>>Eliminate Korean subsidies to their manufacturing industries

Riiiight, that's the problem.

The US would never subsidize!

http://www.usitc.gov/tata/hts/

Sir, your argument amounts to the following:

They are hurting their economy with tariffs --- we should to!

"Solidarity for Sale" by Robert Fitch. Subtitle: "How Corruption Destroyed the Labor Movement and Undermined America's Promise"

http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9781891620720-2

Whar nonsense. All of that is happening right now without tariffs. Eliminate Korean subsidies to their manufacturing industries and then we can talk.

Those who forget history... you know how that goes.

Historically, unions have an extremely spotty record for "getting it" on the whole "Workers of the world, unite!" level.

In fact if you look at history, unions have been on the side of the Luddites and the Protectionists, and championed anti-immigration because, as "we" all "knew", "they" were coming over "here" to take "our" jobs.

Imagine how different the history of industrial relations would have been if unions had set aside, say, 10% of union dues to buy stock in the companies where their members worked. Giving them real power to set company policy. But, sadly, no.

Instead union dues have been spent on enriching union officials and supporting politicians who are notionally "left" but have never spent a day doing anything remotely resembling blue-collar work, and spend their years in office making life ever easier for big biz.

Imagine a world where unions financially supported their members to retrain, rather than running whole industries into the ground (UAW, I'm looking at you!) by refusing to understand even the basic first principles of running a company. Company boss: "We can spend money on making sure we still have a company in 5 years time, or top up the union-mandated retirement fund, make a choice." Union Boss "Ok then, retirement fund it is!"

Go on, check the UAW website right now. I'll be here when you get back. www.uaw.org "Tell Congress NO on Korea Free Trade!" screams a headline.

Why, exactly? Korean auto workers don't deserve jobs?

What part of "tariffs harm everybody" don't you people understand? That's just basic economics.

Supporting the US car industry with tariffs means:

*tax dollars spent on that and not on other things like education and hospitals

*auto worker kids become dumber and sicker

*auto workers (and everyone else) can no longer afford cars, as their money is going to hospital bills

*car companies fall on hard times

*industry shrinks employing less workers

*tax base shrinks as more people are out of work

*Korean car industry shrinks

*Korea retaliates with tariffs making US exports harder to sell

*economy nosedives, putting MORE pressure on tax revenue

Yeah. I'm sure the Korean auto workers union is just chomping at the bit waiting to amalgamate and get a taste of all that good stuff!

Remember the old joke?

Q: Why did The Capitalists decide to allow Unions to form in the first place?

A: Because they realized that if they did, workers would stop fighting them and start fighting each other.

How many millions of dollars (billions?) are the union bosses going to extort out of the workers of the world before we all wake up to the scam? Unions enrich union bosses at great expense to the workers, greater expense to the companies, and the greatest expense to the national/world economy.

I believe that since the U.S. Gov't technically provides the oversight necessary to keep U.S. companies from subjecting their employees to brutal treatment if not killing them, that unions in America have lost their principal raison d’être.

However since American companies are globalizing, (i.e. able to hire people in countries with no oversight) it is imperative that U.S. workers organize their foreign counterparts not only because it's a good cause but because as long as foreign (non-oversight) employees compete against American employees, the Americans are going to lose big.

For you free-market types, that means if its fair for American companies to outsource and paddle their wares in foreign markets, then its fair for unions.

Interesting post, Mr. Leonard.

Stern gets it. The transnational corporations who have made the global economy into their plaything can only be effectively opposed by a labor movement equally adept at moving across borders and exploiting the networking power of globalization.

Over a century later, again somebody gets it? Don't link Mr. Stern to Joe Hill and the other founders of the Industrial Workers of the World -- it does a disservice to the Wobblies. Today's unions are a far cry from the Wobblies (even today's Wobblies are a far cry from the Wobblies in their heyday, at least in number, if not in spirit).

Not that the innovative and imaginative tactics of the IWW wouldn't be instructive to any progressives today -- but maybe worse would be symbolically invoking the One Big Union idea while keeping the Same Old Union (e.g., AFL) approach that led to unionism's decline in this country, by turning workers from active participants in their own unions to spectators, and, ultimately, victims.

I wholeheartedly support unions and unionism, but the movement needs to delve far deeper into the IWW's playbook than just the One Big Union for it to get some fire behind it.

But at least (I guess), Stern's recognizing that global Labor is the working person's only defense against global Capital. The alternative is the race to the bottom in standards and wages for workers.