Business Week / NEWS ANALYSIS / APRIL 17, 2000
The Washington protests could be a turning point in getting the disparate factions to work in concert -- and more effectively
Last December, the groups opposing globalization at the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle were united in purpose but divided about their goals. Union leaders wanted higher global labor standards. They were motivated primarily by the economic toll that imports have taken on U.S. workers. Almost everyone else -- students, environmentalists, and religious and nonprofit groups -- were more concerned about the impact globalization has on low-wage workers and environmental conditions in developing countries. The two forces held largely separate marches in Seattle, even though they took place at the same time.
Now as these diverse groups reunited again in Washington, D.C., on Apr 16, their agendas are starting to merge. The AFL-CIO endorsed demands for reforming the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). And students and environmentalists have broadened their focus to embrace the AFL-CIO's call for global labor standards, as well as its rejection of normal trade relations between the U.S. and China.
The coalescing of views is likely to strengthen the nascent antiglobalization movement. Students and other mostly young protestors grabbed headlines in both Seattle and Washington by challenging the police and getting arrested. But these groups lack labor's nationwide political apparatus, with its tens of thousands of rank-and-file foot soldiers in most cities around the country.
"INSPIRING." At the same time, students and environmentalists inject some moral legitimacy to the unions' call for international labor standards. After all, it's more difficult to accuse the unions of acting out of protectionist impulses, a charge commonly brought against organized labor. "It's inspiring to see solidarity between students and labor activists," Rupa Gona, a University of Pennsylvania undergraduate and member of the United Students Against Sweatshop (USAS), told the thousands of protestors gathered on the Ellipse near the White House. "It's only by standing together that we will prevail."
Indeed, the most significant long-term development of the Washington gathering may be the coalition-building that has begun among the polyglot antiglobalization forces. For example, in a pre-demonstration gathering on Apr. 14, some 3,000 students and United Steelworkers (USW) members met at a Washington Marriott to plan ways they could work together in the future. After hearing speakers from both groups, the meeting broke up into workshops organized by geographic region. The goal, said USW President George Becker, is to create local groups to combat what both sides call the "corporate globalization agenda."
The three-year-old USAS began as a protest against poor working conditions in developing-country factories owned or used by Nike, Gap, and other U.S. apparel makers. In recent months, USAS chapters have mounted sit-ins and hunger strikes at more than 60 colleges, among them Duke, Brown, and Tulane. Their goal: to force apparel makers that sell clothes with their college's names on them to agree to independent monitoring of their factories. Already, the students have goaded several hundred companies and subcontractors to disclose the location of their factories that manufacture for the collegiate licensing market.
SIERRA CLUB TIES. At the Marriott, USAS leaders discussed how their relatively narrow focus on collegiate apparel sweatshops fits into organized labor's call for global labor standards. "It's not the responsibility of companies to control the process of how workers organize into unions" in developing countries," says Marian Joffe-Block, a USAS representative who attended the session.
Environmentalists have been integrating their goals with labor's, too. For example, on Apr. 10, AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney held a joint press conference with Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope, who annouced that his group would join labor's campaign against normal trade relations with China. Pope said he would launch a grassroots effort to pressure Congress on the issue in cooperation with the AFL-CIO. Pope released a letter he planned to send to representatives that says normal trade relations could undermine "the ability of Chinese citizens to fight for workers' rights, environmental protection, and other social goals."
Labor, for its part, has broadened its plan of action as well. Until now, the AFL-CIO has focused aggressively on trade issues, such as demanding that the World Trade Organization adopt labor standards and insisting that China do likewise before the U.S. grants normal trade relations. But on Apr. 9, labor turned out hundreds of members at a Washington rally to persuade the IMF and Western governments to cancel the debt of poor countries.
LABOR ON BOARD. The AFL-CIO was slower to embrace the Apr. 16 rally, in part because it doesn't agree with the protestors who want to abolish the World Bank and the IMF. However, labor does agree with those who want to reform the global bodies. So in early April, it finally jumped on board and began coordinating the rally with the Mobilization for Global Justice, the ad hoc umbrella organization that was planning the Apr. 16 event. In the end, the AFL-CIO supplied crowd-control marshals for the demonstration and march. And nearly a dozen labor leaders addressed the crowd on the Ellipse that day, including the Steelworkers' Becker and AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Rich Trumka.
The antiglobalization forces encompass too many divergent goals to ever truly become a unified political force. But they're likely to leave Washington with more common ground than they had when they arrived.
By Aaron Bernstein in Washington
EDITED BY DOUGLAS HARBRECHT:
