Sipueda
5 June 2000
Here is just a thought about trading with China.
My mother never told me “Johnny is a bad boy but he’ll get better if you don’t play with him. ” What she said was “Don’t play with Johnny or he’ll be a bad influence on you”
I got from that you do what’s right because it’s right. It’s not right for people to work in 100 degree temperatures earning only enough to survive. Or to be paid so little that you are in debt to the company or for it to be illegal to form a union.
What’s the debate about? Do the right thing? Or your mother will find out.
Gerry Collen
4 June 2000
Brother Stephen,
I agree with you. The ILWU has had a long history of helping China. Being in an industry that will grow with the passage of the entry of China (more ILWU union jobs), I feel we should have come out in agreement to China’s entry. I see on this listbot the rightward swing of the ILWU. It’s amazing how soon members forget that we are a Democratic organization that supports Democrats.
Gerry
ILWU #23 Tacoma
Al Gore in 2000
Stephen Rouelle
2 June 2000
Brother Louie,
It seems to me that you are confusing a few issues, “normal” trade relations with China can’t be compared to the WTO or “fast track”. These are different issues and it should be pointed out that China already has so called normal trade relations with most of the world. So the question is how is not having normal trade going to help human rights problems in China? So far it hasn’t, in fact the case could be made that these types of sanctions usually do more to hurt the very people this organization is trying to help. The case can also be made that normal trade has helped human rights in some cases such as Vietnam for example. The U. S. trade policy in general has many problems, but these problems are by no means specific to China and Normal or other trade status with China will not lead to solving our over all trade policy problems. Also Instead of asking where Brother McWilliams has been? I would ask where you have been. Brian has repeatedly spoken on this issue internally and in industry meetings for months now. In fact some of these meetings have been reported on this listbot. Also this issue was on the convention floor in Portland. So if you have any shock or amazement it should be directed someplace else.
Fraternally,
Stephen Rouelle, Local 142
Steve Stallone
31 May 2000
The position of the union on the China trade issue was determined by the Convention. Below is the resolution passed at the Portland Convention by the elected representatives of the rank and file, the highest policy making body of the union.
(see The ILWU, China and Human Rights)
Louie
28 May 2000
Sisters and Brothers,
I wonder if i am the only one that is shocked and amazed at the lack of presence and the ILWU leadership concerning the most recent vote in Congress regarding the permanent normal trade relations with China.
Where was brother McWilliams when sides were being drawn?
I don’t remember any campaign by the international to organize in the defeat of this legislation. When it came to opposing fast track trade legislation, the leadership of the ILWU put its full weight and might into the glorious defeat of BAD legislation.
Big (corporate) brother perpetrated yet another hoax upon the American people, by convincing slick Willie to pull out all the stops by stroking the unscrupulous Congress with promises of grandeur, if they would only vote in favor of the multinationals.
During the WTO demonstrations in Seattle, the ILWU impressed workers of the world by its strength and conviction to oppose this group of non-democratic, unelected savages.
And now the ILWU leadership is silenct. WHY? By WHOM?
I sincerely brother Brian will read this and respond.
Let me know how the rest of you feel bout this apparent sell-out.
fraternally, louie
marine division (#10211)
Dave
3 June
Brian,
Remember the old days on the waterfront, in times of winter scarcity of work, when the aged Commies would wisper to us youngsters that if trade to China were opened there would be full employment and great prosperity in our land, and that the Capitalists did not want that? At least the ILWU is more or less consistent, even if the objectified and personified capitalists aren’t.
Dave
Brian Nelson
31 May 2000
One paragraph of the LA Times article, California Poised to Gain From Open Markets, caught my attention for the subtext of the comments regarding the ILWU position on the recently-passed permanent trade relations bill with China, as follows
“In fact, California’s ties to China help explain why the San Francisco-based International Longshore and Warehouse Union was one of the few labor groups to dissent from the national AFL-CIO’s negative stance on China trade. The core of the union’s membership consists of longshore workers who stand to benefit from increased port traffic. ”
“In fact,” introduces an opinion, for starters.
Yes, the ILWU was one of the few labor groups to dissent from the national AFL-CIO’s “negative” stance on China trade. But were “California’s ties” actually a factor? What those “ties” consist of is up to the imagination. Also, the term leaves out the members from Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Canada, and Alaska. I kind of doubt that “California’s ties”, whatver they are are supposed to be, helps to explain this policy at all. So this isn’t a fact, as I see it, just a journalist making another argument, and a vague one at that.
Also, I don’t think that the AFL-CIO’s stance on the permanent favored nations status for China was negative – which is my own opinion, of course, and maybe an incorrect one. I think that here again, the journalist is slipping an opinion past the reader.
However, in order to shore up his assertions, the journalist reminds the reader that ILWU workers will “stand to benefit” from the expected increase in trade with China – in other words, they’re not doing it out of principle, but for the money.
Brian Nelson, Local 34
People’s Weekly World
21 May 2000
The AFL-CIO is taking a detour with its campaign to deny normal permanent trade relations (NPTR) with the People’s Republic of China. We are especially concerned that the federation has delayed much of its 2000 election activity in pursuit of that goal.
We are not going to argue the pros and cons of the human rights situation in China, except to say that we take the State Department pronouncements on human rights in other countries with a grain of salt. Instead, we accept the conclusion of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights that human rights in China do not require review by the international community. At the same time we recognize that the Business Round Table campaign supporting NPTR for China is all about exploitation and profits =96 not the rights of American or Chinese workers.
A resolution adopted by the recently concluded convention of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) said it as well as any: “The fight over trade with China should not overshadow or sidetrack the momentum built by the Seattle protest over globalization and the corporate-led exploitation of workers worldwide. ”
The number-one task before the American people is that of wresting control of Congress from the likes of Tom DeLay and Bill Archer and keeping George W. Bush out of the White House in November. That will require the united effort of all the elements of the “Seattle Coalition” that shut down the World Trade Organization last fall.
By dipping into the muck of cold-war propaganda, the anti-China campaign threatens this unity and is pushing the political spectrum to the right, into the arms of the Pat Buchanans.
The 2000 election campaign needs to get back on track, leading to the election of a Congress less in the grip of the corporations, one that will better serve the needs of the American people.
