BILL FLETCHER JR, LABOR AND GLOBALIZATION
Jun 12th, 2009 by Conor McCabe
Below is an audio recording I made of Bill Fletcher Jr´s talk at the Working Class Studies Association´s Conference, which was held in Pittsburgh this month (June 09). Bill is a long-time political and labor activist, and is also executive editor of Black Commentator. I’ve also uploaded seven minutes of video of the same talk, which was the limit I could film before my memory card ran out.
The talk was the first of two in the session. The other speaker was Fred Redmond, international vice-president (human affairs) of the United Steel Workers - a union that formed a merger last year with the British (and Irish) union, UNITE. The union is called Workers Uniting, and more information on the merger can be found here. The merger has placed Ireland within the international trade union response to Globalization, and I´ll have more on this later.
Getting back to Bill Fletcher, he talks about neo-liberalism, and how the current crisis may see a weakening of the power of that particular brand of global capitalism without necessarily leading to a weakening of global capitalism itself. There is nothing inevitable about the fall of capitalism, despite its inherent contradictions. Crisis is inevitable, but destruction? That will take more than a little input from ourselves.
Anyway, have a listen for yourself.
Enjoy.
