From almyatt@earthlink.net Mon Apr 22 12:21:43 2002 Return-Path: Delivered-To: usgp-mx-laborgreens@gp-us.org Received: (qmail 28836 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 2002 12:21:43 -0000 Received: from gull.mail.pas.earthlink.net (HELO gull.prod.itd.earthlink.net) (207.217.120.84) by cesarchavez.cagreens.org with SMTP; 22 Apr 2002 12:21:43 -0000 Received: from dialup-63.212.144.6.dial1.detroit1.level3.net ([63.212.144.6] helo=earthlink.net) by gull.prod.itd.earthlink.net with esmtp (Exim 3.33 #2) id 16zcpB-0001Mg-00 for laborgreens@gp-us.org; Mon, 22 Apr 2002 05:21:41 -0700 Message-ID: <3CC40023.DE52F854@earthlink.net> Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2002 08:20:51 -0400 From: Arthur & Linda Myatt X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.75 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: laborgreens@gp-us.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Laborgreens] Union bug on printed material Sender: laborgreens-admin@gp-us.org Errors-To: laborgreens-admin@gp-us.org X-BeenThere: laborgreens@gp-us.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.8 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: GP-US labor Greens mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: The following article is reprinted from the Spring 2001 issue of Amber Waves of Green, the quarterly newsletter of the Green Party of Michigan. A copy is to be included in the information packet for forming new locals of GPMI. It fits nicely on one side of a sheet of standard paper. Look for the union label! by Art Myatt We are pleased to say that Amber Waves of Green is now printed at a union print shop, and the union bug to prove it is now incorporated into the masthead, near the issue number and date. It shows that we understand the issues involved and that we support the wage-worker's side of the right to organize, living wages, good working conditions, and so on. It will stay on the masthead of this paper. Last year on Labor Day, the Green Party table at Laborfest was not as well-organized as it should have been. We had literature to give away, and tee shirts and hats to sell, and plenty of enthusiastic people to work the table. The problem was, we were at an organized labor event, showing support for labor and asking for their support, but most of our literature did not have a bug on it to show that it had been printed at a union shop. It's not sensible to ask people to be your allies when you aren't willing to at least respect their customs. It's like wearing Nike to an anti-sweatshop rally; you just don't seem to fit in. There were excuses. In the election campaigns of last year, we were all scrambling just to create any kind of organization out of the jumble of new faces and new experiences. Mistakes and oversights like the absence of a bug are to be expected. Now, we are trying to get better prepared for the next campaign season, and being conscientious about labeling our literature is one way to do it. The bug is not the only thing labor activists look for - good stands on the issues also count, and just showing up at the right times and places is important - but it is one thing they do look for. We should at least be as attentive to this detail as the average Democrat. The union bug ought to be on every printed item the Green Party originates. For ad hoc flyers and such, copies run off tens at a time from an office Xerox or perhaps a hundred or two at Kinko's, including the phrase "labor donated" on the face of the sheet is an acceptable alternative. Even unions do not go to a union print shop for everything, and having the "labor donated" line is a good way to show we didn't forget about labor rights, even when that's not the immediate issue, even when in a rush. This would be needed only on material intended for public distribution. Purely internal documents need no label of any sort. If the item is intended for the public and we pay someone to print it, it ought to be printed at a union shop and it should have the bug on it. The most obvious literature to which this applies is AWOG, but it is just as true for leaflets, flyers, trifolds (like the state membership form), pamphlets, buttons, bumper stickers, lawn signs, and so on. If we ever have a candidate who is handing out key rings and wooden rulers, the key rings and wooden rulers should also have the union bug visibly displayed. It is not possible to defend the environment without the active support of wage workers. It is not possible for workers to defend human rights on the job without democratic unions. It is all the same struggle, and the union bug is one way to show which side we are on. We'll be back at Laborfest, at the end of the Labor Day parade route in Detroit, and we will fit in better. From dystopia@wwnet.com Fri Apr 26 15:10:25 2002 Return-Path: Delivered-To: usgp-mx-laborgreens@gp-us.org Received: (qmail 30881 invoked by uid 0); 26 Apr 2002 15:10:25 -0000 Received: from smtp.wwnet.net (HELO ziggy.wwnet.net) (209.142.193.4) by cesarchavez.cagreens.org with SMTP; 26 Apr 2002 15:10:25 -0000 Received: (qmail 2988 invoked from network); 26 Apr 2002 15:47:56 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO 701fe) (209.142.215.4) by ziggy.wwnet.net with SMTP; 26 Apr 2002 15:47:56 -0000 From: "Jackwraith" To: Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 11:12:32 -0700 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0008_01C1ED13.42C2AAA0" X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Subject: [Laborgreens] FW: Tour by Mexican Trade Unionists Sender: laborgreens-admin@gp-us.org Errors-To: laborgreens-admin@gp-us.org X-BeenThere: laborgreens@gp-us.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.8 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: GP-US labor Greens mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_0008_01C1ED13.42C2AAA0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Dear Greens, Please forward to your state lists if there are events scheduled in your state. I attended the event that was held in Toledo last night and it was very uplifting to hear about the wholistic approach that these folks are taking to union orgainzing, eg. setting up co-ops and truly empowering the workers. While organizing here in the US can be a daunting task, these folks risk their lives to orgainze. I encourage all to attend, and to get involved. Should we invite them to have a table at the convention, and waive the fee? Anita Rios Globalizing Solidarity: April 2002 UE/USAS/FAT Tour Public events April 2002: UE/USAS/FAT Tour: Public events Tuesday, April 23: Pittsburgh 8:00 p.m. Presentation to be followed by the film "Life and Debt." Connan Room, 1st Floor University Center, CMU. Hosted by People for Workers Power (PWR). Local endorsers of Pittsburgh events so far include: the Alliance for Progressive Action (APA), Metro Pittsburgh Labor Party, Mon Valley Unemployed Committee, Students in Solidarity, Thomas Merton Center, and United Electrical Workers, District 6 Contact: Robin Alexander 412-471-8919 or Matt Toups Wednesday, April 24: Pittsburgh 8:00 - 9:30 a.m.: Labor breakfast hosted by USWA, Media Center, 5 Gateway Stanwyx and Blvd of Allies Contact: Dan Kovalik, USWA: 412- 562-2518 Wednesday, April 24: Kent State 2:00 p.m. Location to be confirmed. Contact: Mike Pesa 330-676-0763 Wednesday, April 24: Cleveland 6:00 p.m. potluck at Brooklyn Memorial United Methodist Church 7:00 p.m. Program 2607 Archwood Ave (just west of W. 25th St. and south of the I-71 access) Contact: Brian Szittai, IRTF: 216-961-0003 Thursday, April 25th: Toledo 7:00 p.m. Evening program hosted by FLOC at their office: 1221 Broadway (off I 75) Contacts: Morgan Guyton, FLOC 419-243-3456 ext. 5, Al Hart, UE, (419) 471-9650 Friday, April 26th: Ann Arbor Noon pot luck: 336 ½ S. State St. (Above Ashley’d Pub and Wazoo records). Contact: Monica Weinheimer, Ann Arbor Movement for Global Justice 734-332-8006 Friday, April 26th: Detroit Evening program at UAW Local 22, Michigan Ave. (Just west of West Grand Blvd). Time to be confirmed. Contact: Brad Markell, UAW 313-926-5256. Saturday, April 27th: South Bend Probable evening event in South Bend. Time and location to be confirmed. Contact: Lenore Palladino, USAS 773-752-3576 H; 312-738-6209 JwJ Sunday, April 28th: Milwaukee 2:00 p.m. at Voces de la Frontera 1027 S. Fifth St., Milwaukee, WI. Contact: Ramiro Castillo, UE 414-384-9065; 414-403-1710 (cell); 414-645-1529 (RC - home) 6:00 p.m. fundraising dinner at St. Pius X 2506 Wauwatosa Ave., Wauwatosa, WI 53213 $10.00 in advance; $12.00 at the door. Contact: Bill Lange, Labor Religion Coordinator, Milwukee County Labor Council 414-771-7250 Monday, April 29th: Milwaukee 12:30 Marquette: Brown bag lunch at Union, Room 305. 5:30 p.m. pot luck at Casa Maria, a homeless shelter 7:30 p.m. UW M Room to be announced Contact: Gina Bianchi: 414-372-5273 Tuesday, April 30th: Madison 5:00 - 7:00 p.m. First Unitarian Society refreshments or light meal 7:30 - 9:00 p.m. MATC 3550 Anderson St. Contact: Leila Pine, First Unitarian Society , Social Justice Chair: 608-233-5566 Wednesday, May 1st: Iowa City 7:00 Panel Presentation, Room 1505 Seamans Center, East entrance of the Engineering Building (Across from Old Capitol Mall) Contact: Jen Sherer, COGS,UE Local 896: 319-337-9986 Thursday, May 2nd: Chicago Evening event at UC Time and location to be confirmed. Contact: Lenore Palladino, USAS 773-752-3576 H; 312-738-6209 JwJ Friday, May 3rd: Chicago 1:00 brown bag lunch hosted by JWJ. Unite union hall 333 S. Ashland. Blvd. Contact: Emily LaBarbera-Twarog, Jobs with Justice 312-738-6203 ( there has been a change in the venue and time for the Chicago event, It will be Fridayat 5pm, at DePaul Univ., please contact the people listed for more info) Robin Alexander UE Director of International Labor Affairs One Gateway Center, Suite 1400 420 Fort Duquesne Blvd. PGH., PA. 15222-1416 412-471-8919 412-471-8999 FAX Please note new e-mail address above. Labor and related news from Mexico is reported bi-monthly in Mexican Labor News and Analysis. Check it out on our web site: www.ueinternational.org ------=_NextPart_000_0008_01C1ED13.42C2AAA0 Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Dear = Greens,
 
Please forward to your state lists if there are = events=20 scheduled in your state.
 
I attended the event that was held in Toledo = last night and it was very
uplifting to hear about the = wholistic=20 approach that these folks are taking
to union orgainzing, eg. setting up co-ops = and truly empowering the workers.
While organizing here in the = US can be a=20 daunting task, these folks
risk their lives to orgainze.
I encourage all to attend, and to get = involved.
Should we invite them to have a table at the=20 convention,
and waive the fee?
Anita Rios

 
Globalizing Solidarity: April 2002 = UE/USAS/FAT=20 Tour
Public events

April 2002: UE/USAS/FAT Tour: Public=20 events

Tuesday, April 23: Pittsburgh
8:00 = p.m.=20 Presentation to be followed by the film "Life and Debt." Connan Room, = 1st Floor=20 University Center, CMU. Hosted by People for Workers Power = (PWR).
Local=20 endorsers of Pittsburgh events so far include: the Alliance for = Progressive=20 Action (APA), Metro Pittsburgh Labor Party, Mon Valley Unemployed = Committee,=20 Students in Solidarity, Thomas Merton Center, and United Electrical = Workers,=20 District 6
Contact: Robin Alexander 412-471-8919=20 <international@ranknfile-ue.org> or
Matt Toups=20 <pwr@andrew.cmu.edu>

Wednesday, April 24:=20 Pittsburgh
8:00 - 9:30 a.m.: Labor breakfast hosted by USWA, = Media=20 Center, 5 Gateway Stanwyx and Blvd of Allies
Contact: Dan Kovalik, = USWA: 412-=20 562-2518 <dkovalik@uswa.org>

Wednesday, April 24: = Kent=20 State
2:00 p.m. Location to be confirmed.
Contact: Mike = Pesa=20 330-676-0763 <mpesa@kent.edu>

Wednesday, April 24:=20 Cleveland
6:00 p.m. potluck at Brooklyn Memorial United = Methodist=20 Church
7:00 p.m. Program
2607 Archwood Ave (just west of W. 25th = St. and=20 south of the I-71 access)
Contact: Brian Szittai, IRTF: 216-961-0003 = <irtf@igc.org>

Thursday, April 25th: Toledo
7:00 p.m. Evening = program hosted=20 by FLOC at their office: 1221 Broadway (off I 75)
Contacts: Morgan = Guyton,=20 FLOC 419-243-3456 ext. 5, <mguyton@floc.com>
Al Hart, UE, (419) = 471-9650 <alhart@glasscity.net>

Friday, April 26th: Ann Arbor
Noon pot luck: 336 = =BD S. State=20 St. (Above Ashley=92d Pub and Wazoo records).
Contact: Monica = Weinheimer, Ann=20 Arbor Movement for Global Justice 734-332-8006=20 <freerange_m@hotmail.com>

Friday, April 26th: Detroit
Evening program at = UAW Local=20 22, Michigan Ave. (Just west of West Grand Blvd). Time to be confirmed.=20
Contact: Brad Markell, UAW <bmarkell@uaw.net>=20 313-926-5256.

Saturday, April 27th:=20 South Bend
Probable evening event in South Bend. Time and = location to=20 be confirmed.
Contact: Lenore Palladino,=20 USAS<lmpallad@midway.uchicago.edu> 773-752-3576 H; 312-738-6209 = JwJ=20

Sunday, April 28th:=20 Milwaukee
2:00 p.m. at Voces de la Frontera 1027 S. Fifth = St.,=20 Milwaukee, WI.
Contact: Ramiro Castillo, UE 414-384-9065; = 414-403-1710=20 (cell); 414-645-1529 (RC - home)
6:00 p.m. fundraising dinner at St. = Pius X=20 2506 Wauwatosa Ave., Wauwatosa, WI 53213 $10.00 in advance; $12.00 at = the door.=20
Contact: Bill Lange, Labor Religion Coordinator, Milwukee County = Labor=20 Council 414-771-7250 <langej@execpc.com>

Monday, = April 29th:=20 Milwaukee
12:30 Marquette: Brown bag lunch at Union, Room=20 305.
5:30 p.m. pot luck at Casa Maria, a homeless shelter
7:30 = p.m. UW M=20 Room to be announced
Contact: Gina Bianchi: 414-372-5273=20 <dramamamaprincess@yahoo.com>

Tuesday, April 30th: Madison
5:00 - 7:00 p.m. First = Unitarian=20 Society refreshments or light meal
7:30 - 9:00 p.m. MATC 3550 = Anderson St.=20
Contact: Leila Pine, First Unitarian Society , Social Justice Chair: = 608-233-5566 <lpine@tds.net>

Wednesday, May 1st: Iowa City
7:00 Panel = Presentation, Room=20 1505 Seamans Center, East entrance of the Engineering Building (Across = from Old=20 Capitol Mall)
Contact: Jen Sherer, COGS,UE Local 896: 319-337-9986=20 <jsherer@uiowa.edu>

Thursday, May 2nd: Chicago
Evening event at UC = Time and=20 location to be confirmed.
Contact: Lenore Palladino,=20 USAS<lmpallad@midway.uchicago.edu> 773-752-3576 H; 312-738-6209 = JwJ=20

Friday, May 3rd:=20 Chicago
1:00 brown bag lunch hosted by JWJ. Unite union hall = 333 S.=20 Ashland. Blvd.
Contact: Emily LaBarbera-Twarog, Jobs with Justice=20 312-738-6203 <chicagojwjemily@mindspring.com>
( there has been a change in the = venue and time=20 for the Chicago event,
It will be = Fridayat 5pm, at=20 DePaul Univ., please contact the people listed for more=20 info)




Robin Alexander
UE Director of International Labor Affairs
One Gateway Center, Suite 1400
420 Fort Duquesne Blvd.
PGH., PA. 15222-1416

412-471-8919
412-471-8999 FAX

Please note new e-mail address above.

Labor and related news from Mexico is reported bi-monthly in = Mexican Labor=20 News and Analysis.  Check it out on our web site: www.ueinternational.org


------=_NextPart_000_0008_01C1ED13.42C2AAA0-- From jepeck@students.wisc.edu Mon Apr 29 21:24:04 2002 Return-Path: Delivered-To: usgp-mx-laborgreens@gp-us.org Received: (qmail 6769 invoked by uid 0); 29 Apr 2002 21:24:03 -0000 Received: from dasher.doit.wisc.edu (HELO dasher) (144.92.197.145) by cesarchavez.cagreens.org with SMTP; 29 Apr 2002 21:24:03 -0000 Received: from happy (happypvt [144.92.197.251]) by smtp1.doit.wisc.edu (iPlanet Messaging Server 5.1 (built May 7 2001)) with ESMTP id <0GVC00GB2M41VI@smtp1.doit.wisc.edu> for laborgreens@gp-us.org; Mon, 29 Apr 2002 16:24:01 -0500 (CDT) Received: from wiscmail.wisc.edu (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mailst1.doit.wisc.edu (iPlanet Messaging Server 5.1 (built May 7 2001)) with ESMTP id <0GVC0089YM41YT@mailst1.doit.wisc.edu> for laborgreens@gp-us.org; Mon, 29 Apr 2002 16:24:01 -0500 (CDT) Received: from [144.92.197.222] by mailst1.doit.wisc.edu (mshttpd); Mon, 29 Apr 2002 16:24:01 -0500 Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 16:24:01 -0500 From: JOHN EDWARD PECK To: laborgreens@gp-us.org Message-id: <153109150a53.150a53153109@wiscmail.wisc.edu> MIME-version: 1.0 X-Mailer: iPlanet Webmail Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-language: en Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Content-disposition: inline X-Accept-Language: en Subject: [Laborgreens] Venezuela and the AFL-CIO Sender: laborgreens-admin@gp-us.org Errors-To: laborgreens-admin@gp-us.org X-BeenThere: laborgreens@gp-us.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.8 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: GP-US labor Greens mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Hello, Here's an interesting article about the lingering legacy of the "AFL-CIA" in developing countries. On a personal note, I saw the same type of funneling of NED money through the AFL-CIO in Zimbabwe to undermine the radical labor movement and create more pliant unions there. Greens around the world should condemn such corruptive U.S. influence that denies workers their most basic right for autonomous organizing. - John E. Peck Madison IWW (I.U. 620), Four Lakes Green Party (Dane County) ********************************** From: Kim Scipes Venezuela and the AFL-CIO Folks-- Well, well, Leo Casey's at work again: doing almost anything he can to "excuse" US imperialist aggression, this time in Venezuela. [I apologize for such a long post, but the issue of international labor solidarity has long been an important issue for me. I respond to Leo Casey's e- mail message that was in response to an article recently published in "Labor Notes," and then post the original Labor Notes piece by Katherine Hoyt that drew his ire. This way, should anyone be interested, they can look at the entire series to help them figure things out.] If one reads Casey seriously, he makes a case (1) for allowing Chavez to retain his presidency (thanks, Leo!) but that (2) opposing Chavez' interference in particular unions. It's a strong argument. In a perfect world, I would probably agree with a lot of what he says. But it's NOT a perfect world--as we all know--and it's not an ahistorical world, either, but Casey doesn't want to recognize that. So, with those blinders on, he thinks we should PRAISE the AFL-CIO for its act of international solidarity. In a fucking pig's eye! With the benefit of reading the New York Times this morning--Christopher Marquis, "US Bankrolling Is Under Scrutiny for Ties to Chavez Ouster," April 25, 2002: A-8--we find some very interesting material, which is suggestive but not a smoking gun about labor, but IS a smoking gun about the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the connection which I will explain below. The article begins "In the past year, the United States channeled hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to American and Venezuelan groups opposed to President Hugo Chavez, INCLUDING THE LABOR GROUP WHOSE PROTESTS LED TO THE VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT'S BRIEF OUSTER THIS MONTH (emphasis added). "The funds were provided by the National Endowment for Democracy [NED], a nonprofit agency created and financed by Congress. As conditions deteriorated in Venezuela and Mr. Chavez clashed with various business, labor and media groups, the endowment stepped up its assistance, quadrupling its budget to more than $877,000. "While the endowment's expressed goal is to promote democracy around the world, the State Department's human rights bureau is examining whether one or more recipients of the money may have actively plotted against Mr. Chavez. *** "Of particular concern is $154,377 given by the endowment to the American Center for International Labor Solidarity, the international arm of the AFL-CIO, to assist the main Venezuelan labor union in advancing labor rights. "The Venezuelan union, the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers, led the work stoppages that galvanized the opposition to Mr. Chavez. The union's leader, Carlos Ortega, WORKED CLOSELY WITH PEDRO CARMONA ESTANGA, THE BUSINESSMAN WHO BRIEFLY TOOK OVER FROM MR. CHAVEZ, in challenging the government" (emphasis added). That's all the article says about ACILS or labor. It does, however, report that NED gave the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs--which the article identifies as being the foreign policy wing of the Democratic Party--a grant for $210,000 "to promote the accountability of local government." And NED gave the International Republican Institute--the foreign policy wing of the Republican Party--$339,998 for "political party building." The International Republican Institute's Preisident, George A. Folsom, publicly endorsed the coup against Chavez. The article went on to say, "The institute has close ties to the Bush administration, which had also embraced the short- lived take over; Lorne Craner, the assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, is a former president of the organization." The article later states "Mr Sabatini--it had earlier identified Chris Sabatini as "the endowments's senior program officer for Latin America and the Caribbean"-- acknowledged that THE ENDOWMENT [NED--KS] HAD HURRIEDLY INCREASED ITS OUTLAYS IN VENEZUELA IN THE LAST YEAR...." The article continues, "The Bush administration, which has made no secret of its disdain for Mr. Chavez--and his warm relations with nations like Cuba and Iraq--HAS TURNED TO THE ENDOWMENT TO HELP THE OPPOSITION TO MR. CHAVEZ." The article then talks about NED, with its annual budget of $33 million, and talks about how it is helping freedom and democracy around the world. Blah, blah, blah. "But critics say recipients of endowment aid do not have the same accountability that government programs require, WHICH OPENS THE DOOR FOR ROGUE ACTIVITIES AND FREELANCING. THE AGENCY OVERREACHED, THESE CRITICS SAY, IN CHILE IN 1988 AND IN NICARAGUA IN 1989, WHEN ENDOWMENT FUNDS WERE USED TO SWAY THE OUTCOMES OF ELECTIONS" (emphasis added). "Barbara Conry, an analysis at the libertarian Cato Institute, said the organizing philosophy behind the endowment was flawed. "'You end up with the worst of both worlds,' she said. Everybody knew it was directly funded by Washington. That didn't fool too many people. But it wasn't really accountable'." (END OF ARTICLE) So, what do we get out of this article. That NED, a US Government founded and funded operation, drastically increased (QUADRUPLED) aid to Venezuelan "democrats" in the past year, against a regime that refused to follow US government orders and positions, and that $155,377 went through ACILS, of the AFL-CIO, and another $210,500 went through the Democrats and another $339,998 went through the Republicans. (Since a total of $877,000 was disbursed, I presume the balance--$171,125--went through the Center for International Private Enterprise, as it is the fourth "leg" of NED, although that was not reported in this article.) Now, after reporting all of that--and with all the "qualifications" that we were only wanting regime change by constitutional methods, blah, blah--the article suggests that this was a rogue operation of NED, implying that they really are "good guys" and this was just a "mistake." Well, without going into great detail, there needs to be some understanding of NED. And then, we need to understand ACILS organizational connection. First of all, NED was founded under that strong labor supporter and great democrat, Ronald Reagan, in 1983. At least in its early years, another truly great democrat, Henry Kissinger, was on its Board of Directors. (Lane Kirkland, and ahem, Albert Shanker of Casey's union, the AFT, were also board members of NED in early years.) I could go on, but you should get the drift: the NED is simply NOT concerned with real democracy and people's empowerment--in reality, it is all but totally opposed--and any argument to the contrary from their side should be laughed at (or puked on, as you wish). One more piece of evidence on this: according to the journal, "International Labour Reports" (No. 33, May- June 1989), between 1983-1989, the NED through the AFL-CIO's Asian American Free Labor Institute (AAFLI) gave the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines more money than any other labor organization in the world (almost $6 million): TUCP was a creation of the Marcos Dictatorship, and was at the centerpoint of efforts to keep Marcos in power, particularly through opposing the radical KMU (Kilusang Mayo Uno) Labor Center. In 1987-89, the main federation affiliate of the TUCP fought a local union of the KMU, trying to decertify the KMU local from representing the 10,000 mine workers at Atlas Mines, the largest copper mining complex in all of Asia at the time. As I detail in my book, KMU: BUILDING GENUINE TRADE UNIONISM IN THE PHILIPPINES, 1980-1994 (Quezon City, Metro Manila: New Day Publishers, 1996), pp. 116-125, this TUCP federation allied with death squads--I am not exaggerating!--mine management, the local government, and the Philippine Constabulary to challenge the KMU local. [In a 13 union competition to represent the workers, the KMU local won 68% of the vote!) For more detail on the NED, see William Robinson's excellent book PROMOTING POLYARCHY: GLOBALIZATION, US INTERVENTION, AND HEGEMONY (Cambridge University Press, 1996). Despite the very academic title, it is extremely well written and straightforward to read. Bill Robinson details how US foreign policy changed in the mid-1980s, and shows it is much more sophisticated than in the old days of "supporting dictators"--or at least it tries to be! I highly recommend this book! In short, NED is scum. Now, what is the AFL-CIO's connection to NED, if any? If you look on the AFL-CIO's web site, you see no mention of its international operations: nothing about ACILS (again, American Center for International Labor Solidarity), or any of its overseas work. Nothing. But there IS a place where you CAN find out about ACILS' work: on the NED website! I will warn you, it takes a little bit of sleuthing to find where it mentions ACILS on this web site, but to make it easy, go to . Go down the page to the section, "Applying a multisectoral approach." That section begins, "NED's unique multisectoral approach is characterized by its FOUR CORE INSTITUTES: the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, the International Republican Institute, the AMERICAN CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL LABOR SOLIDARITY, and the Center for International Private Enterprise, which represent the two major American political parties, the labor movement, and the business community, respectively" (emphases added). [Note: since NED redesigned their web site right after I had denounced ACILS involvement in NED at a labor educators' conference in Milwaukee in 2000 where ACILS people were present--whether in response to my comments or sheer coincidence, I do not know--they may change their web site again once this message gets distributed. I have a printed version from today of the page I refer to above.] So, not only have Lane Kirland and Albert Shanker been on the Board of Directors of NED, but ACILS is one of the four core institutes of this operation. This is under John Sweeney and the New Voice administration-- not of days gone by! (By the way, on the same page, the NED brags of its work in Indonesia, and that "Ned programs focus on long-term effort to open up Cuba.") So, any ties around Venezeula between ACILS and NED are not accidental, but are core organizational connections, and that they were/are clearly designed to lead to a regime change. (In plain language, imperialism, Leo.) Now, if you do not find my arguments convincing, let's look at yet another approach as we consider Casey's claim that AFL-CIO activities should be praised as "international labor solidarity." The AFL-CIO has a long history--beginning with the AFL during World War I under Samuel Gompers!--of trying to subvert labor movements around the world. (Beth Sims' book, WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNDERMINED: AMERICAN LABOR'S ROLE IN US FOREIGN POLICY--Boston: Sound End Press, 1992, is the best book to date on AFL-CIO foreign policy.) In 2000, I published an article "It's Time to Come Clean: Open the AFL-CIO Archives on International Labor Operations" ("Labor Studies Journal," Vol. 25, No. 2, Summer 2000: 4-25). I noted the qualitative improvement of AFL-CIO foreign operations under Sweeney as compared to Kirkland and George Meany before him. [However, in footnote #1 of the article, I wrote, "While I applaud changes made to date under Sweeney, I suggest there are many more still needing to be implemented. There is still insufficient transparency regarding foreign operations and, as [Barbara Shailor, the head of ACILS] reports (151), the Solidarity Center (ACILS) is being funded by the AFL-CIO and the US government; money from the latter is channeled through USAID (Agency for International Development) and the supposedly 'private' National Endowment for Democracy (NED).] In this article, I also took an in-depth look at the AFL-CIO's American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD) operations in creating the economic dislocation and turmoil in Chile that preceded the 1973 coup that brought Pinochet to power. And I suggested that Sweeney was trying to overcome that legacy. I noted that Sweeney now recognized the need to build international labor solidarity to confront neo-liberal capitalism around the globe, and I argued that he and the AFL-CIO needed to "come clean" on their past before workers in any "third world" country could ever trust them. Both Judy Ancel and Sam Lanfranco responded to my piece. [My article and Ancel's response have since been posted on-line and in English by LaborNet Germany: for my article, go to .] Despite my article, Ancel's and Lanfranco's responses, and resolutions passed within AFL-CIO organization, to the best of my knowledge, the AFL-CIO has ignored this call. It seems fair to conclude that they are hiding something. And what they are hiding--and which they don't want their members to know about--is that they are acting as though they represent US workers, when in reality, there has NEVER been any effort to educate, discuss or get support for their activities by their members. Almost all of their funding for foreign operations is externally-sourced--it is not from the membership. And they have used that money historically and, now, in Venezuela, to once again try to overthrow a democratically-elected government. (That is not solidarity, Leo: that is imperialism!) The details of the coup will come out. But the parallels with AFL-CIO efforts in Chile are amazing-- see my "Come Clean" article to check for yourself. Do we have the smoking gun yet? (Some might argue we don't need one with all of this information.) No, we don't. Is it there? I think it IS there, and certainly there is enough that has already come to light that, in face of the AFL-CIO's refusal to "come clean" on past and current operations, that we must conclude it IS there, until the AFL-CIO "comes clean" in such detail prove us wrong. I hope the AFL-CIO will "come clean" on this and other operations, and prove me wrong: this is one thing that I'd love to be proven wrong--but all evidence suggests they are "guilty, guilty, guilty." And, of course, this makes Leo Casey "wrong, wrong, wrong." Leo, quit apologizing for these bastards--they don't need your help, and they only make you look like an idiot, and another imperialist to boot. In short, the AFL-CIO should not be praised for any efforts in Venezuela--especially under the rubric of "international labor solidarity"--but condemned. The return of labor imperialism is absolutely sickening. In solidarity, Kim Scipes Chicago April 26, 2002 PS: Please feel free to pass on widely and/or post on any web site. Below is Leo Casey's "apologia": >Is it that hard, from the viewpoint of fidelity to >democratic principles, to hold both of the following >positions? > >Position One: Chavez is the democratically elected >president of Venezuela. There are only two legitimate >ways to remove him from that office. One, the people of >Venezuela, in regular, free and fair elections, could >elect another individual. Two, the impeachment process >laid forth in the Venezuelan constitution could be >employed. The failed coup d'etat which attempted to >remove Chavez from the office of president through >force was a violation of fundamental democratic >principles, and must be condemned. To the extent that >the Bush administration either passively encouraged [as >the available evidence now seems to indicate] or >actively supported [a much more speculative contention, >without supporting evidence] this coup d'etat, it was a >party to that violation of fundamental democratic >principles, and must be condemned and held accountable. > >Position Two: As president of Venezuela, Chavez was not >a model democrat. In particular, he seems to be unable >to grasp the democratic principle that working people >have a right to organize collectively in unions, and >that they have a right to democratically choose the >leaders of their unions. Further, he seems to have >particular difficulty with the notion that, as the >management of public sector unions, the president of >Venezuela has no right to involve himself in the >processes by which workers in those union chose their >leaders. Yet since the leaders of Venezuela's union >federation [CTV] were political opponents of Chavez, he >has conducted a constant campaign against their unions, >conducting the equivalent of the coup d'etat waged >against him, against them. He held a referendum >changing the method by which they were elected, >insisting upon direct election. In this context, >democrats in general and democratic unionists in >particular would have felt conflicting loyalties, since >direct elections are usually the more democratic method >of choosing union officers, but Chavez clearly had no >right to interfere in internal union processes. What >followed this referendum eliminated any conflict for >democrats. For when the anti-Chavez leaders were re- >elected to their positions in a direct election, Chavez >did not accept the results, but escalated his campaign, >establishing "company unions" which would follow his >political directions. This is also a violation of >fundamental democratic principles, as well as trade >union principles, and must be condemned. > >If one is faithful to democratic principles, there is >no choice, I contend, but to hold to both positions, to >support Chavez's right to hold the office of president >of Venezuela for his full term, and to oppose his >camapign to undermine Venezuela's unions and their >democratically elected leaders. > >From this perspective, the AFL-CIO was entirely >correct, as an act of international labor solidarity, >to support the CTV and Venezuelan unions in their >struggle against Chavez's efforts to destroy them. An >important part of that work should be, as public >statements indicate it was, helping the Venezuelan >labor movement develop internal organization based on >democratic principles. > >For _Labor Notes_ to publish an article ["Concerns Over >Possible AFL-CIO Involvement In Venzuela Coup Led To >February Licket" by Katherine Hoyt] attacking the AFL- >CIO's support of the Venezuelan trade union movement, >suggesting on the basis of nothing more than that AFL- >CIO work with the Venzuelan unions, a complicity with >the failed coup d'etat, is a cause for shame on the >part of _Labor Notes_, not the AFL-CIO. > >The _Labor Notes_ article does not contain one >scintilla of actual, verifiable evidence for AFL-CIO >support for the failed coup d'etat, much less CTV and >Venezuelan union complicity in the effort, but it still >raises the spectre of, in the words of its title, >"concerns over possible AFL-CIO involvement in the >Venzeula coup." > >Hoyt does this first by labelling the CTV as a "right- >wing" union federation. Leaving aside the rather >tendentious nature of this characterization, which is >based on little more than the CTV opposition to Chavez >and the links of their leaders to the two traditional, >mainstream political parties in Venezuela, what is so >disturbing is the way in which the alleged political >coloring of an union's democratically elected >leadership is used to undermine the union's legitimacy. >While Hoyt goes on at great length about the Cold War >role of the AFL-CIO, what she is doing in this article >is the mirror image of what she accuses the AFL-CIO of >having done, supporting and opposing unions not on the >basis of their democratic legitmacy, but on the basis >of their politics. The only difference is that she >would oppose "right wing" instead of "left wing" >unions. In either form, this is an anti-democratic >posture: workers have the democratic right, which must >be respected, to choose who leads their union, >regardless of political ideology. > >The only other substantive argument Hoyt makes is, that >in the course of its struggle to defend itself against >Chavez, the CTV organized a number of national strikes, >as if there were something wrong, in and of itself, in >an union engaging in strikes, especially in self- >defense. This is a particularly peculiar line of >reasoning to find in _Labor Notes_, which otherwise is >an ardent promoter of the right to strike. > >It is time for voices to be raised which acclaim the >AFL-CIO's solidarity with the unions of Venezuela. >Democratic principle must be the foundation of an >American left and an American trade union movement, if >either are to have any prospects for playing a central >role in American political life. Leo Casey United Federation of Teachers 260 Park Avenue South New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869) http://www.labornotes.org/archives/2002/05/b.html Labor Notes Concerns Over Possible AFL-CIO Involvement in Venezuela Coup Led to February Picket by Katherine Hoyt May 2002 Could the bad old days be returning to the AFL-CIO's operations in other countries? Fear that in Venezuela the AFL-CIO was supporting both a right-wing union federation and a U.S.-backed coup led some solidarity activists to mount a picket line at AFL-CIO headquarters in February. The coup arrived in the early morning hours of April 19, when top military officers confronted President Hugo Chavez and demanded his resignation. Chavez' position had eroded rapidly after 13 people were killed April 18 during a massive march on the presidential palace. Opposition to Chavez was led by top business leaders, along with leaders of the Venezuelan Labor Federation, the CTV. As part of a 'general strike' organized by this coalition, executives of the state- owned oil company had cut production by half at the country's main refinery and nearly halted oil exports. Pedro Carmona, leader of Venezuela's largest business federation, was named head of a provisional government after Chavez resigned. COUP SUPPORT SOUGHT? Throughout the Cold War the AFL-CIO's international work was funded by the U.S. government and served to further the government's goals. The AFL supported 'good unions' or tried to undermine 'bad unions' based on their enthusiasm for U. S. corporations. It labeled as 'not free' or 'communist' those unions that challenged U.S. domination of their countries. When John Sweeney was elected in 1995, the federation seemed to be turning over a new leaf. But on February 12 the AFL-CIO sponsored, with the National Endowment for Democracy, a closed forum featuring representatives of the CTV. The NED is an organization created by the Reagan administration to 'promote democracy' abroad; the AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center receives much of its funding from NED. The forum was part of a tour funded by NED, and included meetings with several AFL-CIO leaders. According to one union member who participated in the meetings, the CTV representatives noted that they were here to discuss the chances for a coup in Venezuela. As President of Venezuela, Chavez infuriated Washington by attempting to restructure the oil industry to achieve greater national control of Venezuelan oil resources, criticizing the Bush administration's war on terrorism, opposing the Free Trade Area of the Americas, and calling for an end to the Cuban embargo. Venezuela is the third most important source of oil for the United States. Chavez was immensely popular with poor Venezuelans, but he aroused the ire of the better-off. Rumors of a coup first arose after a November inter- agency meeting at which the National Security Agency, the Pentagon, and the State Department talked for two days about U.S. policy toward Venezuela. Similar meetings had been held before previous U.S.-organized coups in Iran, Guatemala, South Vietnam, Chile, and elsewhere. Speaking before Congress in early February, CIA director William Tenet signaled Venezuela as one of the main concerns for U.S. foreign policy and noted that 'measures' must be taken to rectify the volatile situation there. In December business owners called a strike, sending millions of workers home, to protest the Chavez government. The invitation to the forum sent out by the AFL-CIO and NED proudly stated that the CTV played 'a key role in the national strike on December 10' and joined with business and other groups in 'a massive demonstration against the government on January 23.' OIL AT THE ROOTS The crisis was based on the government's efforts to change management at the Venezuelan state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela (Pvsa). Management orchestrated slow-downs and called for strikes in protest, with the support of the CTV union. Chavez had threatened to use the army to regain control of the company if workers carried out their strike threats. Rhett Doumitt, the AFL-CIO's representative in the Andean region, met with activists from the Nicaragua Network, hoping to dissuade them from picketing the forum. Doumitt acknowledged that the CTV was dominated by the two traditional (and corrupt) Venezuelan political parties opposed to Chavez, but insisted that the CTV was reforming. Chavez was not interested in renovation of the CTV, Doumitt said, 'he wants to demolish it.' The old guard unionists had opposed a December 2000 referendum that was passed by 67 percent of those who voted, and resulted in direct election of union leaders. But when the union elections were held, the old guard won -- and the Chavez government refused to recognize the results. Supporters of Chavez instead formed a new confederation, the Bolivarian Workers' Force (FBT), which gained some limited support among workers. FBT representatives were not allowed to attend the AFL- CIO forum. The CTV, say the Bolivarians, was part of a plan to destabilize the country. Last year, unions on the West Coast passed resolutions calling on the AFL-CIO to open its books and come clean on its history of intervention in Latin America and elsewhere. It was to prevent adding another chapter to that sordid history that activists carried their 'No U.S. Intervention in Venezuela!' signs in front of the AFL-CIO. Katherine Hoyt is Co-coordinator of the Nicaragua Network. From HNixon6081@aol.com Tue Apr 30 11:04:14 2002 Return-Path: Delivered-To: usgp-mx-laborgreens@gp-us.org Received: (qmail 22820 invoked by uid 0); 30 Apr 2002 11:04:14 -0000 Received: from imo-m04.mx.aol.com (64.12.136.7) by cesarchavez.cagreens.org with SMTP; 30 Apr 2002 11:04:14 -0000 Received: from HNixon6081@aol.com by imo-m04.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v32.5.) id g.194.650ce12 (4215) for ; Tue, 30 Apr 2002 07:03:36 -0400 (EDT) From: HNixon6081@aol.com Message-ID: <194.650ce12.29ffd408@aol.com> Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 07:03:36 EDT To: laborgreens@gp-us.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="part1_194.650ce12.29ffd408_boundary" X-Mailer: AOL 6.0 for Windows US sub 10559 Subject: [Laborgreens] Venezuela coup linked to Bush team Sender: laborgreens-admin@gp-us.org Errors-To: laborgreens-admin@gp-us.org X-BeenThere: laborgreens@gp-us.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.8 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: GP-US labor Greens mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: --part1_194.650ce12.29ffd408_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Original Message -------- Subject: Venezuela coup linked to Bush team Sun, 21 Apr 2002 The Observer The failed coup in Venezuela was closely tied to senior officials in the US government, The Observer has established. They have long histories in the 'dirty wars' of the 1980s, and links to death squads working in Central America at that time. Washington's involvement in the turbulent events that briefly removed left-wing leader Hugo Chavez from power last weekend resurrects fears about US ambitions in the hemisphere. It also also deepens doubts about policy in the region being made by appointees to the Bush administration, all of whom owe their careers to serving in the dirty wars under President Reagan. One of them, Elliot Abrams, who gave a nod to the attempted Venezuelan coup, has a conviction for misleading Congress over the infamous Iran-Contra affair. The Bush administration has tried to distance itself from the coup. It immediately endorsed the new government under businessman Pedro Carmona. But the coup was sent dramatically into reverse after 48 hours. Now officials at the Organisation of American States and other diplomatic sources, talking to The Observer, assert that the US administration was not only aware the coup was about to take place, but had sanctioned it, presuming it to be destined for success. The visits by Venezuelans plotting a coup, including Carmona himself, began, say sources, 'several months ago', and continued until weeks before the putsch last weekend. The visitors were received at the White House by the man President George Bush tasked to be his key policy-maker for Latin America, Otto Reich. Reich is a right-wing Cuban-American who, under Reagan, ran the Office for Public Diplomacy. It reported in theory to the State Department, but Reich was shown by congressional investigations to report directly to Reagan's National Security Aide, Colonel Oliver North, in the White House. North was convicted and shamed for his role in Iran-Contra, whereby arms bought by busting US sanctions on Iran were sold to the Contra guerrillas and death squads, in revolt against the Marxist government in Nicaragua. Reich also has close ties to Venezuela, having been made ambassador to Caracas in 1986. His appointment was contested both by Democrats in Washington and political leaders in the Latin American country. The objections were overridden as Venezuela sought access to the US oil market. Reich is said by OAS sources to have had 'a number of meetings with Carmona and other leaders of the coup' over several months. The coup was discussed in some detail, right down to its timing and chances of success, which were deemed to be excellent. On the day Carmona claimed power, Reich summoned ambassadors from Latin America and the Caribbean to his office. He said the removal of Chavez was not a rupture of democra tic rule, as he had resigned and was 'responsible for his fate'. He said the US would support the Carmona government. But the crucial figure around the coup was Abrams, who operates in the White House as senior director of the National Security Council for 'democracy, human rights and international opera tions'. He was a leading theoretician of the school known as 'Hemispherism', which put a priority on combating Marxism in the Americas. It led to the coup in Chile in 1973, and the sponsorship of regimes and death squads that followed it in Argentina, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and elsewhere. During the Contras' rampage in Nicaragua, he worked directly to North. Congressional investigations found Abrams had harvested illegal funding for the rebellion. Convicted for withholding information from the inquiry, he was pardoned by George Bush senior. A third member of the Latin American triangle in US policy-making is John Negroponte, now ambassador to the United Nations. He was Reagan's ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985 when a US-trained death squad, Battalion 3-16, tortured and murdered scores of activists. A diplomatic source said Negroponte had been 'informed that there might be some movement in Venezuela on Chavez' at the beginning of the year. More than 100 people died in events before and after the coup. In Caracas on Friday a military judge confined five high-ranking officers to indefinite house arrest pending formal charges of rebellion. Chavez's chief ideologue - Guillermo Garcia Ponce, director of the Revolutionary Political Command - said dissident generals, local media and anti-Chavez groups in the US had plotted the president's removal. 'The most reactionary sectors in the United States were also implicated in the conspiracy,' he said. http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,688071,00.html http://indymedia.org:8081/front.php3?article_id=174697&group=webcast ==^================================================================ --part1_194.650ce12.29ffd408_boundary Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Original Message -------- Subject:
Venezuela coup linked to Bush team Sun, 21 Apr 2002

The Observer

The failed coup in Venezuela was closely tied to senior officials in the US government, The Observer has established. They have long histories in the 'dirty wars' of the 1980s, and links to death squads working in Central America at that time.

Washington's involvement in the turbulent events that briefly removed left-wing leader Hugo Chavez from power last weekend resurrects fears about US ambitions in the hemisphere.

It also also deepens doubts about policy in the region being made by appointees to the Bush administration, all of whom owe their careers to serving in the dirty wars under President Reagan.

One of them, Elliot Abrams, who gave a nod to the attempted Venezuelan coup, has a conviction for misleading Congress over the infamous Iran-Contra affair.

The Bush administration has tried to distance itself from the coup. It immediately endorsed the new government under businessman Pedro Carmona. But the coup was sent dramatically into reverse after 48 hours.

Now officials at the Organisation of American States and other diplomatic sources, talking to The Observer, assert that the US administration was not only aware the coup was about to take place, but had sanctioned it, presuming it to be destined for success.

The visits by Venezuelans plotting a coup, including Carmona himself, began, say sources, 'several months ago', and continued until weeks before the putsch last weekend. The visitors were received at the White House by the man President George Bush tasked to be his key policy-maker for Latin America, Otto Reich.

Reich is a right-wing Cuban-American who, under Reagan, ran the Office for Public Diplomacy. It reported in theory to the State Department, but Reich was shown by congressional investigations to report directly to Reagan's National Security Aide, Colonel Oliver North, in the White House.

North was convicted and shamed for his role in Iran-Contra, whereby arms bought by busting US sanctions on Iran were sold to the Contra guerrillas and death squads, in revolt against the Marxist government in Nicaragua.

Reich also has close ties to Venezuela, having been made ambassador to Caracas in 1986. His appointment was contested both by Democrats in Washington and political leaders in the Latin American country. The objections were overridden as Venezuela sought access to the US oil market.

Reich is said by OAS sources to have had 'a number of meetings with Carmona and other leaders of the coup' over several months. The coup was discussed in some detail, right down to its timing and chances of success, which were deemed to be excellent.

On the day Carmona claimed power, Reich summoned ambassadors from Latin America and the Caribbean to his office. He said the removal of Chavez was not a rupture of democra tic rule, as he had resigned and was 'responsible for his fate'. He said the US would support the Carmona government.

But the crucial figure around the coup was Abrams, who operates in the White House as senior director of the National Security Council for 'democracy, human rights and international opera tions'. He was a leading theoretician of the school known as 'Hemispherism', which put a priority on combating Marxism in the Americas.

It led to the coup in Chile in 1973, and the sponsorship of regimes and death squads that followed it in Argentina, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and elsewhere. During the Contras' rampage in Nicaragua, he worked directly to North.

Congressional investigations found Abrams had harvested illegal funding for the rebellion. Convicted for withholding information from the inquiry, he was pardoned by George Bush senior.

A third member of the Latin American triangle in US policy-making is John Negroponte, now ambassador to the United Nations. He was Reagan's ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985 when a US-trained death squad, Battalion 3-16, tortured and murdered scores of activists. A diplomatic source said Negroponte had been 'informed that there might be some movement in Venezuela on Chavez' at the beginning of the year.

More than 100 people died in events before and after the coup. In Caracas on Friday a military judge confined five high-ranking officers to indefinite house arrest pending formal charges of rebellion.

Chavez's chief ideologue - Guillermo Garcia Ponce, director of the Revolutionary Political Command - said dissident generals, local media and anti-Chavez groups in the US had plotted the president's removal.

'The most reactionary sectors in the United States were also implicated in the conspiracy,' he said.

http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,688071,00.html
http://indymedia.org:8081/front.php3?article_id=174697&group=webcast

==^================================================================


--part1_194.650ce12.29ffd408_boundary-- From jepeck@students.wisc.edu Tue Apr 30 14:06:21 2002 Return-Path: Delivered-To: usgp-mx-laborgreens@gp-us.org Received: (qmail 27253 invoked by uid 0); 30 Apr 2002 14:06:21 -0000 Received: from dasher.doit.wisc.edu (HELO dasher) (144.92.197.145) by cesarchavez.cagreens.org with SMTP; 30 Apr 2002 14:06:21 -0000 Received: from happy (happypvt [144.92.197.251]) by smtp1.doit.wisc.edu (iPlanet Messaging Server 5.1 HotFix 0.5 (built Apr 17 2002)) with ESMTP id <0GVD00133WIJXE@smtp1.doit.wisc.edu> for laborgreens@gp-us.org; Tue, 30 Apr 2002 09:06:19 -0500 (CDT) Received: from wiscmail.wisc.edu (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mailst1.doit.wisc.edu (iPlanet Messaging Server 5.1 (built May 7 2001)) with ESMTP id <0GVD00DOBWIJEO@mailst1.doit.wisc.edu>; Tue, 30 Apr 2002 09:06:19 -0500 (CDT) Received: from [144.92.197.221] by mailst1.doit.wisc.edu (mshttpd); Tue, 30 Apr 2002 09:06:19 -0500 Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 09:06:19 -0500 (CDT) Date-warning: Date header was inserted by mailst1.doit.wisc.edu From: JOHN EDWARD PECK To: madwobs@yahoogroups.com Message-id: <0GVD00DOCWIJEO@mailst1.doit.wisc.edu> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: [Laborgreens] (no subject) Sender: laborgreens-admin@gp-us.org Errors-To: laborgreens-admin@gp-us.org X-BeenThere: laborgreens@gp-us.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.8 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: GP-US labor Greens mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: laborgreens@gp-us.org,uw-slac@yahoogroups.com,iww-upmidroc@lists.iww.ca Message-ID: <1b1c4c1b883b.1b883b1b1c4c@wiscmail.wisc.edu> Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 09:06:19 -0500 X-Mailer: iPlanet Webmail MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Language: en Subject: More on AFL-CIO and Solidarity Overseas... X-Accept-Language: en Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable The AFL-CIO and Worker Rights in Venezuela http=3A//www=2Eaflcio=2Eorg/news/2002/0426=5Fvenezuela=2Ehtm The AFL-CIO has maintained a relationship of mutual solidarity with the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (CTV)=2C the national labor central representing more than 90 percent of the organized Venezuelan workforce=2E Recently=2C the AFL-CIO has supported the CTV=27s process of internal democratization and its defense of freedom of association against the attacks of the Ch=E1vez government=2E From the moment he took office in 1999=2C Hugo Ch=E1vez led an assault on the freedom of association=2C attempting to weaken or eliminate the principal institutions of Venezuelan civil society=2C including the unions=2E His methods included public calls for the =22destruction=22 of the CTV=2C suspension of collective bargaining in the public sector and the petroleum industry by decree=2C threats to freeze union bank accounts and formation of a parallel =22Bolivarian Workers=27 Front=2E=22 Ch=E1vez=27s attack on the CTV culminated in a December 2000 referendum on internal union governance in which all citizens=FFincluding nonunion members=2C such as business people and the military=FFcould vote=2E The referendum was condemned by the International Labor Organization and by the international trade union movement=2E In the end=2C the vast majority of the population abstained from voting=2E In the midst of this assault=2C the CTV conducted an impressive process of internal democratization with the assistance of the AFL-CIO and the American Center for International Labor Solidarity=2E The assistance included=3A the printing of election materials=2C the training of CTV election committees and the sponsoring of forums=2C which brought labor=2C business=2C human rights and religious leaders together in defense of freedom of association=2E All of the AFL-CIO-Solidarity Center=27s funding for Venezuela went for this purpose=2E In October and November 2001=2C CTV members across the country voted at 9=2C100 polling places in the first one-member=2C one-vote=2C secret ballot union election in Venezuelan history=2E The resulting leadership=2C headed by Carlos Ortega of the petroleum workers=2C is the most pluralistic in the CTV=27s history=2C with nearly all the parties of the left included=2E While the government attempted to prevent the balloting in several locations=2C independent observers from the Catholic University and the international labor movement called the elections free and fair=2E Regrettably=2C Ch=E1vez publicly rejected the CTV election results and refused to recognize the new leadership=2E And late in 2001=2C the Ch=E1vez-controlled Congress enacted a package of laws that eliminated collective bargaining and the right to strike in the public sector and the petroleum industry=2E The AFL-CIO has been joined by the worldwide labor movement=2C including the European unions=2C the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions and the World Confederation of Labor=2C as well as the ILO=2C in supporting its overall program of defense against the attacks on freedom of association in Venezuela=2C including the support for internal democratization in the Venezuelan trade union movement=2E It was these very attacks on freedom of association that led to a number of the collective actions and demonstrations that occurred this month=2E It was such attacks=2C along with the country=27s miserable economic performance (16 percent unemployment) that caused the CTV to join with Venezuela=27s business sector to put forward a 10-point plan for dialogue=2C with elimination of poverty as the first objective=2E Strikes and demonstrations are legal forms of protest=2E While we unequivocally condemn the coup attempt of April 12th to dissolve democratic institutions=2C which appears to have been engineered by a small group of military officers with the support of some powerful right-wing businessmen=2C there is no evidence that the CTV or its leaders went beyond the democratic expressions of discontent=2E In fact=2C the CTV=2C along with the vast majority of Venezuelans=2C refused to recognize the short-lived regime of Pedro Carmona and rejected his decree dissolving the country=27s democratic structures=2E The AFL-CIO will continue to support the CTV and condemn actions by the government of Venezuela=2C or any other government=2C that restricts workers=27 freedom of association in violation of international law=2E We also condemn any and all coups and unilateral seizures of power that destroy and undermine democratic institutions=2C including in Venezuela=2E The AFL-CIO believes other priorities of the Ch=E1vez administration=2C including agrarian reform and assistance to Cuba=2C for example=2C are and should be the sole and sovereign concern of the Venezuelan people and their government=2E The AFL-CIO condemns the violence committed against all of those participating in the demonstrations in Venezuela two weeks ago and joins in solidarity with the families mourning the loss of their relatives and loved ones=2E *********************************************************** =FFWorkers of All Countries=2C Unite=FF=3A Will This Include the U=2ES=2E Labor Movement=3F by Michael Yates = Monthly Review=2C April 2002 http=3A//www=2Emonthlyreview=2Eorg/mrlabor=2Ehtm =FF 1 =FF Capitalism is a system of production and distribution driven by the ceaseless efforts by capitalists to accumulate capital=2C that is=2C to maximize both profits and the growth of capital=2E Accumulation=2C in turn=2C is made possible by the exploitation of wage laborers=2C persons without any direct access to society=27s productive property=2E Workers are forced to sell their ability to work but when they do=2C they are owed nothing by their employers except a wage=2E That is=2C the employers have no social obligation to the workers=3B their relationship to them is impersonal in the extreme=2E It follows that=2C in the abstract=2C employers do not care anything about the workers=27 =22characteristics=2E=22 To them=2C black workers are interchangeable with whites=2C men with women=2C one nation=27s workers with those of any other=2E Employers are=2C in a word=2C equal-opportunity exploiters=2E They will replace one worker with another=2C move their capital to take advantage of cheaper labor (whatever its characteristics)=2C and pit one group of employees against another=2C whenever such actions will=2C in their view=2C make it easier for them to accumulate capital=2E Isolated and disorganized at first=2C workers eventually figure out what is happening to them=2E Herded together in factories and deskilled by the detailed division of labor and mechanization=2C they come to see that they must collectively organize to oppose their exploitation=2E If capital considers them to be one exploitable mass=2C that is how they must conceive of themselves=2E =22In unity there is strength=2E=22 =22An injury to one is an injury to all=2E=22 =22The working class and the employing class have nothing in common=2E=22 And=2C of course=2C =22Workers of all countries=2C unite=2E=22 As workers come to see themselves as an undifferentiated mass=2C they take action=2C forming unions that strike=2C picket=2C and boycott=2C and constituting political parties that vie for state power=2E Marxists believe that this propertyless mass of men and women=2C of all shades of color=2C and of every nation=2C is nothing less than the historic agent of the overthrow of capitalism and the beginning of communism=2E =FF 2 =FF At the high level of abstraction implied in the words above=2C all is clear=2E There are capitalists and there are workers=3B their interests are diametrically opposed=3B and workers will unify themselves to end their exploitation=2E Unfortunately=2C when we make our analysis less abstract=2C when we confront the world in all of its complex and historical concreteness=2C matters are not so clear=2E Two important problems confront the unity of the world=27s workers=2E1 First=2C capitalism has always developed in the context of a nation=2C with an active and complicit state=2E Second=2C capitalism has=2C from its beginning=2C developed unevenly in different parts of the world=2E The original capitalist nations of Europe and=2C later=2C those special cases of the United States and Japan subjugated the rest of the world through their military and economic might=2C creating an imperialist system of rich and poor capitalist nations=2E These twin developments=2C nationalism and imperialism=2C have erected substantial barriers against the unity of the workers of the world=2E If capital is bound geographically within a nation=2C it is certainly possible that organized workers will be able through their own actions to compel their employers to pay them more money=2C offer better benefits=2C reduce their hours=2C and better their working conditions=2E They will not need solidarity from workers in other nations to achieve these things=2E They may also be able to contest for state power on their own=2C so to speak=2E English craftsmen could and did organize effectively within England=2C and they did not require the help of French or German workers=2E The same is true for workers in the United States=2E Automobile workers organized the great sitdown strikes that brought General Motors to heel and=2C while they needed their wives=2C other workers=2C and some sympathy from the governor and the courts=2C they did not need an alliance with Mexican or Canadian workers to establish their union and win their first collective-bargaining agreements=2E Not needing the support of workers in other nations does not=2C of course=2C mean that such support might not be useful or that it should not be requested=2E Perhaps the position of English craftsmen and U=2ES=2E automobile workers would have been even stronger=FFif not in the short run=2C then certainly in the long run=FFhad they aligned themselves with the workers of other nations=2E So=2C why hasn=27t international solidarity been labor=27s rallying cry from the beginning=3F Two reasons suggest themselves=2E First=2C the power of nationalism as an ideology of exclusiveness quickly became very powerful=2E The establishment of official languages=2C the institution of a universal propaganda mechanism in the public schools=2C and the drafting of working people into national armies all had the effect of encouraging workers to be loyal to the nation=2E The converse of this loyalty has been distrust or even hatred of those who are =22foreign=2E=22 My father was a union-factory laborer for forty-four years=2C but his life experiences were not conducive to international solidarity=2E The Second World War=2C especially=2C shaped him into an almost fanatical supporter of the U=2ES=2E government (and de facto supporter of U=2ES=2E capital in most respects) and into an outright xenophobe when it came to the Japanese or the Soviets or the Chinese=2E Second=2C nationalism in the advanced capitalist nations was intimately connected to imperialism=2E The vicious exploitation of workers and peasants in Africa=2C Asia=2C and Latin America went hand-in-hand with the promotion of a racist ideology that taught that these peoples either deserved what they were getting or were lucky to be associated with the rich nations=2E Furthermore=2C the surplus value pumped out of the peripheral nations gave the large multinational corporations money which=2C under enough trade-union pressure=2C they could be convinced to share with workers=2E This went along with successful efforts by the corporations and the government to co-opt labor leaders=2C through the formation of various kinds of labor-management organizations and assignment to public boards and commissions=2E The goal here was to convince labor=27s leaders=2C as well as union members=2C that imperialism was good for workers in the core capitalist nations=2E All of these efforts were=2C for the most part=2C successful=2E Labor organizations in all of the advanced capitalist countries have not only supported their own multinationals in the brutal exploitation of the economies and workers of the poor nations=2C they have even supported wars in which the workers of one rich nation fought against those of another=2E =FF 3 =FF Nowhere was the labor movement more nationalistic and anchored in imperialism than in the United States=2E2 While there have been individual workers=2C unions=2C and movements devoted to the concept and practice of international solidarity=2C these have always been a minority and suffered decisive defeats at the hands of their more numerous opponents=2E The historical record is both appalling and tragic=2E At every critical juncture=2C labor stood against internationalism=2E Samuel Gompers demonized Chinese workers in language befitting a Klansman=2C and even the egalitarian Knights of Labor barred Chinese workers from membership=2E (It should be noted that this hatred of the Chinese was rooted in the fact that the United States was founded with the stain of racism on its soul=2C a racism which made antagonism to workers in the rest of the world an easy pill to swallow=2E) The American Federation of Labor (AFL) gave its full support to the country=27s entry into the First World War and helped government agents harass labor leftists opposed to the war=2E The AFL championed U=2ES=2E interventions in Latin America=2E The AFL and then the CIO refused to participate in international labor organizations that included left-led unions=2E Internationalists were routinely redbaited out of the labor movement (and out of their jobs)=2C and at the beginning of the Cold War=2C almost all of the left-led unions were expelled from the AFL-CIO=FFallegedly for being dominated by communists but really for refusing to toe the imperialistic line=2E The AFL-CIO and some of the member unions were in league with the CIA and the State Department and wreaked havoc on progressive unions everywhere else in the world=2E The AFL-CIO eagerly supported the wars in Vietnam and Central America=2E It went on record in favor of employer sanctions against illegal immigrants=2E3 Those forces in the labor movement that favored international solidarity were dealt a deathblow during the Cold War=2E Before that time=2C there were always a fair number of radicals to counter the majority=2C but afterwards the Meanys=2C Lovestones=2C and Shankers were unopposed=2E Fanatical support for U=2ES=2E foreign policy and the championing of the corporate agenda implied by it were part of the so-called capital-labor =22accord=22 of the postwar era=2E Corporations would continue to pay the largely white=2C male workers (who comprised the bulk of union membership) higher wages and benefits and the government would not encourage corporate warfare against unions or make war itself=2E In return=2C labor leaders would sing the praises of the =22American Way=22 and refrain from any embarrassing criticisms of what the bosses and the state were doing to workers abroad (or=2C for that matter=2C to unorganized workers here=2C especially those neither white nor male)=2E Things went well for union leaders and many members until the long postwar boom ended in the early 1970s=2E Then all hell broke loose=2C as corporations once thought to be committed to the =22accord=22 ripped it apart and went on the warpath against organized labor=2E The specifics of this attack and its devastating effect upon unions have been spelled out in Monthly Review before=2C but in the context of this essay=2C one aspect of it stands out=2E4 Capital shed any loyalty it had to a nationalist and Keynesian agenda and embraced neoliberalism=2E It fought for and won trade agreements that make it much easier for it to traverse national borders=2C and it made =22free=22 trade the litmus test for its political support=2E Soon both Democrats and Republicans were onboard=2E To its former =22accord=22 allies=2C it said=2C in effect=2C =22We no longer need you=2E You are too weak to matter=2E You could not stop us if you wanted to=2E (And chuckling to themselves=2C they said=2C =60You probably won=27t even try=2E=27) From now on the fruits of imperialism shall be ours alone=2E=22 =FF 4 =FF Capital and its labor partners did not anticipate that the free fall in the living standards of U=2ES=2E workers that occurred throughout the 1970s and 1980s and the failure of most unions to do much about it would generate reform movements and resurgent activism=2E Often spearheaded by progressives from the great social movements of the 1960s and sometimes supported by remnants from the old left=2C this activism took a variety of forms=2C including attempts to make the unions more democratic and opposition to U=2ES=2E foreign policy in Central America=2E Out of all of this came the ferment that led to the ousting of the old guard in the AFL-CIO by the =22New Voices=22 team=2E As other authors in this issue have noted=2C the new AFL-CIO leadership quickly dismantled the notorious International Affairs Division and began to make noise and take actions indicating a new commitment to international solidarity=2E In fact=2C even during the decade before the historic 1995 AFL-CIO convention=2C a number of unions had begun to realize the necessity of building bridges with workers around the world=2E5 The United Electrical=2C Radio=2C and Machine Workers (UE) made an alliance with an independent Mexican labor organization=2C the Authentic Labor Front (FAT)=2E The UE helped finance FAT organizing campaigns in companies that also had plants employing UE workers in the United States=2E The FAT sent a fired Mexican organizer to Milwaukee to help the UE organize a plant there=2E The two groups jointly sponsored meetings among union representatives from both countries=2E The United Steel Workers brought the Ravenswood Aluminum Company in West Virginia to justice largely through an international solidarity campaign=2C which allied this prototypically nationalist union with workers in the Netherlands=2C Switzerland=2C Czechoslovakia (before partition)=2C Rumania=2C England=2C and Venezuela=2E The old-guard Communication Workers of America (CWA) has worked with Canadian=2C European=2C and Mexican workers against the multinational communications giants that are gobbling up most of the world=27s telecommunications companies=2C including many that were formerly publicly owned=2E As I stated in a recent book review=2C =22The CWA has promoted corporate =60codes of conduct=27 (union members will oppose a corporation=27s entry into a national market if it refuses to obey these)=2C international strike support=2C information exchanges=2C political lobbying in support of workers in other countries=2C international conferences=2C legal complaints (under NAFTA=2C for example)=2C product boycotts=2C newsletters=2C and cross-training of organizers to fight against such global behemoths as NYNEX=2C Northern Telecom=2C and Bell Atlantic=2E=226 The New Voices leadership has supported such actions and has taken some of its own=2C including mending fences with organizations once considered too radical=2E AFL-CIO President Sweeney has sent emissaries to South Africa to meet with unions his predecessors would have denounced as communist and has himself met with independent Mexican labor leaders=2E As David Bacon mentions elsewhere in this issue=2C the AFL-CIO has abandoned its Cold-War operations in post-Soviet Russia=2E The AFL-CIO and member unions have lent a helping hand to students who are politicizing college campuses around the nation with their antisweatshop and anti-child-labor campaigns=2E This new AFL-CIO was there for all to see in all of its glory during the heady days in Seattle last fall=2E Union leaders and members marched=2C rallied=2C made impassioned speeches=2C and even confronted the police in a remarkable demonstration of unity=2E U=2ES=2E unionists mingled with those from many nations=2C both rich and poor=2E Pledges of solidarity were made=2E At one rally=2C American Federation of State=2C County=2C and Municipal Employees=27 president Gerald McEntee urged the crowd to =22name the system=2E=22 A South African brother invoked the name of Marx and was not only not shouted down but cheered=2E Teamsters mixed with environmentalists clad in turtle outfits=2E The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) shut down the docks on the entire West Coast=2E (The ILWU is almost unique among U=2ES=2E unions in its commitment to international solidarity=2E Through boycotts and strikes=2C it has consistently allied itself with workers around the world)=2E There is no doubt that the WTO protests energized working people=2E Post-Seattle meetings and workshops have been packed with enthusiastic opponents of global corporations=2E A local labor leader in Atlanta told me that he was convinced that the large demonstrations against the flying of the confederate flag in South Carolina owed their size and fervor to the WTO protests=2E This past April=2C large demonstrations were conducted by a wide variety of organizations against the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)=2C which were having an annual meeting in Washington=2C DC=2E The AFL-CIO supported the Jubilee 2000 campaign to forgive third-world debt=2E All told=2C the past few months have given even the most pessimistic among us reason to hope=2E =FF 5 =FF Against this background of radical possibilities=2C it is necessary to be clearheaded=2E There are other signs which are not so heartening=2E Others in this issue have remarked on the fact that the AFL-CIO is still taking money from the U=2ES=2E State Department to finance some of its international operations=2E They have also expressed concern over Sweeney=27s endorsement of the U=2ES=2E platform at Seattle (in return for Clinton=27s promise to raise labor issues at the summit and his call for a labor subcommittee)=2C as well as his presence and weak comments at Davos=2E In a lesser-known event=2C the AFL-CIO seemed not to have broken completely with its Cold-War past=2E When striking Mexican railroad workers reached out to U=2ES=2E workers recently=2C they were met with much enthusiasm=2E Several U=2ES=2E unions organized a group of delegates to go to Mexico City and then to the site of the strike in Northern Mexico=2E In Mexico City=2C they were met by the former director of the notorious American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD)=2C Jack Otero=FFaccused by Philip Agee of being a CIA agent=2E Presumably dumped by Sweeney=2C Otero propagandized against the strikers=2C calling them communists=3B his agitation effectively paralyzed the delegation=2E At no time did the AFL-CIO leadership denounce Otero=2C and in fact worried that the delegates and their U=2ES=2E supporters would embarrass the official Mexican Railway Workers union=FFwhich=2C as we know=2C is a tool of the corporation-dominated Mexican government=2E7 The AFL-CIO=27s early endorsement of Al Gore for President speaks for itself=2E Some of the industrial unions protested this=2C but these unions cannot be said to have been pioneers of international solidarity=2E The United Auto Workers (UAW) refused to endorse Gore but=2C with the exception of a few honorable locals and leaders=2C this union has long sung a nationalist line=2E I once taught UAW workers at a plant near Pittsburgh=2E During a week of classes=2C they got heavy doses of chauvinist reasoning and dislike of Japanese and Mexicans was often palpable=2E Their union leaders had done little to educate them beyond =22Buy American=2E=22 George Becker=2C president of the Steel Workers and architect of the Ravenswood campaign=2C is now going all-out to build support for keeping China out of the WTO=2E According to a colleague of mine=2C at a WTO symposium at a local college=2C a steel union representative all but warned the audience of the =22yellow hordes=2E=22 I was at a meeting recently to propose=2C among other things=2C that local unions include short=2C twenty-minute =22educationals=22 in local union meetings=2E The WTO was suggested as a topic=2C but the focus was on the importance of keeping China out of the WTO=2E Progressive unionists agreed when I suggested that we should be careful not to encourage union members to think of the WTO protests in a potentially chauvinistic way=2C especially considering the U=2ES=2E labor movement=27s long history of racism toward the Chinese=2E They also concurred when I said that there were plenty of sweatshops and prison-made goods right here in the United States=2C and we should engage workers on these issues=2C especially since we might be better able to do more about abuse here than in China=2E However=2C I was told that we had to meet the unions =22where they were at=2E=22 That meeting was a dose of reality for me=2E 6 Many progressives and leftists=2C in their desire to see improvements in the lives of working people=2C have too frequently ignored reality and jumped on the New Voices=27 bandwagon=2C leaving their critical faculties behind=2E They ignore the obvious=2E U=2ES=2E labor leaders=2C with very rare exceptions=2C are not radicals and never will be=2E The twin ideologies of nationalism and imperialism cast long shadows over them=2C and the failure to understand this poses a number of dangers=2E First=2C there is always the possibility that labor=27s leaders will revert to old ways=2E If the right-wing forces within organized labor become stronger=2C there is a good chance that progressive leaders will also move to the right=2E In the process=2C they may look for scapegoats on the left and those leftists in important positions now will face expulsion=2E This is what happened during the Cold War=2E Progressives like Walter Reuther purged the left-led unions from the CIO and then led raids on them=2C continuing a move to the right that culminated in merger with the corrupt and reactionary unions of the AFL=2E That this happened to a strong left does not bode well for the much weaker left of today=27s labor movement=2E It would be very surprising indeed if=2C in the face of a resurgent right=2C Sweeney and company moved to the left=2E There is no precedent for this in U=2ES=2E labor history=2E Or suppose that a powerful labor movement in a poor nation moved decisively to the left and posed a threat to U=2ES=2E-based corporations and to the stability of a government friendly to the United States=2E If the United States offered support for the beleaguered government=2C would the AFL-CIO show solidarity with that country=27s left-wing labor movement=3F Or would it line up solidly behind the stars and stripes=3F History tells us that the latter is the more likely course of action=2E Left-wing labor leaders languished in Indonesian jails for years=2C yet even today you don=27t see much in the way of AFL-CIO support for them=2C much less condemnation of the U=2ES=2E government for its decades of support for the mass murderers who ruled the country=2E Second=2C AFL-CIO endorsement of the U=2ES=2E corporate and Clinton administration position on the WTO=2C president Sweeney=27s visits to Davos=2C and comments made by Tony Blair and ICFTU president Bill Jordan=2C combined with conciliatory comments from the IMF=2C the United Nations (UN)=2C and Bill Clinton suggest that we are witnessing the co-optation of liberal and progressive opponents of neoliberalism=2E Everyone agrees=2C these folks say=2C that global trade is a good thing=3B it increases the world=27s output so significantly=2E All that is needed are some reforms=FFthat is=2C the elimination of the worst abuses of workers=2C peasants=2C and the environment and some redistribution of this rising production to the world=27s poor=2E Then global capitalism can continue indefinitely and benefit everyone=2E Sweeney=2C Jordan=2C Clinton=2C Blair=2C Kofi Annan=2C and the officers of the IMF are issuing stern warnings that unless global capital changes its ways and allows for some regulation=2C the =22irrational=22 opponents of trade will win support from the public=2C to the ultimate detriment of all=2E The goal should be a global capitalism =22with a human face=2E=22 Of course=2C it is the =22irrationalists=22 who are correct=3B the bad results of trade are inherent in the system itself=2E By conceding what needs to be contested=2C namely the private ownership of most of the world=27s resources by a handful of corporations and the use of these resources for the sole purpose of accumulating capital=2C the liberals and progressives also concede the eternal rule of capital=2E The few crumbs they and workers might get will be given willingly by capital if this will defuse stronger critiques of capital=27s legitimacy=2E Upon receiving these crumbs=2C labor leaders will then be duty-bound to condemn their radical brothers and sisters=2E What is happening now is much like what transpired when organized labor embraced labor-management cooperation=2E Employers admitted that they needed the workers to help make their enterprises more competitive=2E If workers would cooperate with management to raise productivity=2C the employers=2C in turn=2C would provide them with more security=2C allow them to learn new skills=2C and make them true partners in decision-making=2E Many trade-union leaders=2C often encouraged by progressive academics=2C bought this argument and made concessions on work rules=2C grievance procedures=2C and steady pay-raises that had taken years to win=2E But as numerous studies of these schemes have shown=2C management had no intention of ceding control to workers=2E Instead=2C these systems were the means by which employers enhanced their control at the same time that they began to wean workers away from their unions and secure their loyalty to the companies=27 competitive agenda=2E Predictably=2C those opposed to cooperation=2C like the =22New Directions=22 movement in the UAW=2C have been marginalized by the leadership=2C denounced as radicals and cranks=2E The power of capital to co-opt labor should not be underestimated=2E Important leaders like Sidney Hillman and Philip Murray of the CIO were co-opted by the Roosevelt administration=2C lured by flattery and positions on various boards and commissions=2E There was a real possibility for an independent labor party in the 1930s=2C but this prospect was derailed=FFwith the active participation of the labor movement=2E Indeed=2C in the 1930s a sizable fraction of the Communist party was mesmerized by FDR and the New Deal and=2C during the war=2C communists were completely co-opted by the Democrats=2E A third danger lies in the realities of the domestic scene and the disconnect between these and the new internationalism of the AFL-CIO=2E Before it can build meaningful relationships with workers in poor countries=2C it might be necessary for white workers to unite with workers of color here in the United States=2E How can a movement that cannot organize black workers in the South and Latino workers in the Southwest build effective bridges with workers in Asia=2C Africa=2C and Latin America=3F How can a movement which ignores the struggles for land by Native Americans make common cause with landless peasants in Ecuador or Colombia=3F How can a movement that does not publicize and fight against the racism of the U=2ES=2E prison system and the increasing power of the prison-industrial complex be taken seriously when it rails against prison labor in China=3F The biggest problem domestically is that labor will not divorce itself from the Democratic Party=2E The position in which workers in poor nations find themselves is the direct outcome of the neoliberal policies championed and put into practice by the U=2ES=2E government=2C and these policies are those of both political parties=2E The Democrats advocate privatization=2C trade agreements=2C the WTO=2C and structural adjustment policies and oppose any attempts by poor nations to develop autonomously=2E How can international solidarity be sustained by the U=2ES=2E labor movement at the same time that this labor movement is in league with a party whose every act undermines solidarity=3F But if we ask ourselves in all candor if we think that the New Voices leadership is going to abandon what it has been doing for so long=2C the answer must be =22no=2E=22 It is true that the labor movement is at odds with the Democratic Party over admitting China to the WTO=2C but this difference is unlikely to push labor toward an independent politics=2E The neoliberal system will survive quite nicely with or without China in the WTO=2E And if the AFL-CIO succeeds in keeping China out of the WTO=2C where does it go from there=3F Will the corporations now benefitting from the cheap labor in China=27s export zones suffer=3F Will China=27s workers be better able to challenge the anti-working-class policies of their government=3F Will the protectionist spirit lurking underneath the AFL-CIO=27s WTO opposition be driven further underground or will it rise to the surface=3F =FF 7 =FF As Khalil Hassan argues=2C it is extremely unlikely that an entirely new and independent labor movement can be built today in the United States=2E Therefore=2C it will be necessary for leftists to work within or alongside the AFL-CIO=2E However=2C leftists must organize themselves into a coherent and disciplined force=2E Building on the movement for democratic control of union locals and in alliance with left workers in other progressive social movements=2C the left in labor can critically support whatever good things the AFL-CIO does=2C while pushing it in a more radical direction=2E The more strength the labor left gains=2C the more difficult it will be for it to be dislodged from the movement=2E From within our own organizations and unions=2C we can reach out to like-minded workers around the world with an international labor left as its goal=2E Groups such as the Transnational Information Exchange (TIE) have already begun to do this=2E TIE should be supported and its efforts extended and deepened=2E8 Suggestions made by Hassan in his article in this issue should be debated and then implemented=2E I have been somewhat harsh in my assessment of the possibility of organized labor in the United States helping to construct an international labor movement=2E But it is necessary to be blunt because the stakes are so high=2E Saying that the New Voices leaders are what they are=FFliberals=2C not radicals=3B limited opponents of neoliberalism=2C not enemies=FFis not blanket condemnation=2E But they are not all that the leaders of a labor movement need to be=2E NOTES 1=2EMy friend Elly Leary=2C who made helpful comments on an earlier draft of this essay=2C reminded me that a third critical factor is the division of workers inside of each nation by gender=2C race=2C ethnicity=2C sexual orientation=2C disability=2C etc=2E Of course she is right=2C but I focus on nationalism and imperialism here because of the subject matter of the paper=2E Connections between internal and international divisions are brought out later in the argument=2E 2=2ESee Paul Buhle=2C Taking Care of Business=3A Samuel Gompers=2C George Meany=2C Lane Kirkland=2C and the Tragedy of American Labor (New York=3A Monthly Review Press=2C 1999)=2E 3=2EFor details and references=2C see Michael D=2E Yates=2C Why Unions Matter (New York=3A Monthly Review Press=2C 1998)=2E 4=2ESee Michael D=2E Yates=2C =FFBraverman and the Class Struggle=2C=FF Monthly Review=2C vol=2E 50=2C no=2E 8 (January 1999)=2E For a more in-depth treatment=2C see Kim Moody=2C An Injury to All=3A The Decline of American Unionism (London=3A Verso=2C 1988)=2E 5=2ESee Kim Moody=2C Workers in a Lean World=3A Unions in the International Economy (London=3A Verso=2C 1997)=3B Tom Juravich =26 Kate Bronfenbrenner=2C Ravenswood=3A The Steelworkers=27 Victory and the Revival of American Labor (Ithaca=2C NY=3A Cornell University Press=2C 2000)=3B and Larry Cohen and Steve Early=2C =22Defending Workers=27 Rights in the Global Economy=3A The CWA Experience=2C=22 in Bruce Nissen=2C ed=2E=2C Which Direction for Organized Labor=3F (Detroit=3A Wayne State University Press=2C 1999)=2E 6=2ESee my review of the Nissen book mentioned in note five=2C in Labor History=2C vol=2E 40=2C no=2E 4 (November 1999)=3A 566=2E 7=2EPeter Rachleff=2C =22Rupture or Continuity=2C=22 New Politics=2C vol=2E VII =2C no=2E 4 (New Series) (Winter 2000)=2E 8=2EOn TIE=2C see Moody=2C Workers in a Lean World=2E MICHAEL YATES is a labor educator and professor of economics at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown=2E He is the author of Longer Hours=2C Fewer Jobs and Why Unions Matter (both published by Monthly Review Press)=2E = From HNixon6081@aol.com Wed May 01 11:56:17 2002 Return-Path: Delivered-To: usgp-mx-laborgreens@gp-us.org Received: (qmail 29959 invoked by uid 0); 1 May 2002 11:56:17 -0000 Received: from imo-m09.mx.aol.com (64.12.136.164) by cesarchavez.cagreens.org with SMTP; 1 May 2002 11:56:17 -0000 Received: from HNixon6081@aol.com by imo-m09.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v32.5.) id q.197.644ebae (4555) for ; Wed, 1 May 2002 07:55:11 -0400 (EDT) From: HNixon6081@aol.com Message-ID: <197.644ebae.2a01319f@aol.com> Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 07:55:11 EDT To: HNixon6081@aol.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="part1_197.644ebae.2a01319f_boundary" X-Mailer: AOL 5.0 for Windows sub 138 Subject: [Laborgreens] Fwd: Log cabin to White House? Not any more Sender: laborgreens-admin@gp-us.org Errors-To: laborgreens-admin@gp-us.org X-BeenThere: laborgreens@gp-us.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.8 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: GP-US labor Greens mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: --part1_197.644ebae.2a01319f_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit --part1_197.644ebae.2a01319f_boundary Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Disposition: inline Return-Path: Received: from rly-xj02.mx.aol.com (rly-xj02.mail.aol.com [172.20.116.39]) by air-xj05.mail.aol.com (v84.16) with ESMTP id MAILINXJ52-0501031631; Wed, 01 May 2002 03:16:31 -0400 Received: from box4.kargo.net (box4.kargo.net [207.189.152.4]) by rly-xj02.mx.aol.com (v84.15) with ESMTP id MAILRELAYINXJ23-0501031613; Wed, 01 May 2002 03:16:13 -0400 Received: from webboard.mediate.com ([207.189.152.4]) by box4.kargo.net (Post.Office MTA v3.5.3 release 223 ID# 0-55238U100L100S0V35) with SMTP id net; Wed, 1 May 2002 00:12:37 -0700 To: (Recipients of 'labor-newsline' suppressed) From: "labor-newsline Listmanager" Subject: Log cabin to White House? Not any more Reply-To: "labor.newsline" X-Mailer: O'Reilly WebBoard 4.0 Message-ID: <200205010316.03DdBPQbW_zbX@rly-xj02.mx.aol.com> Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 03:16:31 EDT Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: labornews > This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand this format, some or all of this message may not be legible. --MS_Mac_OE_3103056526_1509881_MIME_Part Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable Log cabin to White House? Not any more The State We're In, Will Hutton's explosive analysis of the British economy=, caused a storm and became an instant bestseller seven years ago. Now, in Th=e World We're In, he turns his attention to the global picture. In this exclusive extract he argues that the US can no longer lay claim to being th=e land of opportunity Sunday April 28, 2002 The Observer http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,706484,00.html America is the most unequal society in the industrialised West. The richest 20 per cent of Americans earn nine times more than the poorest 20 per cent, a scale of inequality half as great again as in Japan, Germany and France. At the very top of American society, incomes and wealth have reached stupendous proportions. The country boasts some three million millionaires, and the richest 1 per cent of the population hold 38 per cent of its wealth=, a concentration more marked than in any comparable country. This inequality is the most brutal fact of American life. Nor is it excused by more mobility and opportunity than other societies, America's great conceit. The reality is that US society is polarising and its social arteries hardening. The sumptuousness and bleakness of the respective lifestyles of rich and poor represent a scale of difference in opportunity and wealth that is almost medieval - and a standing offence to the American expectation that everyone has the opportunity for life, liberty and happiness. The chief means by which contemporary Western societies offer their citizen=s a chance to reach reasonable living standards and move up the social and economic hierarchy is education. At first sight, the US does well. In the schooling system, its fourth-grade students (the fourth year of primary school) do better than their international counterparts, and 37 per cent of its 18- to 21-year-olds go through higher education, one of the highest proportions in the industrialised West. Moreover, the US's university standards, especially in the top 50, are on average the best in the world. Salaries are high and the research record excellent. But take a closer look, using more stringent criteria. As a system that offers every American a chance for educational achievement and the acquisition of formal academic or vocational qualifications - the key instrument for social mobility - the US structure fails. By twelfth grade (the year after GCSE), American students are falling behind their international peers, especially in mathematics and science. And while in Germany, for example, 80 per cent of school-leavers go on to receive either vocational training or a degree and all except 1 per cent receive formal post-secondary education or training, in the US 46 per cent of school-leavers gain no certificate or degree - and an extraordinary 31 per cent have never received formal training or education after leaving school. The message is stark. Those Americans who do not get to college are pushed into the labour market with a poverty of skills, educational and vocational training. Those who do get to college are overwhelmingly students from the higher socio-economic backgrounds, just as they always have been; a study i=n 1965 found that two-thirds of the explanation for educational achievement was accounted for by family income; a study 30 years later found exactly th=e same figure. As inequality grows, the grip of the wealthy on educational advantage becomes ever more evident, for the cost of going to university over the las=t 25 years has exploded. The average cost of tuition fees and room and board has risen fourfold since 1977 to an average of $10,315 (£7,264) today; the overall average masks a stark contrast between the average cost of study at private universities at $17,613 (£12,403) and public universities at $7,013 (£4,938). Yet as costs have risen, federal and state support to help fund students' costs has both declined, and been refocused on the middle class. In 1965, the Pell grant, the largest federal programme for poor students, covered 85 per cent of the cost of four years at a public university; in 2000, it covered just 39 per cent of the bill. Meanwhile, the Hope Scholarship, introduced by President Clinton, provides up to $3,000 of tax credits to fund university education but it goes mainly to families earning between $30,000 and $90,000 (£21,126 to £63,380) whose children would have gone to college anyway. States have cut their support on average by 32 per cent since 1979. The result of this vicious scissor movement - rising costs cutting against falling state and federal support - is a calamitous drop in the chances of =a poor student acquiring a university degree, and this in an environment wher=e there are negligible alternative forms of vocational and formal education. Borrowing money on the scale now needed to finance college is easier for students from better-off families with expectations of reasonable earnings than for students from low-income families. As Gaston Caperton, president o=f the College Board, admits, the US 'is not doing a good job helping low-income students succeed'. In 1979, a student aged 18 to 24 from the top income quartile was four times more likely to obtain a degree by 24 than a student from the bottom quartile. By 1994, the latest year for which we hav=e figures, this was 10 times more likely. Given the trends in inequality, college costs and falling state support, this already disastrous ratio can only have got worse over the last eight years. American social mobility is set to decline below its already modest levels. The unease at the way the system benefits the well-off is captured by the decision of 120 billionaires, including Warren Buffet, America's fourth richest man, to found a pressure group to oppose the elimination of taxes o=n capital gains and inherited wealth. Buffet's argument is that the US is developing an aristocracy of the wealthy. Just as it would be absurd to select the US Olympics team for 2020 from the children of the winners of th=e Olympics in 2000, he says, so it is wrong to construct a society whose likely leaders tomorrow - given the advantages that wealth confers - will b=e the children of today's wealthy. This offends not merely the values of democracy and equality of opportunity on which the US is constructed, but will be economically disastrous. Buffett and his fellow-campaigners are right, but the pass has long been sold. The Bush, Gore and Kennedy families are only three of the more famous political examples of how wealth begets both more wealth and influence. Fiv=e generations of the Bushes, for example, have been 'tapped' to become member=s of the Skull and Bones Club at Yale, whose initiates retain a commitment to the lifelong scratching of each other's backs while never acknowledging the=y were members. In itself, there is nothing remarkable about private clubs of privileged insiders in private universities; it is just that the country that boasts them should be more self-knowing about its pretensions to meritocracy. Meanwhile, for those at the bottom, the consequence of the new conservatism that dominates the US is to make life increasingly desperate - and with progressively less opportunity. Eligibility for income support and public assistance is being steadily withdrawn; cumulatively, it had halved by 1998/9 from the levels of 20 years ago. Poorly educated and with negligible access to training programmes, the poor are locked into their status: 54 pe=r cent of those in the bottom 20 per cent in the 1960s were still there in th=e 1990s; only 1 per cent had migrated to the top 20 per cent. Journalist Barbara Ehrenreich conducted her own social experiment, spending 1998 working in a series of low-wage jobs as a waitress, hotel maid, cleaning woman, nursing home aide and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. The result of her year, documented in Nickel and Dimed, is an extraordinary Orwellian testimony to how tough American working life is for the bottom 20 per cent. She had absolutely no financial margin beyond paying the rent and what she needed to survive; saving or finding the time for any training to upgrade her status was beyond her. 'Most civilised nations compensate for the inadequacy of wages by providing relatively generous public services such a=s health insurance, free or subsidised child care, subsidised housing and effective public transport,' she writes. 'But the United States, for all it=s wealth, leaves its citizens to fend for themselves - facing market-based rents on their wages alone. For millions of Americans, that $10 - or even $=8 or $6 an hour - is all there is.' Conservatives try to excuse this inequality by arguing that American income and social mobility is uniquely high, as befits an exceptional civilisation=.. It is not; indeed it compares badly with the Europe about whom American conservatives are so patronising. Lawrence Mishel, Jared Bernstein and John Schmitt, the three authors of The State of Working America (described by th=e Financial Times as the most comprehensive independent analysis of the American labour market), compare the mobility of American workers with the four biggest European economies and three Scandinavian economies. They find that the US has the lowest share of workers moving from the botto=m fifth of workers into the second fifth, the lowest share moving into the to=p 60 per cent and the highest share of workers unable to sustain full-time employment. The most exhaustive study by the OECD confirms the poor rates o=f relative upward mobility for very low-paid American workers; it also found that full-time workers in Britain, Italy and Germany enjoy much more rapid growth in their earnings than those in the US, who rank roughly equal with the French. However, downward mobility was more marked in the US; American workers are more likely to suffer a reduction in their real earnings than workers in Europe - the log cabin to White House effect in reverse. The cumulative evidence since the Second World War is that measured mobilit=y in the US is little different from Europe's, despite all the propaganda. Lipset and Bendix in their groundbreaking study in 1959, Social Mobility in Industrial Society, could find no evidence that American men were moving an=y more rapidly from manual to non-manual labour than in other industrial societies. Later studies comparing the income mobility of the US with the Nordic countries and Germany either find no difference or that the US is worse. Leading sociologists Robert Erikson and John Goldthorpe found precisely the same result in a more detailed breakdown of mobility, whether measuring wha=t happens inter-generationally or over one individual's lifetime. The mystery=, they write, is that given that there is no evidence of American exceptionalism or increased social mobility, why the myth persists. The answer is that nobody in the highly introverted society that the US has become can believe that foreigners might do it as well or better - and the conservative intellectual ascendancy is not going to disabuse them. The combination of reduced educational opportunity for low-income students and more advantages conferred on the rich - the great achievements of conservatism - can only have one result. America is developing an aristocracy of the rich and serfdom of the poor and, in so doing, threatening its own economic vitality. The US itself is stirring. It is not just foreign critics who believe the U=S has not solved the age-old question about how to construct a just economic and social order - or operate an effective democracy. A growing number of Americans share the same view. The argument that Europe should copy the US is in important respects the wrong way round. It is European social outcome=s from which the US now needs to borrow; nor is the European economy as sclerotic as US conservatives like to portray (as argued in tomorrow's extract in the Guardian ). Yet it is the US, the country which has left so many of its citizens barren and ill at ease with themselves, and which is riven by internal concern and criticism, that is held up as a model for the world. It is time for Europeans to recognise the strength of their social outcomes and defend them. © Will Hutton 2002. Will Hutton's ground breaking book, The State We're In, affected government policy. His latest title, The World We're In, will affect us all as the future of Britain is decided. The World We're In will retail at £17.99; however, Time Warner Books UK are pleased to offer Guardian / Observer readers the special price of £15.99 plus free packing and postage. Will Hutton Offer, P.O. Box 121, Kettering, Northants NN14 4XQ, tel. 01832 737525, fax. 01832 733076 --MS_Mac_OE_3103056526_1509881_MIME_Part Content-type: text/html; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable Log cabin to White House? Not any more Log cabin to White House? Not any more=

The State We're In, Will Hutton's explosive analy=sis of the British economy, caused a storm and became an instant bestseller =seven years ago. Now, in The World We're In, he turns his attention to the g=lobal picture. In this exclusive extract he argues that the US can no longer= lay claim to being the land of opportunity

Sunday April 28, 2002
The Observer=
http://www.observer.co.u=k/comment/story/0,6903,706484,00.html

America is the most unequal society in the industrialised West. The richest= 20 per cent of Americans earn nine times more than the poorest 20 per cent,= a scale of inequality half as great again as in Japan, Germany and France. =At the very top of American society, incomes and wealth have reached stupend=ous proportions. The country boasts some three million millionaires, and the= richest 1 per cent of the population hold 38 per cent of its wealth, a conc=entration more marked than in any comparable country.
This inequality is the most brutal fact of American life. Nor is it excused= by more mobility and opportunity than other societies, America's great conc=eit. The reality is that US society is polarising and its social arteries ha=rdening. The sumptuousness and bleakness of the respective lifestyles of ric=h and poor represent a scale of difference in opportunity and wealth that is= almost medieval - and a standing offence to the American expectation that e=veryone has the opportunity for life, liberty and happiness.
The chief means by which contemporary Western societies offer their citizen=s a chance to reach reasonable living standards and move up the social and e=conomic hierarchy is education. At first sight, the US does well. In the sch=ooling system, its fourth-grade students (the fourth year of primary school)= do better than their international counterparts, and 37 per cent of its 18-= to 21-year-olds go through higher education, one of the highest proportions= in the industrialised West. Moreover, the US's university standards, especi=ally in the top 50, are on average the best in the world. Salaries are high =and the research record excellent.
But take a closer look, using more stringent criteria. As a system that off=ers every American a chance for educational achievement and the acquisition =of formal academic or vocational qualifications - the key instrument for soc=ial mobility - the US structure fails. By twelfth grade (the year after GCSE=), American students are falling behind their international peers, especiall=y in mathematics and science.
And while in Germany, for example, 80 per cent of school-leavers go on to r=eceive either vocational training or a degree and all except 1 per cent rece=ive formal post-secondary education or training, in the US 46 per cent of sc=hool-leavers gain no certificate or degree - and an extraordinary 31 per cen=t have never received formal training or education after leaving school. The message is stark. Those Americans who do not get to college are pushed =into the labour market with a poverty of skills, educational and vocational =training. Those who do get to college are overwhelmingly students from the h=igher socio-economic backgrounds, just as they always have been; a study in =1965 found that two-thirds of the explanation for educational achievement wa=s accounted for by family income; a study 30 years later found exactly the s=ame figure.
As inequality grows, the grip of the wealthy on educational advantage becom=es ever more evident, for the cost of going to university over the last 25 y=ears has exploded. The average cost of tuition fees and room and board has r=isen fourfold since 1977 to an average of $10,315 (£7,264) today; the overal=l average masks a stark contrast between the average cost of study at privat=e universities at $17,613 (£12,403) and public universities at $7,013 (£4,93=8).
Yet as costs have risen, federal and state support to help fund students' c=osts has both declined, and been refocused on the middle class. In 1965, the= Pell grant, the largest federal programme for poor students, covered 85 per= cent of the cost of four years at a public university; in 2000, it covered =just 39 per cent of the bill. Meanwhile, the Hope Scholarship, introduced by= President Clinton, provides up to $3,000 of tax credits to fund university =education but it goes mainly to families earning between $30,000 and $90,000= (£21,126 to £63,380) whose children would have gone to college anyway. Stat=es have cut their support on average by 32 per cent since 1979.
The result of this vicious scissor movement - rising costs cutting against =falling state and federal support - is a calamitous drop in the chances of a= poor student acquiring a university degree, and this in an environment wher=e there are negligible alternative forms of vocational and formal education.=
Borrowing money on the scale now needed to finance college is easier for st=udents from better-off families with expectations of reasonable earnings tha=n for students from low-income families. As Gaston Caperton, president of th=e College Board, admits, the US 'is not doing a good job helping low-income =students succeed'. In 1979, a student aged 18 to 24 from the top income quar=tile was four times more likely to obtain a degree by 24 than a student from= the bottom quartile. By 1994, the latest year for which we have figures, th=is was 10 times more likely. Given the trends in inequality, college costs a=nd falling state support, this already disastrous ratio can only have got wo=rse over the last eight years. American social mobility is set to decline be=low its already modest levels.
The unease at the way the system benefits the well-off is captured by the d=ecision of 120 billionaires, including Warren Buffet, America's fourth riche=st man, to found a pressure group to oppose the elimination of taxes on capi=tal gains and inherited wealth. Buffet's argument is that the US is developi=ng an aristocracy of the wealthy. Just as it would be absurd to select the U=S Olympics team for 2020 from the children of the winners of the Olympics in= 2000, he says, so it is wrong to construct a society whose likely leaders t=omorrow - given the advantages that wealth confers - will be the children of= today's wealthy. This offends not merely the values of democracy and equali=ty of opportunity on which the US is constructed, but will be economically d=isastrous.
Buffett and his fellow-campaigners are right, but the pass has long been so=ld. The Bush, Gore and Kennedy families are only three of the more famous po=litical examples of how wealth begets both more wealth and influence. Five g=enerations of the Bushes, for example, have been 'tapped' to become members =of the Skull and Bones Club at Yale, whose initiates retain a commitment to =the lifelong scratching of each other's backs while never acknowledging they= were members. In itself, there is nothing remarkable about private clubs of= privileged insiders in private universities; it is just that the country th=at boasts them should be more self-knowing about its pretensions to meritocr=acy.
Meanwhile, for those at the bottom, the consequence of the new conservatism= that dominates the US is to make life increasingly desperate - and with pro=gressively less opportunity. Eligibility for income support and public assis=tance is being steadily withdrawn; cumulatively, it had halved by 1998/9 fro=m the levels of 20 years ago. Poorly educated and with negligible access to =training programmes, the poor are locked into their status: 54 per cent of t=hose in the bottom 20 per cent in the 1960s were still there in the 1990s; o=nly 1 per cent had migrated to the top 20 per cent.
Journalist Barbara Ehrenreich conducted her own social experiment, spending= 1998 working in a series of low-wage jobs as a waitress, hotel maid, cleani=ng woman, nursing home aide and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. The result of her ye=ar, documented in Nickel and Dimed, is an extraordinary Orwellian testimony =to how tough American working life is for the bottom 20 per cent. She had ab=solutely no financial margin beyond paying the rent and what she needed to s=urvive; saving or finding the time for any training to upgrade her status wa=s beyond her. 'Most civilised nations compensate for the inadequacy of wages= by providing relatively generous public services such as health insurance, =free or subsidised child care, subsidised housing and effective public trans=port,' she writes. 'But the United States, for all its wealth, leaves its ci=tizens to fend for themselves - facing market-based rents on their wages alo=ne. For millions of Americans, that $10 - or even $8 or $6 an hour - is all =there is.'
Conservatives try to excuse this inequality by arguing that American income= and social mobility is uniquely high, as befits an exceptional civilisation=.. It is not; indeed it compares badly with the Europe about whom American co=nservatives are so patronising. Lawrence Mishel, Jared Bernstein and John Sc=hmitt, the three authors of The State of Working America (described by the F=inancial Times as the most comprehensive independent analysis of the America=n labour market), compare the mobility of American workers with the four big=gest European economies and three Scandinavian economies.
They find that the US has the lowest share of workers moving from the botto=m fifth of workers into the second fifth, the lowest share moving into the t=op 60 per cent and the highest share of workers unable to sustain full-time =employment. The most exhaustive study by the OECD confirms the poor rates of= relative upward mobility for very low-paid American workers; it also found =that full-time workers in Britain, Italy and Germany enjoy much more rapid g=rowth in their earnings than those in the US, who rank roughly equal with th=e French. However, downward mobility was more marked in the US; American wor=kers are more likely to suffer a reduction in their real earnings than worke=rs in Europe - the log cabin to White House effect in reverse.
The cumulative evidence since the Second World War is that measured mobilit=y in the US is little different from Europe's, despite all the propaganda. L=ipset and Bendix in their groundbreaking study in 1959, Social Mobility in I=ndustrial Society, could find no evidence that American men were moving any =more rapidly from manual to non-manual labour than in other industrial socie=ties. Later studies comparing the income mobility of the US with the Nordic =countries and Germany either find no difference or that the US is worse. Leading sociologists Robert Erikson and John Goldthorpe found precisely the= same result in a more detailed breakdown of mobility, whether measuring wha=t happens inter-generationally or over one individual's lifetime. The myster=y, they write, is that given that there is no evidence of American exception=alism or increased social mobility, why the myth persists.
The answer is that nobody in the highly introverted society that the US has= become can believe that foreigners might do it as well or better - and the =conservative intellectual ascendancy is not going to disabuse them. The comb=ination of reduced educational opportunity for low-income students and more =advantages conferred on the rich - the great achievements of conservatism - =can only have one result. America is developing an aristocracy of the rich a=nd serfdom of the poor and, in so doing, threatening its own economic vitali=ty.
The US itself is stirring. It is not just foreign critics who believe the U=S has not solved the age-old question about how to construct a just economic= and social order - or operate an effective democracy. A growing number of A=mericans share the same view. The argument that Europe should copy the US is= in important respects the wrong way round. It is European social outcomes f=rom which the US now needs to borrow; nor is the European economy as sclerot=ic as US conservatives like to portray (as argued in tomorrow's extract in t=he Guardian ). Yet it is the US, the country which has left so many of its c=itizens barren and ill at ease with themselves, and which is riven by intern=al concern and criticism, that is held up as a model for the world. It is ti=me for Europeans to recognise the strength of their social outcomes and defe=nd them.
© Will Hutton 2002. Will Hutton's ground breaking book, The State We're In,= affected government policy. His latest title, The World We're In, will affe=ct us all as the future of Britain is decided. The World We're In will retai=l at £17.99; however, Time Warner Books UK are pleased to offer Guardian / O=bserver readers the special price of £15.99 plus free packing and postage. <=BR> Will Hutton Offer, P.O. Box 121, Kettering, Northants NN14 4XQ, tel. 01832 =737525, fax. 01832 733076
 --MS_Mac_OE_3103056526_1509881_MIME_Part-- To reply: mailto:labor-newsline.17998@webboard.mediate.com To start a new topic: mailto:labor-newsline@webboard.mediate.com To login: http://webboard.mediate.com:80/~labornet --part1_197.644ebae.2a01319f_boundary-- From HNixon6081@aol.com Thu May 02 00:08:22 2002 Return-Path: Delivered-To: usgp-mx-lab