Labor Sec. Perez: Foes of Pacific trade deal are laboring under a misconception

[freshwest]

13. Perez is speaking the old IWW motto: 'An injury to one is an injury to all.'

An injury to one is an injury to all is a motto popularly used by the Industrial Workers of the World.

In his autobiography, Bill Haywood credited David C. Coates with suggesting a labor slogan for the IWW:

An injury to one is an injury to all.[1] The slogan has since been used by a number of labor organizations. The slogan reflects the fact that the IWW is "One Big Union" and organizes skilled and unskilled workers.

Despite the reduced number of organized workers today, the slogan is still popular with labor unions and other organizations.

The expression is similar to, and may be derived from, a slogan popularized in the prior quarter century by the Knights of Labor, "that is the best government in which an injury to one is the concern of all".[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_injury_to_one_is_an_injury_to_all

Workers without labor rights anywhere, set the stage for us losing ours. I was taught at my union that our movement was always global in scope. That social justice is not just for one country to enjoy.

We extended our belief to include women and minorities of all kinds. Those who didn't agree with the latter, went to join other unions or went off to be contractor labor.

So this may be the dynamic that Perez is thinking in, and wants to include everyone to relieve the pressure on wages here. If all are elevated to the same level, there will be no cause for business to go offshore. They will have to pay good wages here as well as there.

Those businesses that want to do dirty business and not pay as they should here, ought to have their business charters with their local governments revoked.

Unions such as mine, which was an AFL-CIO affiliate, pushed for labor rights in other nations because they knew that economic refugees would be used against labor here. Also, because it was the right thing to do for other human beings.

This has been a long-held belief system among some unions. As I said, some who didn't want to work in an integrated work force, didn't believe in that. Whether this is what Perez is thinking comes from or not I don't know, but it sounds very familiar to me.

We can either get involved and grasp hold of the responsibility with our brothers and sisters around the world, that is up to us. If not us, the global corporations and the corrupt governments that help them keep unnaturally high profits off the hardship of their own citizens in foreign nations, will set the rules that will impact all of us.

Just a few thoughts, here. I am an old unionist, came from an FDR union family, and still believe in the power of equality through labor to protect democracy and give us all a chance at better lives.

The war on workers is global. Our response must be global. We are in a global society and we must be the ones who determine the backdrop of that society. We can't escape, we must do the right thing for all, or we fail ourselves and our principles.