I think the answer to the WTO is for labor to go international. (Soliciting ideas here)

[Jackpine Radical]

For starters, I would propose the following laws:

1) An absolute ban on trade with all nations that don't permit their workers to form trade unions with the power to bargain, form international associations, strike, etc.
2) A race to the top in environmental laws; i.e. the right to ban imports from any country with environmental standards lower than the importing country
3) An international minimum wage
4) Universal workplace health and safety standards


One major importer nation could lead the way.

What are your additions/corrections/comments?

[alcibiades_mystery]

1. I'm humming the Internationale as we speak

This has ALWAYS been the answer. It's why nativist unions and nativist thinking are nothing but enablers for the worst kind of capitalist exploitation.

It's not "Workers of this Particular Locality, Unite," after all.

[Jackpine Radical]

3. "Arise, ye pris'ners..."

Yeah, it was running through my head as I wrote the OP too.

[Cant trust em]

2. International minimum wage would be difficult.

How does currency value factor in?

I like the essence of the idea, but I also imagine implementation being a nightmare.

[Jackpine Radical]

4. That's what liberal economists are for.

It would all arise out of comparisons of local living standards, I imagine.

[Cant trust em]

6. Local living standards vary significantly.

What would the baseline be?

[Jackpine Radical]

11. Any giant proposal such as this has a million details to be worked out.

Whatever suggestion I might make here on the spur of the moment is guaranteed to have two attributes: 1) It will be overly simplistic, and 2) It will be wrong.

[JVS]

5. We tried that. Labor in the West scabbed.

[Jackpine Radical]

9. "We tried that"

is the world's most common excuse for giving up on an effort. If it were easy, it would already have happened. Hell, it may take a generation. It may take a major educational effort and some sort of spiritual transformation before people start accepting communual values. Take, as a negative example, the way in which thr right-wingers started organizing in the Goldwater years to bring about the social destruction that is still unfolding in the present.

[alcibiades_mystery]

16. True dat

[Crystal Clarity]

7. In a perfect world

{sigh}...If only...

[abelenkpe]

8. You are absolutely right.

We definitely need global labor unions. I think it is inevitable if we don't want to keep being pitted against workers in other nations.

[The2ndWheel]

10. We live in a global economy, with regional governments

One of those would have to change.

We've got a few hundred regional governments around the world acting in their own interests. You're not going to get international wages or universal standards while this reality exists.

[Jackpine Radical]

12. But look at the WTO, which already has the power to override local governments

in terms of environmental regulations, tariffs, trade barriers, etc. It is precisely that ability of corporate interests to override local regulations that most necessitates comparable powers for labor. Nobody is going to give that power to labor. Labor must take it.

[anigbrowl]

13. Those powers are based on treaties

The WTO isn't some external thing that goes around strongarming individual counties. It's more like an economic version of the UN. WTO rules are set by negotiation among the member countries. Naturally, this means the bigger economies carry somewhat more weight in setting policy (just like at the UN) but nations of all sizes have equal access to the dispute resolution process (again, just like the UN).

To be honest, I think the best route for labor is to argue for free movement of labor as well as capital, so that workers in WTO member countries are eventually able to compete on an equal basis, just as importers and exporters are able to compete on an equal basis (eventually; in practice countries at different stages of economic development have some flexibility in how the trade rules apply).

I have found myself wondering lately why more unions don't adopt a corporate structure, set up their members as shareholder-employees, and rent their members' services to companies who need staff, with the 'UnionCorps' taking on things like safety and skill training; the buying company gets the benefits of assured base skills and reduced administration, and the cost of these activities is built into the price.

To a certain extent, many unions are already structured this way legally speaking; for example, unions are treated as legal persons, same as corporations.

[The2ndWheel]

14. Right, because they're local governments

The only way government works is when it's a monopoly. The world is far from a monopoly when it comes to governing. It's also easier today to move around the world than ever. When place mattered, unions in the US were strong. Then as the 20th century went by, the various barriers around the world were coming down, except one. Corporations are now multi-national. Board members from every place on the planet. Shareholders from all over. Governments, however, are still confined to specific places. Governments still exist in a world with lines drawn on maps.

If you want international this, or universal that, then you're going to have to come up with an international, or universal government, with the ability to enforce those equal standards everywhere. Government will have to become multi-national to be the necessary comparable power. Hell, it would have to make a term such as multi-national obsolete. The same with outsourcing. If there is no outside, if there is no other, then the concept no longer exists.

[blindpig]

15. Workers of the World Unite!

That is what you meant here, isn't it?

After people get through 'every damn thing but' it's the only game in town.

[Jackpine Radical]

18. Yes indeed, that's exactly what I meant.

You might say I have trouble staying on a straight line. I wobble.

[LWolf]

17. I'm intrigued by the possibilities. I'm also wondering

how an international minimum wage would really work. How could it be equitable?

[Jackpine Radical]

19. At this point I couldn't tell you how it would work.

It would of course be quite complicated, and would have to take into account some consideration of local conditions, local productivity, etc.