Last Friday, the British daily newspaper The Independent ran a column by Johann Hari which while it opposed the AUT boycott of Israel did call for “smart sanctions” instead. My letter in response to Hari was published today, and appears below.
A decade ago, maybe even five years ago, the story I’m about to tell could never have happened.
Two of the recent campaigns we’ve run on the LabourStart website are what one might consider success stories. And yet the results — so far — could not be more different.
One of the campaigns — in support of workers in the Bahamas who lost their jobs — resulted in a big victory. The other — in support of imprisoned trade union leaders in Eritrea — has produced no concrete results; the union leaders are still in prison. And yet both campaigns, the Bahamas one and the Eritrean one, have been successful. In some senses, the second one — even though the union leaders are still in jail — may be even more of a success story than the first.
The battle over workers’ rights at Wal-Mart is increasingly being fought in cyberspace.
For the first time in memory — perhaps the first time ever — American unions are discussing their future. And that discussion is taking place, in large part, on the web.