A CASUALTY OF GLOBALIZATION Death of the Unions

October 27, 2006

CASUALTY OF GLOBALIZATION
Death of the Unions

By Gabor Steingart

It used to be that industry could do little without first getting the support of the unions. With the globalization of the labor market though, unions have lost their power -- and many of their members. Organized labor is on life support.

http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,726585,00.jpg
"Poor despite employment." Union members are becoming increasingly lonely in Europe and the US.


Editor's Note: The following essay has been excerpted from the German best-seller "World War for Wealth: The Global Grab for Power and Prosperity" by SPIEGEL editor Gabor Steingart. SPIEGEL ONLINE is publishing a series of daily excerpts from the book.

The following is an obituary.

The death, though, was never publicly announced -- and the tragedy is compounded by the fact that the closest relatives are keeping it a secret. But that does not alter the truth: Trade unions, as we knew them, are dead. The protector of the underdog is no more. What passes for a union today does not have the power to provide shelter.

In fact, even the estate executors need protection. Unions once saw themselves as a buffer against the whims of the executives. They made sure that wages were fair. They also functioned as the political voice of society. Today, such unions are a thing of the past.

The development of a global job market, the appearance of 1.2 billion new workers and the readiness of millions more to work at any cost has robbed the job brokers of their once-powerful position.

FULL story at link.

Trade agreements could have had as many enforceable rights for workers as they did for corporations. But they opened markets and expanded trade with only half of the economic trade defined.

NAFTA, CAFTA and other US trade agreements left out routine protections for workers that they put in for corporations. It is nothing but a free for all when it comes to labor. Corporations have rights to litigate if someone is flooding the market with cheap products in an effort to kill competition. Yet Unions don't have the right to litigate if someone is flooding the market with cheap labor like child labor.

Seems to me whoever agreed to and signed off on these half ass trade agreements wanted labor to suffer. That means the end of the middle class.

.