U.S. AND CHINESE LABOR AT A CHANGING MOMENT IN THE GLOBAL NEOLIBERAL ECONOMY

Abstract

For the past sixty years, Cold War ideology kept the U.S. labor movement totally disengaged from the All‐China Federation of Trade Unions. Even as vast and relevant changes took place, which should have altered the stalemate (including the introduction of capitalized markets in China, the relocation of much U.S.‐based production to China, the interpenetration of U.S.‐Chinese economies through trade, financial, diplomatic, commercial, and cultural relations), little thaw has come. This article begins by examining elements of the U.S. and Chinese labor movements during defining periods of the 1950s–1970s, the 1980s–1990s, and the current decade, drawing some frequently unrecognized parallels. The pattern of systematic labor degradation created by the global regime of neoliberalism will be seen to have brought crisis to labor movements in both countries. We end on the question of trade union reform, and the almost unimaginable possibility of transnational labor solidarity emerging.