Ed Deform is the NAFTA Equivalent: The Neo-Liberal Assault on Blue Collar Workers and Unions Includes Teachers

I'm writing this as a topic for discussion at tomorrow's ICE meeting. Does the analogy of NAFTA and ed deform as the same type of neo-liberal attack hold water in terms of the loss of blue collar and public school jobs as a way to lower labor costs and funnel the profits into private hands?

As we read analysis after analysis of the Democratic Party's abandonment of the working class as the reason for the Trump victory. But how many of these analysts on the left and left center delve into the Democratic Party's abandonment of public school teachers and their unions, despite the slavish worship of UFT/AFT/NEA leaders  for their almost meaningless little stool at the table?

Commentators talk about blue collar workers but neglect that the major assault has been launched by both parties on teachers and public schools. That giant sucking sound of job loss Ross Pirot warned about NAFTA in the early 90s is being echoed in the public schools by the charters and the upcoming vouchers. But no one is paying much attention to the analogy.

To me there is a similarity between a corporation going to Mexico and New Orleans and Detroit going charter - the very same idea is operating -- the same type of shift to paying lower wages. While some people are fooled by the social justice rhetoric of charters, their mostly positive response to the Trump destruction of public ed shows what they are really about. And note that some big corp just paid around $125 million for 5 charter schools in Florida.

There's charter gold in them that hills

The gold rush is on.


As long as the Democratic Party that shilled for ed deform and charters have ed deform people like Hakim Jeffries and Corey Booker and Cuomo, teachers who are being chopped will not be won over. I know my readers can't stomach what I am about to say but De Blasio was the only one who had the guts to take on Eva and he was slaughtered and backed off -- and even though so many schools are in awful shape and teachers are pissed - just see what options you have next year in the election when the choice will be DeB or an Eva Moskowitz clone -- and I bet some of the angry people who are pissed at DeB and Farina will put their head in the noose and vote for the Eva Clone because to them deB is too liberal. Good luck with that.

Trump-supporting or Jill Stein voting teachers in the UFT were so pissed at our union leaders they will never vote Democratic Party until the Republican Party screws things up so badly they have no other choice -- like imagine if non-Hillary voters find themselves with a vastly reduced pension and without a job as a giant sucking sound that makes NAFTA look like pablum decimates their jobs.

I don't see a lot of ways around this other than to think of a Bernie like party --- it would be left of any Dems and for the right wingers in the UFT out of the question but by then there may no longer be much of a UFT.

A Short Guide to the WTO, the Millennial Round, and the Rumble in Seattle

With NAFTA becoming a major part of the political campaign between Clinton and Obama, I remembered Ed Notes re-printing an article about free trade. It was shortly before the WTO meeting in Seattle and cleared up a number of misconceptions I had and forced me to confront my basic instinct to be a supporter of unfettered free trade. After all, we were taught in high school and college economics that a major reason for the Great Worldwide Depression of the 1930's was the restriction of free trade (the Hoot-Smalley tariff bill was a major villain we were told.) Then came the riots that disrupted the conference and shook downtown Seattle like no earthquake could. I guess the powers that be never read Elaine Bernard's article.

While not stated, applications of market-based and corporate agendas to education systems can be implied.

Ed Notes reprint from the Jan. 2000 edition


A Short Guide to the WTO, the Millennial Round, and the Rumble in Seattle
By Elaine Bernard
November 24, 1999

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is coming to Seattle at the end of November and tens of thousands of labor, environmental, and progressive activists are organizing to give them a hot reception. There are thousands and thousands of pages out there - on the net, in progressive journals, articles, even books, on the WTO. But rather like trade agreements themselves, sometimes the very volume of materials available on the topic overwhelms the uninitiated reader. So, I thought I would put together a quick guide to the WTO, to the Seattle meeting, and to the various debates within the progressive community on the WTO.

What is the WTO?
It’s an international organization of 134 member countries which is both a forum for negotiating international trade agreements and the monitoring and regulating body for enforcing the agreements. The WTO was created in 1995, by the passage of the provisions of “Uruguay Round” of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Prior to the Uruguay Round, GATT focused on promoting world trade by pressuring countries to reduce tariffs. But with the creation of the WTO, this corporate inspired agenda was significantly ratchet up by targeting so-called “non-tariff barriers to trade” - essentially any national or local protective legislation which might be construed as impacting trade.

So, Aren’t we in favor of regulation?
Sure, but not the type of regulation proposed by the WTO, a powerful body of un-elected bureaucrats, who deliberate in secret with an aim to turning the entire world into one big market. Officially, the WTO has two main objectives: to promote and extend trade liberalization (by breaking down national “barriers” to trade), and to establish a mechanism for trade dispute settlement.

In practice, the WTO is seeking to deregulate international commerce and break open domestic markets for foreign investors. Its rule making seeks to free corporations from government regulation which would constitute a barrier to trade. It permits relatively unrestricted movement of money, capital, goods and services, while at the same time providing investors and corporations with extensive protection of their property rights. It even extends corporate property rights through the so called “intellectual properties” provisions. Intellectual property as defined by trade agreements is not about the creative powers of intellectuals. Rather, it is about protecting corporate ownership and monopoly over the patenting of plants, processes, seed varieties, drugs, and software. The intellectual property provisions are just one example of how there is extensive protectionism in this so-called “free trade” regime - but protection for corporations and punitive market discipline for workers, consumers and small farmers.

Freedom for Capital, Market Discipline for Labor
Here’s an example of WTO thinking. The WTO says that they can not deal with social issues, only “trade” forgetting that once you start to deal with trade in services, you are indeed dealing with many social issues. It says that it can only regulate “product” not “process.” With labor and environmental standards, what we normally regulate is process. It’s been an important acquisition of the labor, consumer, and environmental movements in recent years to move beyond the simple regulation of end product and regulate process - how things are made. It is in the very production methods that we can improve safety, eliminate hazards and develop cleaner processes. The difference between a shirt produced by sweated labor under near slave like conditions and a shirt produced by union labor under decent conditions isn’t readily obvious in the packaging (the end product) but rather its observed in the monitoring of the “process” of how the shirt is produced.

By contrast, when the WTO sees the interest of investors and capital threatened - it can spring into action and be quite powerful in its enforcement. So, for example, when workers are being forced to work with flagrant violation of labor law and safety codes, the WTO says there is nothing it can do. But let these same workers illegally produce “pirate” videos, or CDs (challenging a corporations copyright) and the WTO can spring into action sanctioning all sorts of actions against the offending country - in order to protect a corporations “intellectual property.”

Ok, back to Seattle, what is the millennium round?
The WTO wants to continue its campaign of trade liberalization and in particular it wants to increase the trade in services - including public services. Unfortunately, this means further turning over services such as health care, education, water and utilities to markets and international competition and undermining and destroying local control and protection of communities.

What’s the problem with markets?
Markets are fine, in their place, but they must not be permitted to replace social decision-making. Markets should not be confused with democratic institutions. Markets, for example, might be useful in determining price of goods, but they should not be mechanisms for determining our values as a community. Markets are oblivious to morals and promote only the value of profit.

So, what do we want to do about the WTO?
Resistance to the free trade agenda and the continual drive to undermine social decision-making and democracy is the basis of unity for all the groups protesting the WTO. Beyond that profound and important agreement, there are wider differences about what to do about the WTO.

Resisters want to abolish the WTO
Some of the groups coming to Seattle are supporters of the resistance movement - arguing that the trade liberalization program of the WTO is fundamentally flawed and we would be better simply abolishing this dangerous organization. They argue for building the global resistance and constructing global solidarity from below.

Reformers believe they can transform the WTO
Others, in particular much of organized labor argue that while the WTO trade liberalization program is deeply flawed, it’s now well established as a powerful organization and that the concept of negotiated trade regulation is vital to the health and welfare of the world community. They argue that if core labor rights, environmental protections, and what the Europeans refer to as a “social clause” was inserted into the WTO’s mandate and practice that it could be transformed.

Resisters, reformers and rebels from around the globe will be gathering in Seattle later this month in a remarkable international solidarity action challenging the WTO’s corporate agenda. While there are important tactical differences in approaches to the WTO, there is also a fair degree of unity in action and in identifying the WTO as an important global institution promoting policies which are contributing to the growth of inequality and the undermining of democracy. The protest in Seattle maybe be both the last major, international demonstration of the century and the beginning of a new powerful global solidarity movement.

Elaine Bernard is Executive Director, Harvard Trade Union Program. Copyright (c) 1999 Elaine Bernard.