILO contesting the Bush administration's National Labor Relations Board decisions that restrict the right to organize. And Mexican and U.S. unions have filed NAFTA complaints about U.S. violations of the rights of Washington apple pickers and North Carolina state employees. The AFL-CIO also has used trade law to challenge labor rights violations in China and Jordan, but new free trade agreements have removed the threat of suspending trade preferences for violations of worker rights. And some unions have employed a powerful but controversial legal tool, the Alien Tort Claims Act. Used mainly by the International Labor Rights Fund--successfully against Chevron's slave labor practices in Burma--this law permits workers victimized overseas by U.S. corporations to sue in U.S. federal courts.
Though such cases often accomplish little, they build the case that labor rights are human rights, deserving of protection in future trade deals. "Using NAFTA labor or ILO complaints [or] raising our national labor law problems to an international dimension can be helpful if it's part of a broader campaign strategy," says Lance Compa, an international labor law expert at Cornell University.
One strategy for changing the political climate for labor involves negotiation of International Framework Agreements between Global Union Federations and transnational employers guaranteeing basic labor rights. The IUF bargained the first of these agreements in 1988 with Danone, the French food giant, and now various federations have negotiated more than 50 such agreements.
Many strategists saw them as at least improvements on the codes of conduct that transnationals adopted as public relations gambits to fend off criticism from unions and anti-sweatshop groups. At best, they might be first steps towards global collective bargaining. But the deals mainly ratified rights workers had in Europe and were unenforceable in the United States or the global South. "Now we're talking about much tougher agreements," Oswald says, that would guarantee unions access to workers and recognition by the most expeditious means possible.
Still, with few exceptions, global collective bargaining barely exists. The International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) campaigned for many years to force "flag of convenience" ships--which fly flags of countries like Panama to avoid regulation--to pay wages for cargo ship crews that the ITF defined as fair. Eventually a global industry group agreed to bargain directly with the ITF.
Targeting transnationals
The most important global work in recent years has been cross-border campaigning in support of strikes or organizing drives at particular transnational corporations. Most are so-called "comprehensive campaigns" that find chinks in the corporate armor where unions and their allies, usually non-governmental organizations like churches or worker rights advocates, can apply pressure. Such global support has been critical in high-profile U.S. labor victories, like the Steelworkers' battles with Ravenswood Aluminum and Bridgestone/Firestone, the 1997 Teamster strike against UPS and UNITE HERE's campaign at the Brylane clothing warehouse (owned by a French multinational). Currently, the west coast longshoremen are working with Korean unions to help organize Blue Diamond almond workers in California, because Korea is a major market for the company, and the Mineworkers are jointly campaigning with Australian miners to organize Peabody Coal.
In most cases, U.S. unions ask their counterparts to pressure corporations with whom they have some clout. Western European union leaders, however, often do not understand how anti-union businesses are in the United States and are more accustomed to civil consultations with employers rather than confrontations. They have at times complained that the Americans wanted them to risk their close relationships with employers, without getting help in return from Americans.
"The criticism that Europeans and Brazilians have of Americans is, 'You're only into international solidarity when you're about to go on strike or negotiate or there's a plant closing. What about the rest of the time?', " says Ben Davis, Mexico representative of the AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center, which trains and supports unions in many countries.
But relationships are growing more balanced, and campaigns are becoming less reactions to crises and more a part of global strategies. "We've moved from global solidarity to global strategy," says Ginny Coughlin, UNITE HERE's global strategies director. "Instead of making lots of statements, we're making mistakes, running into obstacles, which means we're making progress. We've embarked for the first time in union history on a real cross-border organizing effort in hotels and hospitality."
As UNITE HERE bargained last year with U.S. hotel chains, it also supported a new community-religious-labor organization, London Citizens, which is working with the almost entirely non-union London hotel workforce. Besides helping British workers unionize, UNITE HERE wants to stop U.S. hotel chains from embracing this new London operating model--outsourcing room-cleaning to immigrants minimally paid by the room, rather than offering them fixed wage.
SEIU has recently ramped up its global organizing dramatically. It is working with two GUFs (UNI and IUF) on organizing the transnational corporate leaders in four industries--security guards, school bus drivers, janitors, and (with UNITE HERE) "multi-service companies" that provide food, laundry and other services. Thanks to coordinated global union pressure, the three multiservice giants--Aramark, Compass and Sodexho--have quietly agreed to terms tht will make organizing their workers much easier.
"The huge consolidation [in global service corporations] has made it more possible to organize with fewer players," says Stephen Lerner, SEIU's property services director. If global labor can guarantee workers' rights to organize at each of these companies, there's an opportunity to organize quickly on a huge scale. Also, though the companies are global, the services they provide can't be shifted to low-wage countries, as with industrial or digital service work. "They can't move the buildings," Lerner says. "workers [can] support each other because they're not competing for the same jobs." Ultimately he believes there should be true global unions that match the scope of global companies.
When SEIU encountered resistance from security firms owned by Swedish-based Securitas, they turned for help to the Swedish Transport Workers Union, which was able to mediate talks. "We put our relationship with the company on the line," says Transport Workers International Secretary Lars Lindgren. "We had a good relationship with the company, but SEIU is a sister union, and that comes first."
Securitas agreed to be neutral and recognize the union when a majority of workers in a city signed union cards, and SEIU agreed not to enforce a contract until most employers in the market were organized. Unions are now globally fighting a British-based giant, Group 4 Securicor], that rejects such a deal.
SEIU and the Teamsters, working with the British Transport and General Workers (T&G), had to use shareholder actions and other tactics relatively new for Europeans to win a neutrality pledge from First Group, a British bus company that become a leader in operating yellow school buses in the United States.
Graham Stevenson, T&G national transport organizing director, says that this alliance may help his union stop the company from importing American anti-union management practices. "The useful thing for us is that our members' consciousness has risen a lot," Stevenson says. "We're awash in American capital, but we don't want American labor relations."
The development of these global campaigns creates complex webs. SEIU has at least 15 staff working overseas, mainly in Europe, training organizers and developing relationships with individual unions and the GUFs, which are all poorly financed and understaffed. SEIU also provided IUF with seed money for an organizing fund, which will be replenished by a share of dues from new organizing that the IUF assists.
The Steelworkers have begun developing "strategic alliances" with unions in Australia, Brazil, Germany, Mexico and other countries. The Mexican union helped the Steelworkers in bargaining with companies like Alcoa and Asarco, which is owned by Grupo Mexico. And the Steelworkers have staunchly defended the union's leader, Napoleon Gomez, when the government removed him from his union office for leading a strike over mine safety.
"Mexico is one of our largest trading partners," says the Steelworkers' Fernandez. "If we can't take care of labor rights in our hemisphere, how can we do it in other hemispheres? We have a philosophical basis for assisting them. That's what unions are about. We also have self-interest. Strong unions in Mexico, Canada and the United States make it difficult for multinational corporations to exploit any of us."
Global campaigns can take on a life of their own. When the small Graphic Communications International Union (GCIU) asked the AFL-CIO in 2001 to help develop an organizing plan, they decided to target Quebecor, a Canadian-based transnational printing giant. With UNI's help, they formed a global conference of Quebecor unions and pursued an international framework agreement.
As the company resisted, unions around the world joined in shareholder actions, protests with religious leaders, in-plant petition drives, and global days of solidarity--even a sympathy strike. Governments and client corporations were pressured to threaten cutoffs of lucrative contracts. Organizers trained by Solidarity Center helped win victories in Peru, Chile and Brazil, as well as two elections in the United States. The Teamsters, which incorporated the American part of GCIU, hopes talks will now revive the stalled campaign.
Simply campaigning more, however, won't be enough. Unions need to change both the global political climate and the rules of the global economy. In some parts of the world, particularly Latin America, unions recently have turned more to populist and socialist politics, says Cornell professor Kate Bronfenbrenner, who organized a landmark conference on global comprehensive campaigns.
The global labor movement needs agreement on its broad political agenda. As AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka argues, workers everywhere are boxed in by policies that promote capital mobility, labor flexibility, price stability and privatization of government. When taken together, those policies, at a global and national level, undermine workers' economic power and social welfare protections, make organizing more difficult and limit what unions can do even if they do organize or undertake global campaigns.
"Is the labor movement actually becoming more international, either with regard to employers in organizing and bargaining or in relation to governments in setting policy at both the national and international levels?" asks one high-level union official with extensive global experience. "That's a tough call to say there's been real progress." Yet today more labor leaders and workers around the world at least recognize the need for global unionism, and are looking for ways to give the old idea of worldwide worker solidarity a viable form for a new era.
David Moberg, a senior editor of In These Times, has been on the staff of the magazine since it began publishing. Before joining In These Times, he completed his work for a Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of Chicago and worked for Newsweek. Recently he has received fellowships from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Nation Institute for research on the new global economy.
In These Times
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Non intervention
I think the primary issue for the democratic left in the U.S., and for DSA, is support for a non intervention policy by our own government. Many parts of the left have a tragic history of supporting this movement or that from afar. Usually we do not know the situation on the ground and the complexity of movements and struggles. We should – usually- not be picking from among competing factions.
This applies to Venezuela, to Brazil, to Peru, Chile, Mexico, etc.
Now, we can read about and inform ourselves but the real question is how do we support non-intervention. As in Non Intervention in Chile .
Clearly we have learned since the invasion of the Dominican Republic, and since Chile (1973) that intervention comes in several forms. At times there are direct military interventions by U.S. forces. At times proxy forces are created ( Nicaraguan Contras, Salvadoran and Guatemalan death squads. )
And, most often the intervention is by the IMF, the World Bank, and other agencies which the U.S. is very capable of steering in one direction. For a long time in Latin America the intervention was aided and abetted by AIFLD, and we need to keep an eye on current foreign policy implements of our labor movement. There were resolutions on this at the last AFL-CIO convention.
In the case of Venezuela and the non renewal of the T.V. licenses. Since private, oligarchic capital controls 95% of the air waves, having the government take over 30% of the air waves seems like a reasonable act. I would be worried if they took over 70%.
Creating a new labor federation to compete with the old corrupt labor federation seems like a reasonable act. It will of course be important to see if the new federation is democratic.
There is much to learn here. Listening to the voices on the ground is important.
http://weblogs.elearning.ubc.ca/leftturns/ (its a Canadian source,)
But, our primary task remains non-intervention. That is our responsibility.
Duane Campbell
This applies to Venezuela, to Brazil, to Peru, Chile, Mexico, etc.
Now, we can read about and inform ourselves but the real question is how do we support non-intervention. As in Non Intervention in Chile .
Clearly we have learned since the invasion of the Dominican Republic, and since Chile (1973) that intervention comes in several forms. At times there are direct military interventions by U.S. forces. At times proxy forces are created ( Nicaraguan Contras, Salvadoran and Guatemalan death squads. )
And, most often the intervention is by the IMF, the World Bank, and other agencies which the U.S. is very capable of steering in one direction. For a long time in Latin America the intervention was aided and abetted by AIFLD, and we need to keep an eye on current foreign policy implements of our labor movement. There were resolutions on this at the last AFL-CIO convention.
In the case of Venezuela and the non renewal of the T.V. licenses. Since private, oligarchic capital controls 95% of the air waves, having the government take over 30% of the air waves seems like a reasonable act. I would be worried if they took over 70%.
Creating a new labor federation to compete with the old corrupt labor federation seems like a reasonable act. It will of course be important to see if the new federation is democratic.
There is much to learn here. Listening to the voices on the ground is important.
http://weblogs.elearning.ubc.ca/leftturns/ (its a Canadian source,)
But, our primary task remains non-intervention. That is our responsibility.
Duane Campbell
Monday, January 29, 2007
David Bacon : Which Side are you on?
Which Side Are You On?
By David Bacon
t r u t h o u t | Guest Contributor
Monday 29 January 2007
Oakland, California - Of all the supporters of corporate immigration reform, Homeland Secretary Michael Chertoff is the most honest. The day of the notorious raids at the Swift and Company meatpacking plants, he told the media the raids would show Congress the need for "stronger border security, effective interior enforcement and a temporary-worker program." Bush wants, he said, "a program that would allow businesses that need foreign workers, because they can't otherwise satisfy their labor needs, to be able to get those workers in a regulated program."
Chertoff is hardly the only voice in DC using raids to justify guest guest worker programs. Cecilia Mu-oz, head of National Council of La Raza (NCLR), is another. Those deported in December were among the millions of undocumented workers who came after Congress passed the last immigration amnesty in 1986. Since legislators at the time didn't consider people who would come in following years, "perhaps the most tragic consequences are the terrible human costs of workplace raids," she mourns. New guest worker programs will give future migrants legal status, she claims, and protect them from the migra.
The raids do cause terrible suffering. But Mu-oz and other Washington insiders actually supported bills last year that mandate the same worksite enforcement Chertoff carries out today. More raids were a price they were willing to pay (or that others would pay) for the guest worker programs they wanted.
Today, many Congressional leaders - Democrats and Republicans - want to allow corporations and contractors to recruit hundreds of thousands of workers a year outside of the US and put them to work here on temporary visas. Labor schemes like this have a long history. From 1942 to 1964, the bracero program recruited temporary immigrants. They were exploited, cheated, and deported if they tried to go on strike. Growers pitted them against workers already in the country to drive down wages. Cesar Chavez, Ernesto Galarza and Bert Corona all campaigned to get the program repealed.
Advocates of today's programs do everything they can to avoid association with the bitter "bracero" label. They used "guest worker" until that name also developed an ill repute. Now they prefer other euphemisms - "essential workers," or just "new workers."
We don't live in a magical world, however. You can't clean up an unpleasant reality by renaming it.
Current guest worker programs allow labor contractors to maintain blacklists of workers who work slowly or demand rights. Anyone who makes trouble doesn't get rehired to work in the US again. Public interest lawyers spend years in court, trying just to get back wages for cheated immigrants. The Department of Labor almost never decertifies a contractor for this abuse.
Guest workers labor under the employer's thumb. Standing up for a union or minimum wage is risky. Under current programs, and in the new Congressional proposals, if workers lose their jobs they must leave, making deportation a punishment for being unemployed. No one gets unemployment insurance, disability or workers' compensation payments. Companies save money and avoid bad publicity by sending injured workers back home, where healthcare is virtually unavailable.
But Mu-oz and others argue that Congress can allow guest workers to go to court. Our legal system is such a poor protector of workers' rights today, however, that in 30 percent of all organizing drives, workers (both citizens and immigrants) are illegally fired, with virtually no remedies or penalties on employers. Arguing that lawyers can protect immigrants on temporary work visas is preposterous.
These problems aren't aberrations, curable with legal fine print.
By their nature, guest worker programs are low-wage schemes, intended to supply plentiful labor to corporate employers, at a price they want to pay. Companies don't recruit guest workers so they can pay them more, but to pay them less.
According to Rob Rosado, director of legislative affairs for the American Meat Institute, meatpackers want a guest worker program, but not a basic wage guarantee for those workers. "We don't want the government setting wages," he says. "The market determines wages."
Major Senate sponsors of guest worker bills don't believe the government should even set a minimum wage for anyone, immigrant or citizen. John McCain, John Cornyn, James Kyl, Larry Craig and Chuck Hegel all just voted for an amendment to repeal the federal minimum wage entirely. Making them responsible for guest worker wages is putting the fox in charge of the chickens.
And it's not just wages. The schemes create a second tier of workers with fewer rights and less job security. They have none of the social benefits US workers won in the New Deal - retirement, unemployment and disability insurance. Instead of including new immigrants in these and other social programs, giving them legal residence and rights, Congress would create a huge workforce without them. Corporations that have pushed for eliminating these standards for everyone would be halfway there.
That's why workers, unions and community organizations have opposed guest worker programs, but also why corporations want them. Starting in the late 1990s, companies organized a shadowy lobby group, the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition (EWIC) which today encompasses over 40 huge employer associations, including Wal-Mart, Marriott, Tyson Foods and the Association of Builders and Contractors. They recruited the Cato Institute to produce guest worker recommendations, which President Bush repeats almost word-for-word. The hard-right Manhattan Institute provides additional cover.
The corporate lobby made other inroads as well. John Gay, who heads the National Restaurant Association and EWIC, is now board chair of the National Immigration Forum, a major Washington player. NCLR's list of corporate sponsors includes Wal-Mart and 14 other multinationals. Even two unions, the Service Employees and UNITE HERE, supported the Senate guest worker compromise last year.
The question Congress is deciding isn't "what can stop immigration?" With over 180 million people in the world living outside their countries of origin, nothing can. Migration begins when people are displaced. In the countries that are the main sources of migration to the US, most migration is caused by economic dislocation - people can no longer survive as farmers or workers. Other migrants fled the wars that raged in Central America.
NAFTA, CAFTA, and US-sponsored economic reforms, along with US military intervention, uprooted millions of people, leaving them little option other than coming north. Corporations like Wal-Mart and Marriott wrote US trade policy to improve their investment opportunities abroad. Now they also want guest worker programs to channel people displaced by those policies into their US operations. Often those leaving home are among the most skilled and educated. Their departure makes it even harder for their countries to progress.
This flow of forced migration may not stop in the near future, but changing pro-corporate trade policies would reduce the pressure on people to leave home. Unsurprisingly, that's not on EWIC's agenda.
The real question Congress is deciding is the status of people once they're here. Other proposals, from outside the Beltway, would give immigrants far greater rights and much more equality than guest worker programs. Congress could, for instance,
Give permanent residence visas, or green cards, to people already here. Those visas don't require people to stay, but give them the chance to come and go - to work, study, or take care of family members in the US or in their home country. They can't be deported if they lose a job.
Expand the number of green cards available for new migrants, opening the door to legal immigration far enough to accommodate those now coming illegally. Most immigrants already come through family networks. Making family reunification easier would help them and strengthen communities.
Allow people to apply for green cards, in the future, after they've been here a few years. The US wouldn't develop the huge undocumented population it has today.
Stop the enforcement program that has led to thousands of deportations and firings, and a border so heavily militarized that migrants cross, and die, in the most dangerous areas.
Prohibit companies from recruiting outside the US. They can always hire immigrants with green cards here, and green card holders are in a much better position to demand rights and higher wages.
It's not likely that many corporations will support such a program. That's why those who claim to represent the interests of immigrants in Washington must choose whose side they're really on.
By David Bacon
t r u t h o u t | Guest Contributor
Monday 29 January 2007
Oakland, California - Of all the supporters of corporate immigration reform, Homeland Secretary Michael Chertoff is the most honest. The day of the notorious raids at the Swift and Company meatpacking plants, he told the media the raids would show Congress the need for "stronger border security, effective interior enforcement and a temporary-worker program." Bush wants, he said, "a program that would allow businesses that need foreign workers, because they can't otherwise satisfy their labor needs, to be able to get those workers in a regulated program."
Chertoff is hardly the only voice in DC using raids to justify guest guest worker programs. Cecilia Mu-oz, head of National Council of La Raza (NCLR), is another. Those deported in December were among the millions of undocumented workers who came after Congress passed the last immigration amnesty in 1986. Since legislators at the time didn't consider people who would come in following years, "perhaps the most tragic consequences are the terrible human costs of workplace raids," she mourns. New guest worker programs will give future migrants legal status, she claims, and protect them from the migra.
The raids do cause terrible suffering. But Mu-oz and other Washington insiders actually supported bills last year that mandate the same worksite enforcement Chertoff carries out today. More raids were a price they were willing to pay (or that others would pay) for the guest worker programs they wanted.
Today, many Congressional leaders - Democrats and Republicans - want to allow corporations and contractors to recruit hundreds of thousands of workers a year outside of the US and put them to work here on temporary visas. Labor schemes like this have a long history. From 1942 to 1964, the bracero program recruited temporary immigrants. They were exploited, cheated, and deported if they tried to go on strike. Growers pitted them against workers already in the country to drive down wages. Cesar Chavez, Ernesto Galarza and Bert Corona all campaigned to get the program repealed.
Advocates of today's programs do everything they can to avoid association with the bitter "bracero" label. They used "guest worker" until that name also developed an ill repute. Now they prefer other euphemisms - "essential workers," or just "new workers."
We don't live in a magical world, however. You can't clean up an unpleasant reality by renaming it.
Current guest worker programs allow labor contractors to maintain blacklists of workers who work slowly or demand rights. Anyone who makes trouble doesn't get rehired to work in the US again. Public interest lawyers spend years in court, trying just to get back wages for cheated immigrants. The Department of Labor almost never decertifies a contractor for this abuse.
Guest workers labor under the employer's thumb. Standing up for a union or minimum wage is risky. Under current programs, and in the new Congressional proposals, if workers lose their jobs they must leave, making deportation a punishment for being unemployed. No one gets unemployment insurance, disability or workers' compensation payments. Companies save money and avoid bad publicity by sending injured workers back home, where healthcare is virtually unavailable.
But Mu-oz and others argue that Congress can allow guest workers to go to court. Our legal system is such a poor protector of workers' rights today, however, that in 30 percent of all organizing drives, workers (both citizens and immigrants) are illegally fired, with virtually no remedies or penalties on employers. Arguing that lawyers can protect immigrants on temporary work visas is preposterous.
These problems aren't aberrations, curable with legal fine print.
By their nature, guest worker programs are low-wage schemes, intended to supply plentiful labor to corporate employers, at a price they want to pay. Companies don't recruit guest workers so they can pay them more, but to pay them less.
According to Rob Rosado, director of legislative affairs for the American Meat Institute, meatpackers want a guest worker program, but not a basic wage guarantee for those workers. "We don't want the government setting wages," he says. "The market determines wages."
Major Senate sponsors of guest worker bills don't believe the government should even set a minimum wage for anyone, immigrant or citizen. John McCain, John Cornyn, James Kyl, Larry Craig and Chuck Hegel all just voted for an amendment to repeal the federal minimum wage entirely. Making them responsible for guest worker wages is putting the fox in charge of the chickens.
And it's not just wages. The schemes create a second tier of workers with fewer rights and less job security. They have none of the social benefits US workers won in the New Deal - retirement, unemployment and disability insurance. Instead of including new immigrants in these and other social programs, giving them legal residence and rights, Congress would create a huge workforce without them. Corporations that have pushed for eliminating these standards for everyone would be halfway there.
That's why workers, unions and community organizations have opposed guest worker programs, but also why corporations want them. Starting in the late 1990s, companies organized a shadowy lobby group, the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition (EWIC) which today encompasses over 40 huge employer associations, including Wal-Mart, Marriott, Tyson Foods and the Association of Builders and Contractors. They recruited the Cato Institute to produce guest worker recommendations, which President Bush repeats almost word-for-word. The hard-right Manhattan Institute provides additional cover.
The corporate lobby made other inroads as well. John Gay, who heads the National Restaurant Association and EWIC, is now board chair of the National Immigration Forum, a major Washington player. NCLR's list of corporate sponsors includes Wal-Mart and 14 other multinationals. Even two unions, the Service Employees and UNITE HERE, supported the Senate guest worker compromise last year.
The question Congress is deciding isn't "what can stop immigration?" With over 180 million people in the world living outside their countries of origin, nothing can. Migration begins when people are displaced. In the countries that are the main sources of migration to the US, most migration is caused by economic dislocation - people can no longer survive as farmers or workers. Other migrants fled the wars that raged in Central America.
NAFTA, CAFTA, and US-sponsored economic reforms, along with US military intervention, uprooted millions of people, leaving them little option other than coming north. Corporations like Wal-Mart and Marriott wrote US trade policy to improve their investment opportunities abroad. Now they also want guest worker programs to channel people displaced by those policies into their US operations. Often those leaving home are among the most skilled and educated. Their departure makes it even harder for their countries to progress.
This flow of forced migration may not stop in the near future, but changing pro-corporate trade policies would reduce the pressure on people to leave home. Unsurprisingly, that's not on EWIC's agenda.
The real question Congress is deciding is the status of people once they're here. Other proposals, from outside the Beltway, would give immigrants far greater rights and much more equality than guest worker programs. Congress could, for instance,
Give permanent residence visas, or green cards, to people already here. Those visas don't require people to stay, but give them the chance to come and go - to work, study, or take care of family members in the US or in their home country. They can't be deported if they lose a job.
Expand the number of green cards available for new migrants, opening the door to legal immigration far enough to accommodate those now coming illegally. Most immigrants already come through family networks. Making family reunification easier would help them and strengthen communities.
Allow people to apply for green cards, in the future, after they've been here a few years. The US wouldn't develop the huge undocumented population it has today.
Stop the enforcement program that has led to thousands of deportations and firings, and a border so heavily militarized that migrants cross, and die, in the most dangerous areas.
Prohibit companies from recruiting outside the US. They can always hire immigrants with green cards here, and green card holders are in a much better position to demand rights and higher wages.
It's not likely that many corporations will support such a program. That's why those who claim to represent the interests of immigrants in Washington must choose whose side they're really on.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Unions split on guest worker proposals
Unions Split on Immigrant Workers
By Krissah Williams Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, January 27, 2007; D01
Union leaders are fundamentally divided over how to best tackle immigration reform as they wrestle with how to convert illegal immigrants from job threats to dues-paying members. The split reflects long-standing questions over the place of undocumented immigrants in the labor movement.
One side supports a guest-worker program, which could permit hundreds of thousands of immigrants to enter the country annually depending on the needs of U.S. businesses. The other side says such programs encourage employers to pay less, exploit immigrant workers and drive down working conditions for everyone.
The Service Employees International Union, with many immigrants among its 1.8 million members, backs the guest-worker idea, leading it to an unusual labor-business alliance with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The AFL-CIO, a federation of 54 unions, calls guest-worker programs exploitative and wants immigrants who enter the country to do so as permanent residents, not temporary workers.
Eliseo Medina, executive vice president of SEIU, which broke from the AFL-CIO in 2005 over strategic differences, said his union recognizes "the reality of the marketplace and the economy." A guest-worker program could give immigrant workers the right to unionize and eventually petition for citizenship, he said.
Immigration reform, which congressional leaders and President Bush have called a priority, has wide implications throughout the U.S. labor movement. Last year, the Senate proposed a guest-worker program that would have made immigrants temporary residents and employers responsible for requesting their green cards.
Unions universally opposed that proposal and are trying to shape a plan to their liking, but their divided voices could dilute their message.
Immigrants are the fastest-growing sector of the U.S. workforce and organizing them has been a priority for unions as they shift from a message of "protect American jobs."
"It's a sea change from the early 1990s when immigrant labor was viewed by many as the enemy of organized labor," said Harley Shaiken, director of the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. "Now labor recognizes the reality of 12 million undocumented people in this country and the complexity of how to regularize that."
When thousands of immigrants marched on the National Mall last year, many of the organizers were union leaders. The spokesman for the Washington region's immigrant coalition was also the leader of a SEIU local. AFL-CIO leaders also stood with immigrant activists at marches, and last year they formed an alliance with a national group of day-laborer centers.
For some, guest-worker programs awaken memories of the government-sanctioned -- and flawed -- Bracero Program that operated from 1942 to 1964. It locked immigrants, mostly Mexican men, into English-language contracts that they could not understand and made them beholden to farm bosses. At the end of their contracts, under which they picked sugar beets, cotton and other crops for long hours and low pay, the immigrants were deported.
Ana Avendaño, the AFL-CIO's associate general counsel, called today's guest-worker programs, which tie immigrant workers' visas to their U.S. employers, "modern-day Bracero Programs."
"The bells and whistles they are currently adding to the temporary workers programs are bound to fail, they have been proven to fail," she said.
Medina said the SEIU advocates a guest-worker program with visas that would let workers change jobs, join unions and petition for permanent residency.
"Workers that come here would have full protections of our labor rights, including the right to organize, and they would have an independent method of enforcing those rights," Medina said.
SEIU's support of a revamped guest-worker program reflects a desire to create politically tenable immigration reform. Bush has said that his support of immigration reform hangs on the inclusion of a temporary-worker provision.
"Immigrants really want something. There's such desperation for some resolution of this mess," said Ruth Milkman, a professor of industrial sociology at the University of California at Los Angeles.
But SEIU's temporary-worker proposal is nothing like the president's plan to connect "willing employers with willing workers" or the guest-worker provisions floated in Congress, which would not give workers the right to independently petition for permanent residency.
Finding middle ground could be tough. Broad support is needed to change immigration laws, said proponents of increased immigration, who have been pushing to rewrite the laws for years.
"As the process goes along, I think there's a framework for the labor movement to come together," Medina said. "It won't be an easy process, but it can happen."
__._,_.___
Messages in this topic (1)
By Krissah Williams Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, January 27, 2007; D01
Union leaders are fundamentally divided over how to best tackle immigration reform as they wrestle with how to convert illegal immigrants from job threats to dues-paying members. The split reflects long-standing questions over the place of undocumented immigrants in the labor movement.
One side supports a guest-worker program, which could permit hundreds of thousands of immigrants to enter the country annually depending on the needs of U.S. businesses. The other side says such programs encourage employers to pay less, exploit immigrant workers and drive down working conditions for everyone.
The Service Employees International Union, with many immigrants among its 1.8 million members, backs the guest-worker idea, leading it to an unusual labor-business alliance with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The AFL-CIO, a federation of 54 unions, calls guest-worker programs exploitative and wants immigrants who enter the country to do so as permanent residents, not temporary workers.
Eliseo Medina, executive vice president of SEIU, which broke from the AFL-CIO in 2005 over strategic differences, said his union recognizes "the reality of the marketplace and the economy." A guest-worker program could give immigrant workers the right to unionize and eventually petition for citizenship, he said.
Immigration reform, which congressional leaders and President Bush have called a priority, has wide implications throughout the U.S. labor movement. Last year, the Senate proposed a guest-worker program that would have made immigrants temporary residents and employers responsible for requesting their green cards.
Unions universally opposed that proposal and are trying to shape a plan to their liking, but their divided voices could dilute their message.
Immigrants are the fastest-growing sector of the U.S. workforce and organizing them has been a priority for unions as they shift from a message of "protect American jobs."
"It's a sea change from the early 1990s when immigrant labor was viewed by many as the enemy of organized labor," said Harley Shaiken, director of the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. "Now labor recognizes the reality of 12 million undocumented people in this country and the complexity of how to regularize that."
When thousands of immigrants marched on the National Mall last year, many of the organizers were union leaders. The spokesman for the Washington region's immigrant coalition was also the leader of a SEIU local. AFL-CIO leaders also stood with immigrant activists at marches, and last year they formed an alliance with a national group of day-laborer centers.
For some, guest-worker programs awaken memories of the government-sanctioned -- and flawed -- Bracero Program that operated from 1942 to 1964. It locked immigrants, mostly Mexican men, into English-language contracts that they could not understand and made them beholden to farm bosses. At the end of their contracts, under which they picked sugar beets, cotton and other crops for long hours and low pay, the immigrants were deported.
Ana Avendaño, the AFL-CIO's associate general counsel, called today's guest-worker programs, which tie immigrant workers' visas to their U.S. employers, "modern-day Bracero Programs."
"The bells and whistles they are currently adding to the temporary workers programs are bound to fail, they have been proven to fail," she said.
Medina said the SEIU advocates a guest-worker program with visas that would let workers change jobs, join unions and petition for permanent residency.
"Workers that come here would have full protections of our labor rights, including the right to organize, and they would have an independent method of enforcing those rights," Medina said.
SEIU's support of a revamped guest-worker program reflects a desire to create politically tenable immigration reform. Bush has said that his support of immigration reform hangs on the inclusion of a temporary-worker provision.
"Immigrants really want something. There's such desperation for some resolution of this mess," said Ruth Milkman, a professor of industrial sociology at the University of California at Los Angeles.
But SEIU's temporary-worker proposal is nothing like the president's plan to connect "willing employers with willing workers" or the guest-worker provisions floated in Congress, which would not give workers the right to independently petition for permanent residency.
Finding middle ground could be tough. Broad support is needed to change immigration laws, said proponents of increased immigration, who have been pushing to rewrite the laws for years.
"As the process goes along, I think there's a framework for the labor movement to come together," Medina said. "It won't be an easy process, but it can happen."
__._,_.___
Messages in this topic (1)
Monday, January 22, 2007
Murder of labor leader in Guatemala
In Guatemala, Pedro Zamora, general secretary of the
Dockworkers Union (STEPQ), was gunned down Monday by
unknown assailants who used methods reminiscent of
those by paramilitary forces during Guatemala's 36-year
civil war.
Zamora had been leading efforts to stop privatization
of the country's major port of Quetzal and was
demanding decent working conditions for dockworkers. He
also stood with workers when they were locked out of
their workplace and when the military took over the
ports.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, in a letter to
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, described what
witnesses say happened to Zamora:
On his way to pick up his children from an appointment
at the health center located in the Port of Quetzal
grounds, Mr. Zamora was gunned down.... His killers fired
over 100 shots, 20 of which hit him, and fired one
final shot to the face to further degrade and
underscore the message of his murder. Mr. Zamora's
three-year-old son was seriously injured in the attack.
It is unacceptable that as our countries grow closer
and closer in trade and immigration that Guatemalans
who have taken on the honorable responsibility of
representing their co-workers in what should be civil,
peaceful labor-management negotiations, should fall
victim to brutal acts of violence at their workplace.
Achieving justice in the murder of Mr. Zamora
represents one small step in the path toward the
primacy of rule of law over impunity and toward the
support of real democracy in Guatemala.
Guatemala is one of the nations that signed the
Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement
(DR-CAFTA). Its growing textile industry is well-known
for its sweatshop working conditions and lack of
workers' rights.
Ellie Larson, executive director of the AFL-CIO's
Solidarity Center, says:
Over the last year, we worked with Pedro Zamora and his
union to ensure that the rights of dockworkers are
protected under international conventions and
Guatemalan labor law. We mourn his loss, and we condemn
his murder.
(You can read the Solidarity Center press release on
Zamora's murder in Spanish by clicking here.)
Guy Ryder, general secretary of the International Trade
Union Confederation (ITUC), which represents 168
million workers in 153 countries and territories, says
Zamora's murder
was planned and premeditated, and appears designed to
send a message to those who dare to stand up for
fundamental rights.
The International Transport Federation (ITF) also
expressed outrage over Zamora's murder. David Cockroft,
ITF's general secretary, said:
This is an outrage, pure and simple. It could not have
been a more dirty and cowardly attack. It's a filthy
little act that makes the blood of any decent person
boil. The Guatemalan government will never be forgiven
if it doesn't investigate and then bring the murderers
to justice.
The ITF protested in October to the Guatemalan
government and the United Nations' International Labor
Organization that Zamora was being followed in response
to his role in defending workers' jobs at Quetzal.
Click here to take action to demand a full
investigation of Zamora's murder and that his killers
be brought to justice.
The ITUC also condemned the killing of at least three
civilians, the wounding of many others and the
detention of several top union leaders in the West
African country of Guinea. The country's security
forces opened fire on a peaceful demonstration Jan. 10.
Guinea's national trade unions organized the strike to
put pressure on Guinean President Lansana Conte to
improve the country's faltering economy and other
issues.
Meanwhile, in Iraq, militia groups Jan. 16 killed
Mohammed Hameed, an organizer for the Federation of
Workers' Councils and Unions in Iraq (FWCUI). Hameed
was among a group of 15 civilians randomly gunned down
in an open marketplace in southern Baghdad. Hameed was
out on a walk when he was caught in the gunfire.
A second incident occurred five days earlier, when
militia gunmen abducted eight engineers of the Iraqi
Oil Ministry as they were traveling in a vehicle to a
FWCUI press conference on fuel price increases. Four of
the kidnapped victims, all union members, were
released. One was later found dead, after being
tortured. The other three still are missing.
Falah Alwan, president of FWCUI, says he is
disappointed with the response from the government and
the lack of information on these heinous crimes.
The Iraqi government must take responsibility for the
lawlessness that has become so prevalent in the oil
industry, as well as for the obvious security
deficiencies that has allowed ordinary workers to be
killed every day.
The Brussels-based International Federation of
Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions,
which represents 20 million workers worldwide, called
on the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-
Maliki to fully investigate the abductions and killings
of the engineers and to make serious efforts to
apprehend the drive-by gunmen responsible for the
random shootings that took Hameed's life.
In December, Abdullah Muhsin, the international
representative of the General Federation of Iraqi
Workers (GFIW), told a group at AFL-CIO headquarters
that Iraqi workers are caught in the crossfire between
the insurgents and Iraqi and U.S. soldiers.
Iraq's workers and the union movement are under attack
by forces sowing chaos in the country, he said. Every
day, thousands of workers desperate for jobs risk their
lives in war-torn Iraq to feed their families and eke
out a living. Muhsin said:
People are lining up to go to work, and a crazy suicide
bomber comes into the crowd, and they all die. These
people are not supporting any cause, any religion, any
political agenda. They're just trying to make a living.
Muhsin says many people are afraid to go out of their
homes for fear of being killed, but they have no
choice. They must go out and find work or go to the
market.
Muhsin and Alan Johnson are co-authors of Hadi Never
Died: Hadi Saleh and the Iraqi Trade Unions, a book
about the life of the prominent Iraqi union leader who
was brutally tortured and murdered in January 2005 by
enemies of democracy in Iraq. <8>
_____________________________________________
Dockworkers Union (STEPQ), was gunned down Monday by
unknown assailants who used methods reminiscent of
those by paramilitary forces during Guatemala's 36-year
civil war.
Zamora had been leading efforts to stop privatization
of the country's major port of Quetzal and was
demanding decent working conditions for dockworkers. He
also stood with workers when they were locked out of
their workplace and when the military took over the
ports.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, in a letter to
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, described what
witnesses say happened to Zamora:
On his way to pick up his children from an appointment
at the health center located in the Port of Quetzal
grounds, Mr. Zamora was gunned down.... His killers fired
over 100 shots, 20 of which hit him, and fired one
final shot to the face to further degrade and
underscore the message of his murder. Mr. Zamora's
three-year-old son was seriously injured in the attack.
It is unacceptable that as our countries grow closer
and closer in trade and immigration that Guatemalans
who have taken on the honorable responsibility of
representing their co-workers in what should be civil,
peaceful labor-management negotiations, should fall
victim to brutal acts of violence at their workplace.
Achieving justice in the murder of Mr. Zamora
represents one small step in the path toward the
primacy of rule of law over impunity and toward the
support of real democracy in Guatemala.
Guatemala is one of the nations that signed the
Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement
(DR-CAFTA). Its growing textile industry is well-known
for its sweatshop working conditions and lack of
workers' rights.
Ellie Larson, executive director of the AFL-CIO's
Solidarity Center, says:
Over the last year, we worked with Pedro Zamora and his
union to ensure that the rights of dockworkers are
protected under international conventions and
Guatemalan labor law. We mourn his loss, and we condemn
his murder.
(You can read the Solidarity Center press release on
Zamora's murder in Spanish by clicking here.)
Guy Ryder, general secretary of the International Trade
Union Confederation (ITUC), which represents 168
million workers in 153 countries and territories, says
Zamora's murder
was planned and premeditated, and appears designed to
send a message to those who dare to stand up for
fundamental rights.
The International Transport Federation (ITF) also
expressed outrage over Zamora's murder. David Cockroft,
ITF's general secretary, said:
This is an outrage, pure and simple. It could not have
been a more dirty and cowardly attack. It's a filthy
little act that makes the blood of any decent person
boil. The Guatemalan government will never be forgiven
if it doesn't investigate and then bring the murderers
to justice.
The ITF protested in October to the Guatemalan
government and the United Nations' International Labor
Organization that Zamora was being followed in response
to his role in defending workers' jobs at Quetzal.
Click here to take action to demand a full
investigation of Zamora's murder and that his killers
be brought to justice.
The ITUC also condemned the killing of at least three
civilians, the wounding of many others and the
detention of several top union leaders in the West
African country of Guinea. The country's security
forces opened fire on a peaceful demonstration Jan. 10.
Guinea's national trade unions organized the strike to
put pressure on Guinean President Lansana Conte to
improve the country's faltering economy and other
issues.
Meanwhile, in Iraq, militia groups Jan. 16 killed
Mohammed Hameed, an organizer for the Federation of
Workers' Councils and Unions in Iraq (FWCUI). Hameed
was among a group of 15 civilians randomly gunned down
in an open marketplace in southern Baghdad. Hameed was
out on a walk when he was caught in the gunfire.
A second incident occurred five days earlier, when
militia gunmen abducted eight engineers of the Iraqi
Oil Ministry as they were traveling in a vehicle to a
FWCUI press conference on fuel price increases. Four of
the kidnapped victims, all union members, were
released. One was later found dead, after being
tortured. The other three still are missing.
Falah Alwan, president of FWCUI, says he is
disappointed with the response from the government and
the lack of information on these heinous crimes.
The Iraqi government must take responsibility for the
lawlessness that has become so prevalent in the oil
industry, as well as for the obvious security
deficiencies that has allowed ordinary workers to be
killed every day.
The Brussels-based International Federation of
Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions,
which represents 20 million workers worldwide, called
on the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-
Maliki to fully investigate the abductions and killings
of the engineers and to make serious efforts to
apprehend the drive-by gunmen responsible for the
random shootings that took Hameed's life.
In December, Abdullah Muhsin, the international
representative of the General Federation of Iraqi
Workers (GFIW), told a group at AFL-CIO headquarters
that Iraqi workers are caught in the crossfire between
the insurgents and Iraqi and U.S. soldiers.
Iraq's workers and the union movement are under attack
by forces sowing chaos in the country, he said. Every
day, thousands of workers desperate for jobs risk their
lives in war-torn Iraq to feed their families and eke
out a living. Muhsin said:
People are lining up to go to work, and a crazy suicide
bomber comes into the crowd, and they all die. These
people are not supporting any cause, any religion, any
political agenda. They're just trying to make a living.
Muhsin says many people are afraid to go out of their
homes for fear of being killed, but they have no
choice. They must go out and find work or go to the
market.
Muhsin and Alan Johnson are co-authors of Hadi Never
Died: Hadi Saleh and the Iraqi Trade Unions, a book
about the life of the prominent Iraqi union leader who
was brutally tortured and murdered in January 2005 by
enemies of democracy in Iraq. <8>
_____________________________________________
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Left wing in Latin America
http://www.mercopress.com/vernoticia.do?id=9650&formato=html
Merco Press
January 15, 2007
Left wing forum celebrates advances in Latinamerica
Some 66 left wing delegations from thirty different
countries, mainly Latinamerica are currently meeting in
San Salvador in the framework of the Sao Paulo Forum,
to celebrate and assess the advance last year of
elected left wing governments in the region, as
happened in Nicaragua, Ecuador, Brazil and Venezuela.
Medardo Gonzalez who is hosting the forum as leader of
Salvador's Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front,
FMLN, recalled the circumstances when the forum first
started fifteen years ago: the fall of the Berlin Wall,
the Soviet Union's collapse, Cuba's dramatic financial
crisis and the Nicaraguan revolution defeated by the
ballot.
'We were on the defensive and neo-liberalism on full
offensive. Some said it was the end of history', said
Nidia Diaz another FMLN leader: However today 'the
defeat of neo-liberalism is evident and several of the
forum's members are in government, Lula da Silva
(Brazil); Hugo Chavez (Venezuela); Evo Morales
(Bolivia), in Cuba the revolution survived and is
stronger, and regionally social movements have
strengthened'.
Gonzalez even recalls that back in 1996 the Sao Paulo
forum was against admitting Chavez as a member because
of his 'military coups' background, but today 'he's a
fundamental pillar' of the regional left and is
developing in Venezuela 'one of the most original
processes in Latinamerica'.
He also praised the creation by Venezuela and Cuba of
the ALBA (dawn) initiative, which stands for Bolivarian
Alternative for the Americas and is the counter
proposal for the United States 'imperial project' of a
Free Trade Area of the Americas, FTAA. So far ALBA's
members are Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia.
Gonzalez revealed that the final document of the forum
will emphasize the need to strengthen democratic
processes, 'beyond electoral participation'; promote
government policies and structural reforms to defeat
poverty (60% of Latin-Americans are catalogued as poor)
and create an alternative economic project to neo-
liberalism, which defends national sovereignties and
promotes economic, political and social cooperation
among the peoples of the region.
Alba Maldonado, a member of Guatemala's Congress and
former guerrilla is optimistic about the future since
in the coming general elections this year in her
country, the leading candidate according to opinion
polls is Alvaro Colom, a Social-democrat with strong
support among the indigenous population. If Colom
finally becomes Guatemala's president, only El Salvador
in Central America will still be ruled by 'a
Conservative, neo liberal'.
El Salvador's presidential election is scheduled for
2009 and 'we are working hard to come up with a solid
candidate', said Gonzalez.
(5)
Merco Press
January 15, 2007
Left wing forum celebrates advances in Latinamerica
Some 66 left wing delegations from thirty different
countries, mainly Latinamerica are currently meeting in
San Salvador in the framework of the Sao Paulo Forum,
to celebrate and assess the advance last year of
elected left wing governments in the region, as
happened in Nicaragua, Ecuador, Brazil and Venezuela.
Medardo Gonzalez who is hosting the forum as leader of
Salvador's Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front,
FMLN, recalled the circumstances when the forum first
started fifteen years ago: the fall of the Berlin Wall,
the Soviet Union's collapse, Cuba's dramatic financial
crisis and the Nicaraguan revolution defeated by the
ballot.
'We were on the defensive and neo-liberalism on full
offensive. Some said it was the end of history', said
Nidia Diaz another FMLN leader: However today 'the
defeat of neo-liberalism is evident and several of the
forum's members are in government, Lula da Silva
(Brazil); Hugo Chavez (Venezuela); Evo Morales
(Bolivia), in Cuba the revolution survived and is
stronger, and regionally social movements have
strengthened'.
Gonzalez even recalls that back in 1996 the Sao Paulo
forum was against admitting Chavez as a member because
of his 'military coups' background, but today 'he's a
fundamental pillar' of the regional left and is
developing in Venezuela 'one of the most original
processes in Latinamerica'.
He also praised the creation by Venezuela and Cuba of
the ALBA (dawn) initiative, which stands for Bolivarian
Alternative for the Americas and is the counter
proposal for the United States 'imperial project' of a
Free Trade Area of the Americas, FTAA. So far ALBA's
members are Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia.
Gonzalez revealed that the final document of the forum
will emphasize the need to strengthen democratic
processes, 'beyond electoral participation'; promote
government policies and structural reforms to defeat
poverty (60% of Latin-Americans are catalogued as poor)
and create an alternative economic project to neo-
liberalism, which defends national sovereignties and
promotes economic, political and social cooperation
among the peoples of the region.
Alba Maldonado, a member of Guatemala's Congress and
former guerrilla is optimistic about the future since
in the coming general elections this year in her
country, the leading candidate according to opinion
polls is Alvaro Colom, a Social-democrat with strong
support among the indigenous population. If Colom
finally becomes Guatemala's president, only El Salvador
in Central America will still be ruled by 'a
Conservative, neo liberal'.
El Salvador's presidential election is scheduled for
2009 and 'we are working hard to come up with a solid
candidate', said Gonzalez.
(5)
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Labor repression in Guatemala
Brussels, 17 January 2007 (ITUC OnLine): The ITUC has condemned the
brutal killing on 15 January of Dockworkers' Union leader Pedro Zamora
in an attack by a number of armed assassins. Zamora, General Secretary
of the STPEQ Union, had been leading efforts to stop the privatization
of the country's major port of Quetzal and he and fellow unionists had
been subjected to a campaign of harassment and intimidation. The union
is proposing a programme of upgrading and modernisation as an
alternative to placing the port facilities in private hands.
After picking up his children from a hospital appointment, Zamora's car
was followed and then rammed by a white pick-up truck, and then sprayed
by gunfire from both sides of the vehicle. Of the more than 100 bullets
which hit the car, around 20 hit Zamora. One of the killers then walked
up to his vehicle and shot him in the face, a method reminiscent of that
used by paramilitary forces during the country's civil war. Despite
Zamora's efforts to protect his children during the attack, his
3-year-old son was injured but his condition is believed to be stable.
The ITUC and the International Transport Workers Federation are taking
this latest case of anti-union repression in Guatemala to the
International Labour Organisation, and calling on the Guatemalan
government to ensure that a full investigation take place, to identify
the culprits and bring them to justice. Suspicions that the management
of the Port was involved should constitute one focus of the
investigation.
"This gruesome killing recalls the darkest days of Guatemala's decades
of civil conflict, and the country's reputation will continue to suffer
unless action is taken to root out and punish those who commission and
perpetrate intimidation and murder", said ITUC General Secretary Guy
Ryder, adding "this murder was planned and premeditated, and appears
designed to send a message to those who dare to stand up for fundamental
rights".
The ITUC and ITF will be coordinating worldwide action to put pressure
on the Guatemalan authorities to guarantee full respect for the rule of
law and fundamental workers' rights, to ensure that all those involved
in the killing are punished and that the continuing culture of impunity
is brought to an end.
brutal killing on 15 January of Dockworkers' Union leader Pedro Zamora
in an attack by a number of armed assassins. Zamora, General Secretary
of the STPEQ Union, had been leading efforts to stop the privatization
of the country's major port of Quetzal and he and fellow unionists had
been subjected to a campaign of harassment and intimidation. The union
is proposing a programme of upgrading and modernisation as an
alternative to placing the port facilities in private hands.
After picking up his children from a hospital appointment, Zamora's car
was followed and then rammed by a white pick-up truck, and then sprayed
by gunfire from both sides of the vehicle. Of the more than 100 bullets
which hit the car, around 20 hit Zamora. One of the killers then walked
up to his vehicle and shot him in the face, a method reminiscent of that
used by paramilitary forces during the country's civil war. Despite
Zamora's efforts to protect his children during the attack, his
3-year-old son was injured but his condition is believed to be stable.
The ITUC and the International Transport Workers Federation are taking
this latest case of anti-union repression in Guatemala to the
International Labour Organisation, and calling on the Guatemalan
government to ensure that a full investigation take place, to identify
the culprits and bring them to justice. Suspicions that the management
of the Port was involved should constitute one focus of the
investigation.
"This gruesome killing recalls the darkest days of Guatemala's decades
of civil conflict, and the country's reputation will continue to suffer
unless action is taken to root out and punish those who commission and
perpetrate intimidation and murder", said ITUC General Secretary Guy
Ryder, adding "this murder was planned and premeditated, and appears
designed to send a message to those who dare to stand up for fundamental
rights".
The ITUC and ITF will be coordinating worldwide action to put pressure
on the Guatemalan authorities to guarantee full respect for the rule of
law and fundamental workers' rights, to ensure that all those involved
in the killing are punished and that the continuing culture of impunity
is brought to an end.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
The Iraq War and U.S. economic imperialism
The Iraq War and America's Economic Imperialism
by Manning Marable; MR Zine; January 13, 2007
Several weeks ago, with much media fanfare, the James Baker-Lee Hamilton Committee submitted to President George W. Bush its long-awaited, bipartisan report on the U.S. war in Iraq. On balance, the report provided Bush with a face-saving strategy for pulling out all U.S. combat forces by the beginning of 2008. The Baker-Hamilton report favors an increase of U.S. advisers being embedded inside Iraqi troops and direct negotiations with regional powers Iran and Syria.
Bush, however, almost immediately distanced himself from key proposals in the Baker-Hamilton report. He now seems prepared to flagrantly flaunt his contempt for the majority of American voters, who purged both the Senate and House of their Republican majorities last November. Why does Bush defy public opinion by pursuing this unpopular war?
The answer lies not in America's need to "combat Islamic terrorism" but in the economic necessity for the United States to control international markets and valuable natural resources, such as petroleum. Bush's economic strategy is that of "neoliberalism" -- which advocates the dismantling of the welfare state, the abolition of redistributive social programs for the poor, and the elimination of governmental regulations on corporations.
In a recent issue of the New York Times (December 5, 2006), Professor Thomas B. Edsall of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism astutely characterized this reactionary process of neoliberal politics within the United States in these terms: "For a quarter-century, the Republican temper -- its reckless drive to jettison the social safety net; its support of violence in law enforcement and national defense; its advocacy of regressive taxation, environmental hazard and probusiness deregulation; its 'remoralizing' of the pursuit of wealth -- has been judged by many voters as essential to America's position in the world, producing more benefit than cost."
One of the consequences of this reactionary political and economic agenda, according to Edsall, was "the Reagan administration's arms race" during the 1980s, which "arguably drove the Soviet Union into bankruptcy." A second consequence, Edsall argues, was America's disastrous military invasion of Iraq. "While inflicting destruction on the Iraqis," Edsall observes, "Bush multiplied America's enemies and endangered this nation's military, economic health and international stature. Courting risk without managing it, Bush repeatedly and remorselessly failed to accurately evaluate the consequences of his actions."
What is significant about Edsall's analysis is that he does not explain away the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and current military occupation as a political "mistake" or an "error of judgment." Rather, he locates the rationale for the so-called "war on terrorism" within the context of U.S. domestic, neoliberal politics. "The embroilment in Iraq is not an aberration," Edsall observed. "It stems from core [Republican] party principles, equally evident on the domestic front."
The larger question of political economy, left unexplored by Edsall and most analysts, is the connection between American militarism abroad, neoliberalism, and trends in the global economy. As economists Paul Sweezy, Harry Magdoff, and others noted decades ago, the general economic tendency of mature capitalism is toward stagnation. For decades in the United States and Western Europe, there has been a steady decline in investment in the productive economy, leading to a decline in industrial capacity and lower future growth.
Since the 1970s, U.S. corporations and financial institutions have relied primarily on debt to expand domestic economic growth. By 1985, total U.S. debt -- which is comprised of the debt owed by all households, governments (federal, state, and local), and all financial and non-financial businesses -- reached twice the size of the annual U.S. gross domestic product. By 2005, the total U.S. debt amounted to nearly "three and a half times the nation's GDP, and not far from the $44 trillion GDP for the entire world," according to Fred Magdoff.
As a result, mature U.S. corporations have been forced to export products and investment abroad, to take advantage of lower wages, weak or nonexistent environmental and safety standards, and so forth, to obtain higher profit margins. Today about 18 percent of total U.S. corporate profits come from direct overseas investment. Partially to protect these growing investments, the United States has pursued an aggressive, interventionist foreign policy across the globe. As of 2006, the U.S. maintained military bases in fifty-nine nations. The potential for deploying military forces in any part of the world is essential for both political and economic hegemony.
Thus the current Iraq War is not essentially a military blunder caused by a search for "weapons of mass destruction," but an imperialist effort to secure control of the world's second largest proven oil reserves; Bush also invaded Iraq because it was the first military step of the Bush administration's neoconservatives (such as Paul Wolfwitz, now head of the World Bank) to "remake the Middle East" by destroying the governments of Iraq, Iran, and Syria.
Manning Marable is Professor Public Affairs, History, and African-American Studies at Columbia University, New York City. His column "Along the Color Line" appears in over 400 publications internationally and is available at www.manningmarable.net. This article was published in the Jackson Progressive, and it is republished here with kind permission of the author, who retains all rights.
Manning has long been a supporter of our work.
by Manning Marable; MR Zine; January 13, 2007
Several weeks ago, with much media fanfare, the James Baker-Lee Hamilton Committee submitted to President George W. Bush its long-awaited, bipartisan report on the U.S. war in Iraq. On balance, the report provided Bush with a face-saving strategy for pulling out all U.S. combat forces by the beginning of 2008. The Baker-Hamilton report favors an increase of U.S. advisers being embedded inside Iraqi troops and direct negotiations with regional powers Iran and Syria.
Bush, however, almost immediately distanced himself from key proposals in the Baker-Hamilton report. He now seems prepared to flagrantly flaunt his contempt for the majority of American voters, who purged both the Senate and House of their Republican majorities last November. Why does Bush defy public opinion by pursuing this unpopular war?
The answer lies not in America's need to "combat Islamic terrorism" but in the economic necessity for the United States to control international markets and valuable natural resources, such as petroleum. Bush's economic strategy is that of "neoliberalism" -- which advocates the dismantling of the welfare state, the abolition of redistributive social programs for the poor, and the elimination of governmental regulations on corporations.
In a recent issue of the New York Times (December 5, 2006), Professor Thomas B. Edsall of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism astutely characterized this reactionary process of neoliberal politics within the United States in these terms: "For a quarter-century, the Republican temper -- its reckless drive to jettison the social safety net; its support of violence in law enforcement and national defense; its advocacy of regressive taxation, environmental hazard and probusiness deregulation; its 'remoralizing' of the pursuit of wealth -- has been judged by many voters as essential to America's position in the world, producing more benefit than cost."
One of the consequences of this reactionary political and economic agenda, according to Edsall, was "the Reagan administration's arms race" during the 1980s, which "arguably drove the Soviet Union into bankruptcy." A second consequence, Edsall argues, was America's disastrous military invasion of Iraq. "While inflicting destruction on the Iraqis," Edsall observes, "Bush multiplied America's enemies and endangered this nation's military, economic health and international stature. Courting risk without managing it, Bush repeatedly and remorselessly failed to accurately evaluate the consequences of his actions."
What is significant about Edsall's analysis is that he does not explain away the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and current military occupation as a political "mistake" or an "error of judgment." Rather, he locates the rationale for the so-called "war on terrorism" within the context of U.S. domestic, neoliberal politics. "The embroilment in Iraq is not an aberration," Edsall observed. "It stems from core [Republican] party principles, equally evident on the domestic front."
The larger question of political economy, left unexplored by Edsall and most analysts, is the connection between American militarism abroad, neoliberalism, and trends in the global economy. As economists Paul Sweezy, Harry Magdoff, and others noted decades ago, the general economic tendency of mature capitalism is toward stagnation. For decades in the United States and Western Europe, there has been a steady decline in investment in the productive economy, leading to a decline in industrial capacity and lower future growth.
Since the 1970s, U.S. corporations and financial institutions have relied primarily on debt to expand domestic economic growth. By 1985, total U.S. debt -- which is comprised of the debt owed by all households, governments (federal, state, and local), and all financial and non-financial businesses -- reached twice the size of the annual U.S. gross domestic product. By 2005, the total U.S. debt amounted to nearly "three and a half times the nation's GDP, and not far from the $44 trillion GDP for the entire world," according to Fred Magdoff.
As a result, mature U.S. corporations have been forced to export products and investment abroad, to take advantage of lower wages, weak or nonexistent environmental and safety standards, and so forth, to obtain higher profit margins. Today about 18 percent of total U.S. corporate profits come from direct overseas investment. Partially to protect these growing investments, the United States has pursued an aggressive, interventionist foreign policy across the globe. As of 2006, the U.S. maintained military bases in fifty-nine nations. The potential for deploying military forces in any part of the world is essential for both political and economic hegemony.
Thus the current Iraq War is not essentially a military blunder caused by a search for "weapons of mass destruction," but an imperialist effort to secure control of the world's second largest proven oil reserves; Bush also invaded Iraq because it was the first military step of the Bush administration's neoconservatives (such as Paul Wolfwitz, now head of the World Bank) to "remake the Middle East" by destroying the governments of Iraq, Iran, and Syria.
Manning Marable is Professor Public Affairs, History, and African-American Studies at Columbia University, New York City. His column "Along the Color Line" appears in over 400 publications internationally and is available at www.manningmarable.net. This article was published in the Jackson Progressive, and it is republished here with kind permission of the author, who retains all rights.
Manning has long been a supporter of our work.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Strategy and tactics for immigrant's rights
Strategy and tactics for the immigrant’s rights movement.
http://www.mapa-ca.org/MiscPages/StrategyTactics.pdf
A detailed analysis of the efforts of the May 1 coalition last year, the current situation, and potentials for immigration reform. By Nativo Lopez of MAPA.
Historical note;
MAPA ( the Mexican American Political Association) was created to pressure the Democratic Party to pay attention to Mexican American issues. Currently MAPA and Nativo Lopez are working with the Green Party.
Topics include:
Topics
· How was the immigrant’s rights movement successful in defeating H.R.4437?
· How the Democratic Party struck a compromise, and how the auxiliary organizations divided the movement?
· THE GREAT AMERICAN BOYCOTT
· A divided immigrant’s rights movement
· TODAY WE MARCH, TOMORROW WE VOTE
· REPUBLICAN THUMPING
· THE STATE OF ARIZONA
· Current state of the immigrant’s rights movement
· The Catholic Church
· The labor movement
· The auxiliary organizations
· The home-town associations
· The U.S. business community
· The local immigrant’s rights coalitions
· The Spanish language media
· The right-wing Minutemen
· The national networks - Most of the local and regional coalitions have come together under the umbrella of two national networks - WE ARE AMERICA and the National Alliance for Immigrant’s Rights (NAIR)
· The basic ten points of unity of NAIR
· CURRENT POLITICAL CONDITIONS
· STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE – IMMEDIATE LEGALIZATION
· The balance between legalization and enforcement
· The “guest-worker” program
· “I want to be a bracero” or “Please sanction my employer”
· STRATEGIC ALLIES
· Other strategic considerations
· The feminist movement
· The environmental movement
· The peace movement
· The labor movement
· Other tactical alliances
· Progressive social movements
· The Special Case of Mexico
· The African American community
· South Asian immigrant communities
http://www.mapa-ca.org/MiscPages/StrategyTactics.pdf
A detailed analysis of the efforts of the May 1 coalition last year, the current situation, and potentials for immigration reform. By Nativo Lopez of MAPA.
Historical note;
MAPA ( the Mexican American Political Association) was created to pressure the Democratic Party to pay attention to Mexican American issues. Currently MAPA and Nativo Lopez are working with the Green Party.
Topics include:
Topics
· How was the immigrant’s rights movement successful in defeating H.R.4437?
· How the Democratic Party struck a compromise, and how the auxiliary organizations divided the movement?
· THE GREAT AMERICAN BOYCOTT
· A divided immigrant’s rights movement
· TODAY WE MARCH, TOMORROW WE VOTE
· REPUBLICAN THUMPING
· THE STATE OF ARIZONA
· Current state of the immigrant’s rights movement
· The Catholic Church
· The labor movement
· The auxiliary organizations
· The home-town associations
· The U.S. business community
· The local immigrant’s rights coalitions
· The Spanish language media
· The right-wing Minutemen
· The national networks - Most of the local and regional coalitions have come together under the umbrella of two national networks - WE ARE AMERICA and the National Alliance for Immigrant’s Rights (NAIR)
· The basic ten points of unity of NAIR
· CURRENT POLITICAL CONDITIONS
· STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE – IMMEDIATE LEGALIZATION
· The balance between legalization and enforcement
· The “guest-worker” program
· “I want to be a bracero” or “Please sanction my employer”
· STRATEGIC ALLIES
· Other strategic considerations
· The feminist movement
· The environmental movement
· The peace movement
· The labor movement
· Other tactical alliances
· Progressive social movements
· The Special Case of Mexico
· The African American community
· South Asian immigrant communities
Labor and immigration legislation
Posted on Mon, Jan. 08, 2007
from the Charlotte Observer
INCREASED STATURE FOR DEMOCRATIC BACKERS
Labor takes on immigration
Opposition from union may complicate Bush's guest worker proposal
DAVE MONTGOMERY
McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON - President Bush's hopes of securing a comprehensive immigration
overhaul have brightened considerably in the new Democratic-controlled
Congress, but resistance from organized labor -- one of the Democratic Party's
most loyal constituencies -- could complicate those efforts.
The AFL-CIO, which represents 53 unions with more than 9 million members, is
ratcheting up opposition to a temporary guest worker program, a key element of
Bush's immigration plan. At the same time, two powerful unions in a breakaway
labor coalition, Change to Win, have tended to support the provision.
The divisions within labor were evident during the contentious debate over
immigration in the previous Republican-controlled Congress. But they take on
heightened significance as Democrats assume control of the 110th Congress and
begin shaping the legislative agenda.
Labor political action committees contributed 86 percent of their donations to
Democratic candidates, a total of $42 million, according to the Center for
Responsive Politics. Labor also aggressively waged get-out-the-vote efforts and
other activities to help end 12 years of Republican control of Congress.
With its bolstered political clout, the AFL-CIO is better positioned to confront
a powerful coalition of business groups that is pressing for a temporary worker
program to bring in thousands of foreign workers each year.
"The industry will oppose a bill that doesn't have a good temporary worker
program in it," said Randel Johnson, vice president of the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce.
But Johnson acknowledged that the AFL-CIO's heightened political stature in the
aftermath of the elections raises the challenge for his side.
"In view of the election, it's very significant," he said. "Certainly, the
AFL-CIO has a bigger seat at the table than they did before."
Business leaders say the guest worker program is needed to bring in foreign
workers to fill unskilled and low-skilled jobs Americans don't want. AFL-CIO
officials say the program is designed to give business a steady source of cheap
labor and would take jobs from U.S. citizens.
"We don't believe our elected representatives are ready to adopt legislation
that creates paths for corporations to import workers (and) reduce working
standards in the United States," said Ana Avendando, associate general counsel
for the AFL-CIO. "That's exactly what guest worker programs are."
Bush has made immigration one of his top domestic priorities since the outset of
his presidency. But he was rebuffed by members of his own party when
conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives effectively bottled up
a Senate-passed bill. The legislation, which had bipartisan support, included a
guest worker program and a legalization plan to put millions of undocumented
workers on a path to U.S. citizenship.
__._,_.___
from the Charlotte Observer
INCREASED STATURE FOR DEMOCRATIC BACKERS
Labor takes on immigration
Opposition from union may complicate Bush's guest worker proposal
DAVE MONTGOMERY
McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON - President Bush's hopes of securing a comprehensive immigration
overhaul have brightened considerably in the new Democratic-controlled
Congress, but resistance from organized labor -- one of the Democratic Party's
most loyal constituencies -- could complicate those efforts.
The AFL-CIO, which represents 53 unions with more than 9 million members, is
ratcheting up opposition to a temporary guest worker program, a key element of
Bush's immigration plan. At the same time, two powerful unions in a breakaway
labor coalition, Change to Win, have tended to support the provision.
The divisions within labor were evident during the contentious debate over
immigration in the previous Republican-controlled Congress. But they take on
heightened significance as Democrats assume control of the 110th Congress and
begin shaping the legislative agenda.
Labor political action committees contributed 86 percent of their donations to
Democratic candidates, a total of $42 million, according to the Center for
Responsive Politics. Labor also aggressively waged get-out-the-vote efforts and
other activities to help end 12 years of Republican control of Congress.
With its bolstered political clout, the AFL-CIO is better positioned to confront
a powerful coalition of business groups that is pressing for a temporary worker
program to bring in thousands of foreign workers each year.
"The industry will oppose a bill that doesn't have a good temporary worker
program in it," said Randel Johnson, vice president of the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce.
But Johnson acknowledged that the AFL-CIO's heightened political stature in the
aftermath of the elections raises the challenge for his side.
"In view of the election, it's very significant," he said. "Certainly, the
AFL-CIO has a bigger seat at the table than they did before."
Business leaders say the guest worker program is needed to bring in foreign
workers to fill unskilled and low-skilled jobs Americans don't want. AFL-CIO
officials say the program is designed to give business a steady source of cheap
labor and would take jobs from U.S. citizens.
"We don't believe our elected representatives are ready to adopt legislation
that creates paths for corporations to import workers (and) reduce working
standards in the United States," said Ana Avendando, associate general counsel
for the AFL-CIO. "That's exactly what guest worker programs are."
Bush has made immigration one of his top domestic priorities since the outset of
his presidency. But he was rebuffed by members of his own party when
conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives effectively bottled up
a Senate-passed bill. The legislation, which had bipartisan support, included a
guest worker program and a legalization plan to put millions of undocumented
workers on a path to U.S. citizenship.
__._,_.___
Sunday, January 07, 2007
South America: Toward an alternative future
South America: Toward an alternative future
Noam Chomsky
Friday, January 5, 2007
Last month a coincidence of birth and death signaled a transition for South America and indeed for the world.
The former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet died even as leaders of South American nations concluded a two-day summit meeting in Cochabamba, Bolivia, hosted by President Evo Morales, at which the participants and the agenda represented the antithesis of Pinochet and his era.
In the Cochabamba Declaration, the presidents and envoys of 12 countries agreed to study the idea of forming a continent-wide community similar to the European Union.
The declaration marks another stage toward regional integration in South America, 500 years after the European conquests. The subcontinent, from Venezuela to Argentina, may yet present an example to the world on how to create an alternative future from a legacy of empire and terror.
The United States has long dominated the region by two major methods: violence and economic strangulation. Quite generally, international affairs have more than a slight resemblance to the Mafia. The Godfather does not take it lightly when he is crossed, even by a small storekeeper.
Previous attempts at independence have been crushed, partly because of a lack of regional cooperation. Without it, threats can be handled one by one. (Central America, unfortunately, has yet to shake the fear and destruction left over from decades of U.S.-backed terror, especially during the 1980s.)
To the United States, the real enemy has always been independent nationalism, particularly when it threatens to become a "contagious example," to borrow Henry Kissinger's characterization of democratic socialism in Chile.
On Sept. 11, 1973,
Pinochet's forces attacked the Chilean presidential palace. Salvador Allende, the democratically elected president, died in the palace, apparently by his own hand, because he was unwilling to surrender to the assault that demolished Latin America's oldest, most vibrant democracy and established a regime of torture and repression.
The official death toll for the coup is 3,200; the actual toll is commonly estimated at double that figure. An official inquiry 30 years after the coup found evidence of approximately 30,000 cases of torture during the Pinochet regime. Among the leaders at Cochabamba was the Chilean president, Michelle Bachelet. Like Allende, she is a socialist and a physician. She also is a former exile and political prisoner. Her father was a general who died in prison after being tortured.
At Cochabamba, Morales and President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela celebrated a new joint venture, a gas separation project in Bolivia. Such cooperation strengthens the region's role as a major player in global energy.
Venezuela is already the only Latin American member of OPEC, with by far the largest proven oil reserves outside the Middle East. Chávez envisions Petroamerica, an integrated energy system of the kind that China is trying to initiate in Asia.
The new Ecuadorian president, Rafael Correa, proposed a land-and-river trade link from the Brazilian Amazon rain forest to Ecuador's Pacific Coast — a South American equivalent of the Panama Canal.
Other promising developments include Telesur, a new pan-Latin American TV channel based in Venezuela and an effort to break the Western media monopoly.
The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, called on fellow leaders to overcome historical differences and unite the continent, however difficult the task.
Integration is a prerequisite for genuine independence. The colonial history — Spain, Britain, other European powers, the United States — not only divided countries from one another but also left a sharp internal division within the countries, between a wealthy small elite and a mass of impoverished people.
The main economic controls in recent years have come from the International Monetary Fund, which is virtually a branch of the U.S. Treasury Department. But Argentina, Brazil and now Bolivia have moved to free themselves of IMF strictures.
Because of the new developments in South America, the United States has been forced to adjust policy. The governments that now have U.S. support — like Brazil under Lula — might well have been overthrown in the past, as was President João Goulart of Brazil in a U.S.-backed coup in 1964.
To maintain Washington's party line, though, it's necessary to finesse some of the facts. For example, when Lula was re- elected in October, one of his first acts was to fly to Caracas to support Chávez's electoral campaign. Also, Lula dedicated a Brazilian project in Venezuela, a bridge over the Orinoco River, and discussed other joint ventures.
The tempo is picking up. Also last month, Mercosur, the South American trading bloc, continued the dialogue on South American unity at its semiannual meeting in Brazil, where Lula inaugurated the Mercosur Parliament — another promising sign of deliverance from the demons of the past.
Copyright © 2007 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com
Noam Chomsky
Friday, January 5, 2007
Last month a coincidence of birth and death signaled a transition for South America and indeed for the world.
The former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet died even as leaders of South American nations concluded a two-day summit meeting in Cochabamba, Bolivia, hosted by President Evo Morales, at which the participants and the agenda represented the antithesis of Pinochet and his era.
In the Cochabamba Declaration, the presidents and envoys of 12 countries agreed to study the idea of forming a continent-wide community similar to the European Union.
The declaration marks another stage toward regional integration in South America, 500 years after the European conquests. The subcontinent, from Venezuela to Argentina, may yet present an example to the world on how to create an alternative future from a legacy of empire and terror.
The United States has long dominated the region by two major methods: violence and economic strangulation. Quite generally, international affairs have more than a slight resemblance to the Mafia. The Godfather does not take it lightly when he is crossed, even by a small storekeeper.
Previous attempts at independence have been crushed, partly because of a lack of regional cooperation. Without it, threats can be handled one by one. (Central America, unfortunately, has yet to shake the fear and destruction left over from decades of U.S.-backed terror, especially during the 1980s.)
To the United States, the real enemy has always been independent nationalism, particularly when it threatens to become a "contagious example," to borrow Henry Kissinger's characterization of democratic socialism in Chile.
On Sept. 11, 1973,
Pinochet's forces attacked the Chilean presidential palace. Salvador Allende, the democratically elected president, died in the palace, apparently by his own hand, because he was unwilling to surrender to the assault that demolished Latin America's oldest, most vibrant democracy and established a regime of torture and repression.
The official death toll for the coup is 3,200; the actual toll is commonly estimated at double that figure. An official inquiry 30 years after the coup found evidence of approximately 30,000 cases of torture during the Pinochet regime. Among the leaders at Cochabamba was the Chilean president, Michelle Bachelet. Like Allende, she is a socialist and a physician. She also is a former exile and political prisoner. Her father was a general who died in prison after being tortured.
At Cochabamba, Morales and President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela celebrated a new joint venture, a gas separation project in Bolivia. Such cooperation strengthens the region's role as a major player in global energy.
Venezuela is already the only Latin American member of OPEC, with by far the largest proven oil reserves outside the Middle East. Chávez envisions Petroamerica, an integrated energy system of the kind that China is trying to initiate in Asia.
The new Ecuadorian president, Rafael Correa, proposed a land-and-river trade link from the Brazilian Amazon rain forest to Ecuador's Pacific Coast — a South American equivalent of the Panama Canal.
Other promising developments include Telesur, a new pan-Latin American TV channel based in Venezuela and an effort to break the Western media monopoly.
The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, called on fellow leaders to overcome historical differences and unite the continent, however difficult the task.
Integration is a prerequisite for genuine independence. The colonial history — Spain, Britain, other European powers, the United States — not only divided countries from one another but also left a sharp internal division within the countries, between a wealthy small elite and a mass of impoverished people.
The main economic controls in recent years have come from the International Monetary Fund, which is virtually a branch of the U.S. Treasury Department. But Argentina, Brazil and now Bolivia have moved to free themselves of IMF strictures.
Because of the new developments in South America, the United States has been forced to adjust policy. The governments that now have U.S. support — like Brazil under Lula — might well have been overthrown in the past, as was President João Goulart of Brazil in a U.S.-backed coup in 1964.
To maintain Washington's party line, though, it's necessary to finesse some of the facts. For example, when Lula was re- elected in October, one of his first acts was to fly to Caracas to support Chávez's electoral campaign. Also, Lula dedicated a Brazilian project in Venezuela, a bridge over the Orinoco River, and discussed other joint ventures.
The tempo is picking up. Also last month, Mercosur, the South American trading bloc, continued the dialogue on South American unity at its semiannual meeting in Brazil, where Lula inaugurated the Mercosur Parliament — another promising sign of deliverance from the demons of the past.
Copyright © 2007 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Mexico and immigration issues
Another grassroots groundswell that mattered was the
immigrants' rights marches of last spring, which were
launched with the surprising turnout in Los Angeles --
not the easiest city for walking and marching -- of
more than a million Latinos and others defiant of
crackdowns against immigrants. Similarly huge and
passionate demonstrations, many organized by text
messaging, Spanish-language radio, and other means,
swept the nation. They demonstrated that immigrants
were not going to be so easy to bully; the force of
their numbers and passion left Republican plans to
repress and to demonize immigrants, undocumented and
otherwise, in disarray. The marches were jubilant and
powerful, one of those no-going-back moments when a
group decides never to be a silent victim again. The
culminating marches on May Day were the first time in
many decades that the U.S. had adequately joined the
rest of the world in commemorating this worker's
holiday that commemorates the anniversary of the
Chicago labor march and rally in 1886.
Mexicans rose up in 2006, and the country seems to be
on the brink of revolution, if citizen discontent is
any measure. The city of Oaxaca was seized by its
citizens and for many months functioned as an
autonomous zone akin to the Paris Commune of 1871,
until violent repression in November. After the stolen
presidential election in the summer, millions of
Mexicans took up residence in the streets of the
capital to protest the corruption and model an
alternative -- the huge occupation of the central
zocalo (or plaza) and surrounding area experimented
with mass democracy meetings in the open air, while
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the Mexico-City mayor who
probably actually won the election, set up a shadow
government. The Zapatistas, a dozen years after their
appearance on the world stage, continued to play a role
in Mexican politics.
By Rebecca Solnit, AlterNet.
Posted December 29, 2006.
http://www.alternet.org/story/46015/
Monday, January 01, 2007
Oaxaca and Unions
Minnesotans heed call for solidarity with Oaxacans
By Michael Moore
29 December 2006
ST. PAUL - The violent struggle in the Mexican state of Oaxaca – where the brutal repression of a striking teachers union last June sparked a series of demonstrations, uprisings and, eventually, partial federal occupation – inspires a wide range of emotions among the teachers’ supporters.
\Primarily, however, there is uncertainty, and that, in turn, yields anxiety.
Oaxaca Gov. Ulises Ruiz, who ordered police to assault the striking teachers, has refused to step aside, though an estimated 1.5 million people have taken to the streets in support of his removal.
Indeed, Mexican Teachers Union (SNTE) Local 22 is not alone in protest of Ruiz’s rule. The Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) formed shortly after the governor’s attack on the teachers, uniting them with representatives of the state’s regions and municipalities, its other unions and its non-governmental, social and cooperative groups.
The APPO began acting as a shadow government opposed to Ruiz’s, and it inspired enough support from Oaxacans to take control of the capital city’s central square, or zocalo, as well as the radio station at its university.
But on Oct. 31, after rumors of state-directed death squads and assinations made their way to the nation’s capital, Mexican President Vicente Fox ordered federal police and internal security agents to Oaxaca, with directions to recapture the zocalo. The raid was successful, but it resulted in warrantless arrests, beatings and disappearances.
Leo Garcia, an activist who returned from Oaxaca about a month ago, addressed the St. Paul Labor Speakers Club Nov. 27. He detailed 14 clashes between police and protestors at different points throughout the city.
“At some points the police began to shoot 9-millimeter guns into the crowd,” Garcia said. “Police squads fired on three youths, taking two of their bodies.”
For Garcia, anxiety has begun turning to despair.
“It’s kind of hard to see a social movement repressed into submission, which is what (the Mexican government) is trying to do,” he said. “Leaders are detained, there are warrants for others and people are in hiding.”
Garcia agreed with an organizer for the Minneapolis-based Resource Center of the Americas, Eduardo Cardenas, that renewed hope in Oaxaca depends on international interest.
“It seems that Oaxaca is in desperate need of international solidarity,” Garcia said. “Teachers unions and workers in different sectors need to step up.”
In St. Paul, public school teachers made solidarity with Oaxacan teachers a central theme of their union’s celebration honoring the anniversary of St. Paul teachers’ walkout 60 years ago. Still, demonstrations in front of the local Mexcian consulate here have been sparsely attended, according to Cardenas. Media coverage, meanwhile, has been almost non-existant.
That disappoints Cardenas, who still holds out hope – perhaps the most powerful of emotions – that the struggle begun by the Oaxacan teachers and carried on by the APPO will not be in vain.
“Beyond the teachers’ demands, this has larger implications,” Cardenas said. “Here’s a process being undertaken to create a democratic system where there has not been one.
“That’s very scary to a lot of people in Latin America who (fear) this could ecourage people to take on similar actions. But as scary as it is to people like Vicente Fox, it is inspiring for people in places like Colombia, who look at the people of Oaxaca as an example, creating a fair, more participatory society.”
Michael Moore edits the St. Paul Union Advocate, the official newspaper of the St. Paul Trades and Labor Assembly. Used by permission. E-mail The Advocate at: advocate@stpaulunions.org
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