If there is a Global Marketplace then we need Global Unionization

[RadiationTherapy]

Since history repeats, but often spirals into other levels of varying magnitude, it seems we are on the verge of experiencing a low in workers' rights across the globe. The period that follows may resemble the struggle for workers rights in the early 20th century in America, but on a global scale.

Global collective bargaining is the only future for workers, otherwise manufacturing will be a carousel of factories moving from economies that are improving to those recently crashed.

[socialist_n_TN]

1. Trotsky noted the need for this almost a century ago...........

And with the pace of globalization today, it's even MORE pertinent. WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!

[snot]

2. Exactly.

I never had a problem with free trade agreements, so long as the trade partner countries have equivalent labor and environmental protection laws.

[closeupready]

3. You realize, of course, the whole point of NAFTA was to atomize labor and diminish union power.

Ditto drives to remove trade barriers in South America and China. Opening up the world to big money enterprises while keeping labor captive within sovereign states shifted the balance of power away from labor.

[upi402]

12. We're supposed to forget that cuz Clinton is our next God

"The Bill Clinton Phenomenon" is getting hyped to no end on MSNBC. ugh

[The2ndWheel]

4. That's why corporations have the upper hand

Corporations are global, while government is regional.

Global economy, global corporations, global unions, global government, global this, global that, etc. Everything has to be global. Something has to be given up to get that, but, that's always the case.

[blindpig]

5. Workers of the World Unite! n/t

[Scruffy1]

6. You are so right.

[leftstreet]

7. K&R

[ljm2002]

8. That's it in a nutshell...

...otherwise we are in the race to the bottom. Which of course is where we are right now.

Of course, there is also the issue of relative standards of living, and the fact that we Western nations enjoy a very elevated standard of living relative to most of the rest of the world (apart from their wealthy classes). That also has to equalize to some extent.

It is very interesting watching the forces in play right now. Within each country we have the rich and the super rich against everyone else -- as we see right here with the pay and wealth inequality being greater than at any other time in our own history. Yet we gobble up resources at a much higher rate than others on the planet, to sustain an unsustainable standard of living. At the same time, even if (say) Chinese workers unionized, their cost of living is still much lower than ours and so the cost of labor would still be cheaper there, and in India, etc., so the global corporations would still have incentives to use that labor rather than ours. And this is true even for educated workers, as we see with all of the programming work that has been farmed out to India.

While all this is going on, our empire is bankrupting us and we are cutting back on education at home, among other things. This of course reduces our competitiveness on the international stage. So there is only one direction we are going as a nation, and that is down. Hate to say it, hate to see it, but there it is.

I used to think that governments could act as a curb on the power of multinational corporations. But that, of course, was naive. The multinationals buy governments the world 'round, so there is at present no check and no balance on their power. Except one, and that is the power of the truth. Thank Gore we have the Internet, it may provide the vehicle for truth. The Mideast uprisings are an indication that perhaps the time is come when we citizens of the world will make use of the tools at our disposal to change things from the bottom up. Only time will tell -- and it won't come easily, that's for sure. Already in Egypt the military has disallowed unions and collective bargaining -- hopefully that will be restored when elections happen in September, but you can bet your boots the multinationals are in there buying people as we speak.

[RadiationTherapy]

9. Tim Leary and others believed the internet and multimedia applications

will provide us with the networking (internet) and graphics (as well as the processing power to generate and render graphics) to move in to a new phase in communication history. Namely that we would be able to communicate with anyone anywhere using visuals that overcome language barriers. A tangent, but I do believe that as communication grows, the working classes will steadily gel.

[upi402]

10. Damn skippy we need that!. We have that in name now

'International' is in the union names of most unions

[Romulox]

11. Americans happily purchase prison-made goods from China as their own neighbors are foreclosed upon

What makes you think they will give a damn about workers half way around the world? :shrug:

[RadiationTherapy]

14. I don't think we are very close to the historical events that would precipitate global unions.

I do think it will be a consequence in the future, but we much to learn and far to fall first.

[pampango]

13. Global government (and global unions) will come in time. Environmental degradation

will demand it. We will never get 192 countries, each looking for an advantage over the others, to agree to tax their carbon output or otherwise hinder their own companies. (Of course, the alternative exists that we never get over our distrust of fellow human beings and we drive the earth's environment into the ground rather than learn how to cooperate with each other.)

The decision to work together globally will undoubtedly be put off as long as possible (probably til long after an effective environmental solution is possible), but eventually it will happen as people realize that we are all in this together and it doesn't do any good to divide the world into 192 "us vs thems". It will take a while, though. It is tough to get past the "'we' can't trust 'them'" (foreigners). Harder probably for Americans than it is for the French or the Germans who have learned to trust each other when history gives them little reason to do so.

Global problems require global, not national, solutions; just as national problems, require national, not local, solutions.