U.S. unions reach out

Beijing

In a reversal of decades of policy, some American labor leaders said this week that they’d cooperate with Chinese state–run unions. On a trip to China, Teamsters President James Hoffa and other union chiefs said that if pay and conditions improved for Chinese workers, that would raise the cost of doing business with China—which would be a good development for American labor. “It’s certainly in our interest to see that the workers here have a higher standard of living, that the manufacturers pay a better wage,” Hoffa said. Not all U.S. unions agree. The AFL–CIO opposes cooperation between U.S. and Chinese labor groups and is calling for sanctions to punish China for its poor labor conditions.