Article by Harold Meyerson in WaPo:
"These far-flung unions envision a day when unions from every continent can sit across the table from a global employer and negotiate a common code of conduct and worker rights."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/26/AR2005082601480.html
Of course, I look at it from a more political angle....
It's a big understatement to say that the whim of the CEO of a big multinational in Washington or California has a big effect that creates ripples across the world - as we have noted in the case of Enron, Halliburton and other feathers from the same bird.
That labor and it's influence on politics has been marginalized by technology and globalization is no big secret. It has contibuted, in no small measure, to the downward drift in the fortunes of the Democrats in the polls.
We have been yelling about the sweatshops in China that cause the pink slips to be handed out here at home, but what we done about it? Nothing - because you can't stop globalization. Change and adaptation to circumstances is the only way to surmount obstacles created by time and nature. In practical terms, it means lending your support to the workers in the 'sweat shops'. Improve their lot - Form a coalition of global workers - and the benefits will spread out evenly. What they get - More pay, better conditions. What you get - Their support, their contributions, both monetary and physical efforts - for fulfilling common objectives. Right now they're working against you. You protest or demand more - The plant gets moved to China or Mexico or India.
Imagine a globally funded union, organising against some action by management or politicians. If workers in plants the worldover refused to do any work in Iraq or produce anything which might be headed for Iraq, that creates a heck of a more potent force to be reckoned with than any demonstration on the street. Same thing applies for Healthcare, safety, job security, pollution and a host of other issues.
Look - jobs are disappearing fast. Better that we team up them, they get more benefits, and we get to keep more jobs. Everyone's better off - Except for the Fatcat CEO's in the air-conditioned boardrooms and their political patrons who have a spanner thrown into their industrial-politics-money combine.