Journalists and scholars understandably focus on the religious motives of the hijackers and their sponsors: their twisted version of Islam. But attention is also warranted to the economic ideas mixed into this high octane cocktail. The repeated attacks on the World Trade Center--symbol of American financial power-- express more than architectural tastes.

Judith Miller, Middle East expert at The New York Times, argues that members of the bin Laden circle ought not to be thought of as primitives and crazies. Fanaticism is not ignorance or mental illness. It could even be described as a kind of deformed intellectualism. In bin Laden's case, one encounters economic ideas that have resonance that goes beyond the underworld of Islamic radicalism. In fact, you can readily find these ideas at Internet sites, newstands and universities here in the U.S.

In an interview broadcast in May 1998 by PBS “Frontline” bin Laden repeated an accusation often heard in the Forums of Third World radicals and their Western patrons: "...[T]he whole Muslim world is the victim of international terrorism, engineered by America....We are a nation whose sacred symbols have been looted and whose wealth and resources have been plundered. It is normal for us to react...."

Dr. Saad Al-Fagih, a Saudi dissident who has followed bin Laden's career, elaborates this point in a companion interview: "The [American} military people there [Saudi Arabia] are defending the oil, which is believed by Americans to be American oil.... [T]hey are going there to buy the land and control the oil. He [bin Laden]wants Muslims to have domination in the whole area. So Muslim economy has to replace an American economy. That's the principles of bin Laden and people like bin Laden." http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/interviews/ al-fagih.html

Most Americans would say that this economic ideology is as distorted as bin Laden's religious teaching. After all, don't we pay OPEC prices for the oil we get? Where would Saudi Arabia and all its oil be today without the United Auto Workers, the supertankers, the refineries -- to say nothing of Operation Desert Storm? The oil may be underneath the Gulf States, but it's the developed democracies that get it out and give it value. If we're going to play the blame game, who is actually exploiting whom?

This is a debate worth having. As Judith Miller foretold, the portraits of the hijackers that are emerging are very different from the hashish-hopped camel drivers of vulgar caricature. These are men of some cosmopolitanism, education and technical capability. (A reporter from the Newark Star Ledger who visited bin Laden's Afghan cave a few years ago wrote, "Inside the cave, in rooms hollowed into the rock face, computer screens glow, fax machines whirr, messages are sent via satellite phone.") Their sub-culture draws not only on the Koran, but on ideas and technologies shaped by the West. In economics, these ideas bear no small debt to strains of thought that have enchanted some elements in our own political culture for over a generation.

President Bush has declared war on the terrorists. But serious war will not seek its satisfactions in blowing up the other side's symbols. It will require determined military action. But it will also require a response to the ideas that sustain our adversaries. This may prove as complicated as the military task.

New York's Finest

The performance of New York's uniformed services at Ground Zero may at least temporarily take some of the whine off certain complaining about government employees. Although there are many fine people among them, it's hard to imagine the personnel of the rent-a-cop services or a collection of recently recruited H1-B visa holders performing with the spirit that stirred New York's police and fire officers over the past week. English poet Rudyard Kipling, writing about attitudes of the better classes toward British soldiers ("Tommies") a century ago, put it as well as anyone:

"O, it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' Tommy, go away"; But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins," when the band begins to play,....

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, The brute!" But it's "Savior of 'is country" when the guns Begin to shoot...."

New York's union construction workers have been getting some compliments as well. (Hard hats have not been fashionable in New York society since workers building the World Trade Center chased anti-war demonstrators out of Lower Manhattan in 1970.) "Every tradesman in New York is here," a union carpenter at the rescue site told The Washington Post (Sept. 15, page c8). "All the construction jobs have ceased."

"You don't see any day laborers down here," another added. "It was all union men....the kind of people the media says is paid too much."

Tensions in Anti-Globalization Coalition

The IMF and World Bank announced the cancellation of the September 29 and 30th directors' meetings in Washington that were to be targets of another major round of anti-globalization demonstrations. Tensions were evident among prospective participants, tensions that were brought into the open by last week's terrorist attacks.

The organizers of these demonstrations were thrilled when late last month the AFL-CIO agreed to join the protests: But even before the hijackings there were indications that the big labor federation had become concerned about the danger of violence. A September 7 Wall Street Journal article (“Unions Bring Peace-Keeping Force for Next Anti-globalization Protest”) reported that the Federation had decided to convene its own separate protest events, and to appoint 500 of its own "marshalls" to help maintain non-violent discipline.

The very idea of appointing marshalls ran contrary to the views of many non-labor march organizers, who, according to a report in The Washington Post (Sept. 5, 2001), have held that a "movement rooted in anti-authoritarianism is not about to start policing its participants." While these organizers usually contend that any violence is instigated by the police, there have been occasional admissions that some among the marchers have had contributing roles. John Sellers, leader of the Ruckus Society, one of the groups that directed the protests at the Seattle WTO meeting in November 1999, boasted that the Ruckus group saw violence as a useful thing. A report that appeared on April 8, 2000, in the San Francisco Chronicle explained that:

"When vandals shattered store and hotel windows, set small fires, the city declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew. Police used tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets to restore order. Some 600 people were arrested.

"'Their egos were so jeopardized by what we had done that they swung back hard,' Sellers said of the Seattle police. 'Their reaction was a huge part of the protest momentum.'"

Violence was even greater at last July's anti-G-8 demonstration in Genoa. One protester was killed, and scores of people were hurt. Although the Italian police clearly used unjustified tactics, the celebrated photograph of the demonstrator about to smash a massive fire extinguisher on the policeman (who then shot him) did not do much for the protesters' declared commitment to passive resistance.

But this week's terrorist attacks have driven an even deeper wedge into the anti-globalization coalition. The AFL-CIO quickly recognized that the ensuing mood would be too volatile for big street protests. It called off its participation, and in a statement on the plane bombings President John Sweeney declared that "those responsible, in any way, for this heart- stopping horror must be dealt with. We will fully support the appropriate American response."

Reactions from other elements of the anti-globalization alliance varied. Some environmentalists--such as Friends of the Earth--agreed with the AFL-CIO's assessment, and called off their participation. The Mobilization for Global Justice, one of the more careful sponsors of the anti-World Bank action, will simply hold a Washington "teach-in" in late September. Its reaction to the terrorism, however, was not the same as the AFL-CIO's. On the day after the attacks it held a demonstration in Dupont Circle demanding that the U.S. reject violence as an appropriate response.

According to the Washington Post (Sept. 17), yet another key group in the anti-globalization coalition, the International Action Center, has “changed its plans to surround the White House on September 29, and is now gearing up for an antiwar, anti-racism event instead.” This group has always included anti-Israel slogans in its literature, along with calls for an end to UN sanctions against Iraq.

Many of the organizers of the September weekend of protest had expected that participation of the AFL-CIO in the Washington events would transform what has been a noisy but marginal movement of middle class dissent into a mass movement with mainstream clout. A few weeks before the bombings, after reviewing signs that the demonstration's momentum was building, one of the protest organizers, D.C. school teacher Dave Zirin, announced to a Washington Post reporter, "Ladies and Gentlemen, the United States has a Left. Call Mom."

One unintended consequence of the terrorist attacks is that this hope is now on hold, perhaps for a long time.

Out of the Dot.com Bust: Unions Look for Good Omens

In the heyday of the hi-tech boom workers saw themselves as free-agents with the power to seize economic opportunity and solve employment problems on their own. "Geek" Internet chat rooms hosted discussions where the view typically expressed was “hi-tech companies and unions…don't mix” because “If you're good you'll make it. Hell, if you're even mediocre you'll make it.” Buoyed by excitement , young workers willingly clocked 70-hour weeks for a foot in the door and a piece of the stock-options action. (See archived discussions at: http://www.slashdot.org.

But according to Marcus Courtney, co-founder of the Seattle- based Washington Alliance of Technology Workers (WashTech), an affiliate of the Communications Workers of America, “Everyone realizes that the go-go Nineties are over. The downturn has provided an opportunity to talk about bread and butter issues that were long ignored. Despite rapid changes in the workplace and layoffs that lead workers to feel less secure about their future, workers have no effective voice to deal with workplace issues, or means of protecting their interest. There is a growing sense of the need for representation.”

Courtney's assessment is mirrored in the Internet's “nerd” chat rooms. NEIS staff has scrolled through many of these. As the dot.coms tanked more and more IT workers have begun to express a need for some type of professional association or a guild. They may not fully accept the need for a union. But they do want the kind of organization that can define more clearly what it means to be--and to employ--a true IT professional. They also see a need to make continuous education and training a serious element in their employment relationship.

Courtney himself was a temp worker at Microsoft, and experienced first hand the powerlessness of workers when Microsoft ought to exempt some software professionals from state overtime laws, despite the opposition of some 750 software workers. Courtney and other Microsoft workers tapped into this frustration to organize WashTech. They subsequently helped organize a successful class action suit against the software giant for improperly denying valuable benefits to large numbers of the workers it had classified as temps--the so-called "permatemps."

WashTech knows it is in for a long haul, and has patiently waited through the boom for organizing opportunities. Gretchen Wilson, a leading organizer, thinks she sees some signs: "Today we are getting three or four times as many calls about potential membership than we got a year ago." She adds: "People want to learn about ways to take collective action. They want to know how to build their skills and get access to training." Wilson's impressions are backed by a poll taken earlier this year by TechRepublic.com, sponsors of a website for IT professionals, which found that fully 45% of respondents were interested in joining a union--a high number for this free-wheeling group of workers.

Courtney stresses that the availability of training is the major incentive for hi-tech workers to join a union, and has expanded WashTech's training programs this fall.

The importance of training is also stressed in a benchmark Article by Meredith Levinson, senior writer for CIO Magazine (a leading resource for information executives). In the May issue Levinson lists the following five reasons IT workers join unions, in this order of importance:

1.To get training;
2.To help establish standards for software development programmers;
3.For greater benefit protection;
4.To avoid forced overtime;
5.To keep from losing jobs to foreign HI-B visa holders.
(This useful article, “IT Workers of the World: Are They Uniting” by Meredith Levinson, is at: www.cio.com/archive/050101/world_content.html.)

Even foreign workers on H1-B visas see a need for an Organization to express demands collectively rather than individually. These guest workers, concerned that they are being exploited and have no voice, have formed a group called Immigrants Support Network (ISN). The group claims to have 15,000 members, and is lobbying to change immigration laws, to expedite the sponsorship process, and to end country quotas for visas. (For complete story go to: http://www.isn.org.)

Hi-tech workers are starting to develop their own case against the precipitous layoffs that have swept their field. An anonymous hi-tech employee writing for CIO Magazine states: “a layoff is the most glaring example of senior management malpractice…. By laying off 200 people, management has just taken 600 years of expensively trained expertise and simply set it out on the curb to be picked up by any competitor.” (For a critique of the downsizing business model see “Cogs in the Machine” at: http://www.cio.com/archive/050101/confidential_content.html.)

If the public image of unions continues to improve- helped by the selflessness and evident work ethic of New York's rescue workers--the standoffishness toward unions in the high tech world could begin to change.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions Credits

Many American unions have been skeptical of the Kyoto Treaty, which seeks to limit atmospheric emissions from fossil fuels that threaten global warming. They argue that the Treaty would unfairly penalize the U.S. economy. Their stance has created tensions within what some envision as a "blue/green" coalition: a long-term political alliance between unions and environmentalists.

A new difficulty for the Kyoto Treaty has emerged that may prove vexing to the model-builders who designed it, perhaps with insufficient regard for the profound differences between democratic societies and others whose compliance with the treaty will be necessary.

A study funded by the World Bank and carried out by Nobuhiro Horii of the Institute of Developing Economies in Japan discovered that officials in China's Hunan province had reported to Beijing that they had shut their coalmines, when in fact they were keeping them open. The same thing was going on in other provinces. Even the U.S. Embassy in Beijing felt constrained to issue the undiplomatic statement that China's claims to have reduced pollution were "greatly exaggerated" and that greenhouse gas emissions "have dropped little, if at all." (Washington Post Foreign Service, Aug. 15, 2001.)

The Kyoto Treaty will set up a system under which countries will be able to trade credits for greenhouse gas emissions, a system that is intended to allow the developed economies to buy credits from the developing countries, thereby encouraging reductions among all. China's actions bring back the old "moral equivalence" problem: countries that control their media and put critics in jail can cheat those that don't.

Is the UK's "New Labour" Strategy Paying Off?

“Labor union membership in the United Kingdom has grown for the second year running after a sustained 25-year decline,” Britain's Department of Trade and Industry said Sept. 6.

“These figures show the decline through the 1980s and most of the 1990s has been halted,” said John Monks, general secretary of the Trade Union Congress, which is a consortium of trade unions. “We remain an important force at the workplace and in society. But we are running to stand still.” (For more, see http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/lmt0901.pdf

In the past few years, under leadership from Monks and Sir Ken Jackson of the Amalgamated Electrical and Engineering Union, British labor turned from confrontation to helping strengthen the country's flabby and outmoded industrial management. This "partnership" strategy stresses the responsibilities unions, employers and individual workers share for developing skills and productivity.

A recent article in the McKinsey Quarterly, “Better UK Productivity: An Inside Job,” found that US-owned plants in the UK are about 80% more productive in every sector than UK-owned plants in the UK--primarily due to bad management. British unions have now developed a range of capabilities for showing British managers how to boost productivity. http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/article_page.asp?tk=373599:1106:19&ar=1106&L2=19&L3=67

German Labor Loosens Up

After long and hard bargaining, Germany's big IG Metall union and Volkswagen agreed on a deal that promises to create at least 3500 new minivan assembly jobs in Lower Saxony. In exchange, the unions will allow management more leeway in assigning overtime when demand is high. The agreement will establish "worktime accounts" allowing workers to take extra time off during slack periods while working extra for regular wages when production does not keep pace with orders. This was a major departure from established practice at VW. Unemployment hit 9.2 percent in Germany this summer, and VW has been developing many new production facilities abroad.

About NEIS's E-Bulletin

This E-Bulletin is published by the New Economy Information Service (NEIS), a project of the Foundation for Democratic Education. NEIS provides information and reviews debate on the impact globalization and technological change has on democracy at home and abroad. Current interest focuses on how American workers can be equipped with the skills they need for decent employment and economic security, and on how the globalization of the economy and the expansion of democracy can strengthen one another.

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