Labor's Future

Todd is absolutely right: the labor movement of the future won’t look like yesterday’s. My own dad was a member of the Sheet Metal Workers International, and spent thirty years in a factory earning a decent living with good health care benefits and a nice savings account that sent me to college. Those manufacturing jobs are just about gone now as a result of capitalism’s inevitable…well, capitalization…of the increasingly global economy (more on this below).

But the fight for good wages, just working conditions, health care and education, all hallmarks of the traditional labor movement, must continue, even if the economy has changed. In America’s service economy of today, workers may be more vulnerable now than ever. David Moberg, a writer for In These Times (a fantastic publication if you aren’t familiar with it) gives a balanced assessment of what the AFL-CIO split might mean for the future.

The hullabaloo over Bush’s Supreme Court nomination is overshadowing a more important struggle in Congress right now over a major issue of importance to American workers, authorization of the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement. I full well realize that the globalization of the economy is inevitable. But we don’t have to allow it to happen with no regard whatsoever to the environment and workers rights. Fair trade is something no one has an argument with.

For more info on DR-CAFTA, check out the sites below.
 DR-CAFTA Educational Packet
 Public Citizen Fact Sheets and Information Alerts on CAFTA
-G