These questions, and many others, came to mind when meeting with local
unions in New Jersey this past week. The purpose of meeting with local
New Jersey unions was to talk about a campaign, and identify places of
potential collaboration in our work and their work. However, on a more
philosophical level, we were working on talking to these unions about
the importance of supporting international labor rights issues – issues
that might not be in the immediate self-interest of local unions.

The campaign was focused on encouraging New Jersey to join the
Sweatfree Consortium, a network of cities and states committed to
ethical procurement. Gaining support from local unions works to connect
workers in the US with workers abroad. Aside from this being a good
thing to do for workers in sweatshops, allocating government funds for
pro-labor objectives is important, regardless of it being for domestic
or international labor.

For example, we held a meeting with an esteemed community leader in
Camden, NJ. He told us in various ways that he is primarily concerned
with the conditions for his people. When we began to talk to him about
sweatshop-made uniforms, he immediately threw out support for those
workers, too. “Hell, I want everything to be union made,” he replied.

When talking about these issues with various union representatives,
some working on battling Wal-Mart, some working to rebuild communities,
and some working closely with elected officials, there was an
overwhelmingly positive response to this global solidarity initiative.
Self-interest, at a period of intricate layers of globalization, has
been expanded past immediate membership or communities.