Labor needs to encourage critical engagement with China, not isolation. This does include criticism of China s human rights practice. But China is too important for the US labor movement to simply speak to via the US media alone. The American labor movement should take a bold step and seek to open up dialogue and cultivate relationships with workers and trade unions in China. While American labor leaders should continue to meet with Chinese political dissidents, it would also be important to meet with other union leaders and workers in China.
China is home of the largest trade union confederation in the world.
While it is true that Chinese trade unions are not independent from the government, they are legitimate worker organizations with 100 million members, and reflect great diversity depending on the industry, sector, geographic area, and individual union leadership. The policies of the Cold War have prevented the American labor movement from establishing fraternal relations with trade unions in China. Decades after President Nixon went to China, opening US relations with the People's Republic of China, maybe it s time for AFL-CIO President John Sweeney to consider such an initiative and reach out to Chinese workers. As recently as 1995, American labor movement representatives were discouraged from attending the Beijing Women's Conference, sponsored by the United Nations, because China was hosting it. To this day, the AFL-CIO does not recognize the Chinese trade union movement, and Chinese trade unionists cannot visit the United States as official representatives of their unions.