-By Warner Todd Huston
Once in a while it is fun to check in with the anti-American left, a political side that is usually blindly pro-union. Once in a while they go off on a fun tangent attacking their own, however, and when that happens it’s time to get out the popcorn to watch the fireworks.
This time an anti-American activist named Nick Egnatz wrote a review of a book titled AFL-CIO’s Secret War against Developing Country Workers (Lexington Books, 2010) and he’s both fired up against the AFL-CIO and troubled by his own alarm at a union. It’s funny stuff.
The premise of the book is that the AFL-CIO is working to keep down the poor workers of third world nations in order to enrich themselves. With his penchant to believe every conspiracy theory that comes down the pike, Egnatz swallowed the book whole. And he ended up getting in trouble with his union thug pals over his enthusiasm for the tome.
The book was a real eye opener for me, as one outside the U.S. labor movement, but committed to social and economic justice. When I first started to read the book I sent out an email promoting it and mentioned that it brought into question the relevance of the U.S. labor movement. A union organizer on my list responded, “Gee, thanks Nick! I guess I’ll just go home and quit my irrelevant attempt at organizing and representing workers! Btw, irrelevant to whom or what?”
I issued an apology because I am sure that most within the U.S. labor movement have the best of intentions and the highest of ideals and that the relevance of their union membership is of paramount importance to them and their families and I certainly meant no disrespect to them. I have no axe to grind with rank and file workers, inside or outside of organized labor. On the other hand, leadership that subverts internal democracy and upholds U.S. Empire is irrelevant to those it leads within Labor. Those outside Labor who have no one representing them in the workplace may actually depend more on organized labor for support than labor’s rank and file membership.
Ooopsie.
Still, Egnatz insists that the AFL-CIO is a “cancer” that will “result in the complete irrelevance of the U.S. labor movement.” Ouch. It’s so sad when lefties eat their own, ain’t it?
It is amusing, though.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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