Following up on last week's post, what's odd is that folks like myself who promote tighter fair trade rules can be accused of trying to help American workers by focusing "on finding ways to keep the Chinese population trapped in crushing poverty," while when we talk about immigration, a person like Michael Lind refers to progressives as "dupes and allies on the fringe left" that help foreign immigrants at the expense of American workers. 

When you see these kinds of completely opposite accusations, you can usually bet that the DC/mainstream media paradigm is not really making room for understanding a pretty basic dissent from its politics. Right now, we have a recognized rightwing policy position that supports free trade combined with xenophobic anti-immigrant politics versus a liberal free trade position that promotes a bit more immigration, but in highly controlled guest worker conditions serving corporate interests combined with trade deals with token labor provisions that still are designed based on corporate interests.

What's missing is a basic debate on why we have international policies that give corporate capital the right to cross borders at will, make contracts freely without government interference, then pull investments out when governments demand corporate accountability, yet labor is denied similar freedom on a global basis. The fair trade-immigrant rights position actually boils down to a simple demand: give labor at least the same rights as corporate capital in the global economy.

A global "free labor" policy recognizes that people trapped in economic desperation should have the opportunity to migrate to other countries where economic opportunities are greater, combined with trade rules that encourage better wages and conditions that would discourage the need for emigration in the first place. The more global labor rules concentrate gains from global growth in the hands of workers around the world, the less need or desire they will have to migrate away from their homes.  

NAFTA is a poster child to the problem of present trade rules. "Free trade" enriched corporate interests on both sides of the Rio Grande, yet many of the poorest Mexicans saw little gain and the displacement caused by these trade deals drove much of the emigration to the United States. The progressive fair trade position sees promoting global labor rights, not a militarization of the border, as the key to deterring immigration, based on the voluntary decision of individuals to not want to leave their homes rather than coercive force. 

This "free labor" view is the true global internationalism, not the "free trade" position that depends on border controls to keep the global economic losers from being able to flee what Naomi Klein has labelled the "disaster capitalism" free trade policies breed. What is remarkable is that the mainstream media continues to picture elite corporate free trade policies as enlightened internationalism, while trying to paint progressive fair trade folks as parochial.

Because of the essential media blackout of what major labor unions, for example, actually say on trade and globalization, most people don't even understand that this is the maintstream progressive fair trade position. I posted these union leader quotes a few years ago, but they're worth reprinting:

Here is John Sweeney, head of the AFL-CIO, on the new internationalism embraced by the modern labor movement:

The discussion about the future of the global economy must not be about softening a backlash, but about embracing a new internationalism - one based on the understanding that trade is an economic tool to meet the ends of development, democracy and a better deal for working people and their families around the globe.

And here is Andy Stern, head of SEIU and key leader of the Change to Win union federation, on the new global economy:

You're not thinking about a country anymore, but a world. You're not thinking any more about jobs people hold for a lifetime, or jobs that can't be be outsourced or can't have people come to the country and do them instead. The solution is not to go back and try to say we should have closed the borders...So then the question is how do you have global unions when you have global employers? How do you have global institutions that not just protect patents of big corporations, but also make sure that people get their environment protected, people get their wages protected? So we're just not protecting property, we're protecting people. That we globalize rights, not just globalize capitalism and finances.

On the pragmatic side, this doesn't necessarily mean that the borders are thrown completely open, but that trade and immigration are both regulated so as to maximize the economic well-being of all workers globally. Those who pragmatically want restrictions on immigration shouldn't act so horrified when fair trade advocates then demand restrictions on capital to better the lives of workers left trapped in economically desperate countires or economically displaced by trade in developed nations. The bottom line demand remains that labor should have at least as strong rights globally as corporate interests with the goal being to move towards a world of full rights to labor migration globally and strong enough labor rights to make most such migration unneeded.

Part of a global free labor policy would also put the a stronger focus on strengthening labor rights in the US, a point I made in this post, which emphasized that most of the fears about immigration to the U.S. would be unneeded if workers rights were stronger here at home.   The bad effects of immigration-- sweatshops, lowered wage standards, illegal work conditions -- are  a product not of immigration itself but of the weak enforcement and wage standards that make exploitation of immigrants just an enhancement of the broader violation of labor rights happening throughout the economy. 

Fair trade, immigrant rights, global justice -- all add up to a global free labor policy that is actually now the mainstream of progressive politics from labor union advocates to consumer rights groups like Public Citizen to community advocates mobilized on behalf of immigrant rights. It may not fit the simple paradigm of protectionism versus free trade that the mainstream media prefers, but the mobilization in Seattle back in 1999, the mass Social Forums meeting around the world, and the ongoing building of global labor links all reflect this new global politics.