Advancing the Cause of Labor

They're writing off the labor movement -- again.

Most of the global media are writing off the labor movement as a relic of a by-gone age. At the same time, however, with living standards for working people stagnant or falling all over the world, there has never been a greater need for organizations to defend the rights and needs of working people. Fortunately, recent changes have made the movement better suited to fulfill its role.

Everything changed when the Berlin Wall fell.

During the Cold War, in much of the world, labor unions tended to be under the control of political parties, such as the Communists, or other outside groups, such as the Catholic Church. In the United States, they were independent, but they had a distressing tendency to line up with the most reactionary social and political forces at home and abroad.
This system has fortunately come apart in the last few years.

We can say "fortunately" because the movement now faces a whole new set of challenges. With the rise of the fully global market -- and the consequent enfeebling of the nation-state as a source of economic control -- there is now a systematic and sustained attack on the living standards of working people around the world. A new labor movement is needed to fight back.

Labor needs allies to fight back.

The global free market is a regime of systematic irresponsibility. It pays no heed to any human need -- just the profits of the few who own it. So it tends to create problems on many fronts and raise resistance from many groups. Alone, any of these resisting forces can be overcome, so to succeed, they have to stand together.
The labor movement needs the other anti-corporate political forces, and they need it. And with the ending of the Cold War nonsense, the present-day labor movement is ready to play its part in fighting back against the global corporate order. It has the political independence to form alliances as the situation requires -- and a new willingness to form those alliances.

A sign of things to come has been the anti-sweatshop movement of recent years, -- bringing students, feminists, and religious activists together. There must also be a coming together of labor and environmentalism to stop the export of pollution and resource-waste to the Third World, where they will undoubtedly fall most heavily on those with the least power -- as they do at home.

This will be an exciting time.

We have some Labor Links for you, as well as The Nation.

And we also have an essay on Equality and pages of links on Environmental Issues, Alternative Economics, and Women's Issues in the United States and elsewhere in the world.

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