But, first, a quick glance at the new U.S. Census Bureau Report on "The Changing Shape of the Nation's Income Distribution." You'll find a lot of methodological hemming and hawing in this, and the underlying causes of the trends they report provoke much debate. But two points do achieve fairly broad consensus among social scientists. The first: "Income inequality for families ...increased between 1968 and 1998." The second: "More highly skilled, trained and educated workers at the top are experiencing real wage gains, while those at the bottom are experiencing real wage losses, making wage distribution considerably more unequal."
http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/incineq/p60204/p60204txt.html

Here, then, is the main challenge before America's embattled trade union movement. Unions are, of course, struggling to win higher wages through collective bargaining, working for increases in the minimum wage, straining to preserve low skilled jobs here at home. But what can they do about an education gap that is more and more a reality behind our growing income gap?

A number of unions here and abroad are not only campaigning for better schools -- they are making education, professionalization and skills development a hands-on and central mission of their own organizations.

In late May the American Federation of Teachers' Albert Shanker Institute and the NEIS organized a seminar on "Unions and Workforce Development: An International Perspective" at which U.S. and European trade unions and some friends took a comparative look at union-sponsored activities that develop professional and technical competencies. A subsequent meeting was held with representatives of unionized corporations. (The seminar program is at: http://www.shankerinstitute.org/

In a lively lead-off presentation at the latter meeting John Lloyd of Britain's big Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union stressed the far-reaching cultural change British unions are undertaking to pull themselves and their country together after decades of mistrust and industrial strife. Lloyd insists it's working. (The full text of Lloyd's presentation can be found at:
JohnLloydPresentation5-30-01.html

Evidence for Lloyd's case is that the British Trades Union Congress, a turf that once belonged to the miners' Arthur Scargill and his class warfare militants, has now made partnership and training the centerpiece of its program. It's no lukewarm, namby-pamby idea, though. Unions are going about it with thoroughness and fervor. Many unions have designated cadres of "Workplace Learning Representatives" to help fellow members to frankly assess their job qualifications, devise plans to improve their skills, and stay the course once they get started. The unions are asking business to pay for more workforce development, and to allow more time off.

Another place to get the flavor of see this new union thinking is the web site of the big new UNI secretariat for service and technical workers in Geneva. http://www.union-network.org/uniinfo2000.nsf/53a6434187550c 99c12568740057b456/85f0fcfc36de4fd5c1256a11004825e1? OpenDocument

It should come as no surprise that one of the major players in UNI is MORTON BAHR, President of the Communication Workers of America. Morty helped guide his big union of telephone workers through the break-up of the Bell System and into the digital age. He is the architect of a number of labor-management partnerships that provide for high-tech training, skills upgrading and associate degrees in applied science as part of the collective-bargaining benefits of CWA members. Morty argues that labor's future lies with the recruitment of technical and professional workers.
http://www.cwa-union.org/jobs/joint_training.asp.

Other resources for studying labor's role in building the nation's skills, professionalism and productivity: The AFL-CIO's Working for America Institute, directed by Nancy Mills, involves an impressive array of union-supported training and education activites. http://www.workingforamerica.org/. The website of the Association of Joint Labor/Management Educational Programs has links to a large list of labor-sponsored training and skills development programs in the U.S. http://www.workplacelearning.org/association.htm

Some historians and labor thinkers see a revival of the kind of skills-centered unionism that characterized the old craft guilds. Others see the prospect of convergence between the white collar and service unions and the vast and growing array of credentials-based professional associations. It's a topic NEIS will be watching.

"The fundamental dilemma of the world economy is that markets are straining to become global, while the institutions that are required for their effective functioning-legal, social, and political-remain largely parochial and national. This disjuncture between the reach of markets and the scope of non-market institutions has adverse consequences for both economics and politics. "

-- Professor Dani Rodrick
Harvard University

This is the lead in a statement by Professor Dani Rodrick that kicks off a web-based dialogue on democracy and the globaleconomy sponsored by Germany's Friedrich Ebert Foundation. (The think tank of the ruling Social Democratic Party http://www.demglob.de/rodrikpaper.html . Rodrik's paper is being discussed by commentators in the U.S. and around the world. There's an interesting statement by John Sullivan of the Center for International Private Enterprise, an institute associated with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Sullivan takes a whack at neo-liberalism and the Washington Consensus, which some might have imagined to be the ruling ideology at the Chamber. http://www.demglob.de/comments1/sullivan1.html . The symposium also includes a contribution from NEIS Consultant Penn Kemble, who argues that human rights activists and supporters of democracy are promoting goals that provide many benefits for international business -- especially those in the New Economy. But history has made it hard for the two groups to find common ground. http://www.demglob.de/comments1/kemble1.html

Many democratists (to use a Pat Buchanan phrase) were pleasantly surprised by Bush Administration appointments to some key national security posts: Paula Dobriansky as Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs; Lorne Craner as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Labor and Human Rights; and Elliott Abrams as the National Security Council's Senior Director for Democracy, Human Rights, and International Organizations.

During the Presidential campaign and the early months of the Bush Administration posturing by Bush heavies left the impression that supporting democracy was seen as something for milque-toast global social workers and feel-your-pain counselors at the world's 911 number. But someone finally remembered that it was Ronald Reagan who invoked democracy to help slay the Evil Empire --and who took the lead in helping to create the National Endowment for Democracy. Dobriansky, Craner, and Abrams have deep roots in the democracy movement, and know the bureaucratic ropes. But they'll have their hands full.

For the Bushies' bios go to:
Abrams: http://www.eppc.org/staff/xq/ASP/staffID.13/qx/staf_fullbio.htm
Craner: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/biog/index.cfm?docid=3404
Dobriansky: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/biog/index.cfm?docid=2969

Is the Great Wall Crumbling? Mandarins of business and finance have long asserted the doctrine that foreign policy and national security considerations should not be mixed into the regulation of investment markets. But a bevy of strange bedfellows--human rights and religious freedom advocates--have opened a crack in this wall of separation that has the financial journals buzzing.

Almost a year ago representatives from the AFL-CIO, Friends of the Earth, Freedom House, The U.S. Business and Industrial Council, the William J. Casey Institute and others met in Washington to discuss how they might discourage U.S. investors from buying bonds being floated by PetroChina, Ltd., This government-controlled company wanted American capital to develop oil fields in territory controlled by the abusive government of Sudan. With help from Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA) an SEC ruling was obtained last month requiring foreign companies trading on U.S. exchanges to disclose any dealings they have in countries listed by the Treasury Department as off-limits to U.S. companies because they are developing weapons of mass destruction or cooperate with terrorists. An SEC memo that accompanies the ruling goes even farther: it acknowledges that companies that are challenged for complicity in abuses of human rights and religious freedom may suffer losses, and that such risks should be disclosed in public filings. http://www.security-policy.org/papers/2001/01-C28.html

Here's how the London Economist summed these decisions up (May 19, 2001: "They may force American portfolio managers to take account of newly revealed political risks, or face lawsuits from aggrieved share- holders. If so, market caution could end up extending America's sanctions regime in a way no amount of government posturing could even achieve."

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