With US labor leaders holding talks (see here, here and here) with the ACFTU in China, we thought it would be worthwhile to examine the role of the U.S. labor movement in the reassessment of approaches to China. A later post will explore the questions raised by U.S. labor's emerging engagement with the ACFTU.
Why Labor Can and Should Lead a Reassessment of Approaches to China
1. Established approaches to China are obsolete.
China is no longer a cold war adversary, but it is now a global economic powerhouse. The current policies of labor and of the U.S. government have not adequately recognized today’s reality.
2. The jobs and wages of workers in the US and everywhere are at stake.
Unions and workers all over the globe are confronting the challenges posed by the emergence of China as a global economic powerhouse. No other industrializing country has ever attracted jobs at both the high and low ends of the production chain. From basic level assembly work to the upper tiers of industry and services, China is setting the global norm for working standards around the world.
3. A new China strategy is an economic necessity for labor.
China is a global problem for workers and their unions. Every day footloose corporations move or threaten to move jobs to China. The “privileged” position of workers in the global North is being rapidly undermined while the aspirations of workers in the developing world are being dashed as China becomes the wage setting country in many industries.
4. A new China policy is also a political necessity for labor.
China is the focal point of all of the insecurities people feel about globalization. As New York Times columnist Tom Friedman wrote after November’s elections: if Iraq was the country that dominated this election, China will be the country that dominates the 2008 elections. And it has the capacity to split the Democratic Party and, we add, the labor movement. Failure to address the China issue could leave a political vacuum that could be filled by xenophobes of the Right. But the 2008 elections can also be an important opportunity to put workers friendly approaches to globalization into the political debate.
5. Labor is strategically positioned to re-frame the debate.
The current debate about China inside and outside the labor movement is trapped in a flawed debate between “free trade” and protectionism. Neither is appropriate: “free trade” leads to a race to the bottom as workers are pitted against each other; protectionism is unworkable in an already integrated global economy, where, for instance, China holds a significant percentage of US debt.
As the primary spokesman for those who are most affected, the labor movement will be listened to if it articulates a constructive new approach. A constructive China policy can unite workers around the world, inside and outside of China, all of whom have an interest in stopping the race to the bottom.
Corporations and the media have unjustly tagged labor as a bunch of dinosaurs that only know how to say no. A new initiative on China that provides an alternative to the flawed “free trade vs. protectionism” debate could put labor into a leading position on how the U.S. should respond to globalization
6. Labor can reframe the China debate by making the behavior of U.S.-based corporations the central issue.
It is a well-concealed fact that about 65% of the increase in exports to the US from China since China joined the WTO in 2001 is from US based corporations or their subsidiaries. 55% of China’s total exports are by foreign based global companies or their subsidiaries.
The “Chinese menace” is less about trade with China than it is about trade with Wal-Mart and GE. The Chinese government is just a partner with the global corporations that move to China to lower labor costs and use the ability to do this as a lever to drive down wages and working conditions for workers in other countries, and even within China itself.
By putting the role of U.S. corporations front and center, labor can escape charges of chauvinistic “China bashing” and xenophobia. Instead it can express labor’s traditional identification with and support of the common interests of workers and oppressed groups worldwide. Such a focus makes it possible for U.S. labor to visibly act in the interest of its members and of workers everywhere by challenging the behavior of corporations whose headquarters are as near at hand as New York, Atlanta, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
7. The hypocrisy of corporations’ claims about the benefits of globalization and investment in China make them highly vulnerable to criticism and pressure.
US based companies have constantly argued that they will raise living standards and human rights by investing in China. But their own words and actions belie these claims. US companies are actively opposing modest changes in Chinese labor law that would grant new rights to Chinese workers. It’s no surprise: global corporations are making money on the wide open unregulated market system that has developed in the last two decades. All of the corporate talk about raising standards through investing in China is hollow rhetoric. And it can be called out as such.
8. China’s workers are on the move, demanding more rights, creating new opportunities for raising standards in China.
A strike wave is sweeping China. Since 1982—when China started looking for foreign investors -- strikes have been officially banned. Last year alone the government reported 300,000 labor disputes, nearly double the number reported in 2001. Support for the basic human right of Chinese workers to organize, bargain collectively, and strike provides a way that American labor can demonstrate its commitment to the common interest to raise workers standards while expressing solidarity rather than chauvinism.
9. The Chinese government is worried about social stability, opening additional possibilities for improving standards in China.
The threat posed by labor insurgency has led the Chinese government to propose a draft labor law that would extend significant new rights to workers. The new law requires employers to sign contacts with all workers; mandates seniority for lay-offs and recall; requires bargaining over work rules and lay-offs, and provides many other workplace rights common in the industrial world. The opposition of US-based corporations to such protections provides a vivid foil to a labor initiative to support the rights of Chinese workers.
10.The rapidly changing Chinese labor scene makes new approaches to Chinese labor organizations possible and necessary.
The ACFTU remains China’s only legal union, and the Chinese government continues to suppress most independent labor action. But the growing labor crisis—and the actions of US based corporations—are forcing the ACFTU to behave more like a trade union. For example, the ACFTU organized Wal-Mart by enlisting workers rather than signing an agreement with management. It then banned Wal-Mart supervisory workers from being union officials. It is impossible to know what similar steps may lie ahead or even already be under way.
It is not up to U.S. unions to decide what kind of labor organization China should have – that is up to Chinese workers. Some will no doubt struggle to establish independent organizations; others will “bore from within” in the official union structure. U.S. trade unionists need neither to endorse nor to shun either the official union or independent efforts. They can relate to both, supporting worker-friendly initiatives like the draft contract labor law while steadfastly maintaining the basic right of all workers to unions and leaders of their own choosing. And they can demonstrate a commitment to that principle in practice by pressuring U.S.-based corporations to offer those rights to their workers in China.
A full reassessment of China should include:
• New public policy initiatives on critical issues from labor rights to trade policy
• An election strategy for 2008
• On-going monitoring of the activities of US based global companies
• Regular tracking of key issues in China’s labor market
• An open dialogue with both ACFTU and independent labor initiatives
• Expanded dialogue with leading Chinese activists and intellectuals
• Support for Chinese workers’ labor rights and organizing efforts
• An active press strategy that portrays labor as a force for progress, not a brake on change
• Materials for an education campaign for union staff and members
• Utilization of the China issue to set the stage for a new approach to globalization.
Wayne--it has nothing to do with "the quality of the leadership".
1. It is possible to bring solidarity to workers in China without having anything to do with the ACFTU.
2. The question is not just about the leadership, it is about structures--are the structures of China's trade union movement democratic? Can the leadership be questioned? Can they be voted out of office? Can a strike be voted on? (Unless one is in the dark the answer to all these is NO.)
3. Engagement with an organisation like the ACFTU is engagement with people who, at best, are human resource managers, not representatives of workers. No amount of window dressing of "unions at walmart" can hide this fact.
4. What is amazing is that workers in China are expected to basically put on hold their democratic rights (one of the few things that might put a brake on the rampant inequality building in the coutnry) while US unions get their act together for a campaign...wait for it...for workers in China. You can't do both: support workers in China and egage with the ACFTU, 10 years of unions from around the world already engagign with the ACFTU has delivered nothing. It is interesting that US union leaders somehow think they are doing something "radically" new--they are not. Japanese unions have tried engagement, no one can point to anything delievered. European unions have tried. Same story.
5. Ultimately, the China campaign proposed here misreads entirely that nature of China's economy with regard to the USA. There is little in the US economy which has not already shifted to China, that was not going to go in the first place. Workers in the US are not "threatened" by hotel workers in Shanghai. You can't offshore a hotel in Houston, or janitors in Chicago, or truck drivers in LA, postal workers in Denver etc etc. Unions in the US in the traditional areas of the economy are basically dead (textiles, autos, steel, except perhaps public sector), no amount of deals with the ACFTU are going to convince US corporations to go esay,
Posted by: Adam Goldsztajn | May 29, 2007 at 05:13 PM
Adam - you have made the very error that the editorial is warning against - namely, to place the quality of China's leadership, including that of the union movement, as a more important question than the need to support 'the common interests of workers and oppressed groups worldwide', to leave the Chinese workers to settle things with their own leadership & not to make it a precondition of support that they do this first.
Posted by: Wayne Sonter | May 29, 2007 at 10:59 AM
Are you kidding? The ACFTU's model of trade unionism is Singapore. The ACFTU has gone from neglect of workers' class interests to the suppression of workers in China. If the model of trade unionism US labour leaders want is business unions and cosy deals with the corporations, then engagement with the ACFTU is the way to go. So much for unions as democratic organisations. This approach is so utterly against all that the union movement should stand for--it is nothing but the worst top-down bureacratic thinking. The idea the the ACFTU will somehow evolve into a democratic organisation is ludicrous...
Posted by: Adam Goldsztajn | May 28, 2007 at 06:52 AM