US: The work movement won big in the defeat of the trade parcel. But a lot of the commentators are somewhat bewildered. After all; the labor movement is a smaller fraction of the workforce than it was when NAFTA was accepted over labor’s opposition in 1993. And the industrial workforce is a much smaller percentage of the total.
Noam Schreiber, writing (an excellent piece) in the New York Times quotes a puzzled John Murphy, senior vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which suffered a big loss when the trade deal went down. Murphy wondered why service sector unions were part of the opposition. “None of these workers are in any way negatively affected by competition with imports,” said he. “Yet SEIU will be there, showing solidarity.”Well, he was right about the solidarity. But if inside players and media commentators are a little confused about the deeper dynamics of failed deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the surprising strength of the labor movement, consider this:
The TPP was never primarily a trade deal. The Administration marketed it as a trade deal; and for the most part, the press bought the storyline. The Washington Post editorial page, which has long repeated the official line about trade, explaining the tactical vote by Democrats against Trade Adjustment Assistance, opined: “Apparently opponents despise free trade even more than they like helping its purported victims.”
