Global People’s Law?

[struggle4progress]

... At the height of the 1937 sitdown strike at General Motors in Flint, Michigan, a judge issued an injunction ordering workers to evacuate the plants and end picketing within 24 hours. As thousands of union supporters poured into Flint and the city manager began to organize an "army of our own" to break the strike, union war veterans developed a plan that they kept secret even from union leaders. If the leaders were arrested under the injunction, the veterans "would muster an armed force among their own number and in defense of the U.S. Constitution, of 'real Patriotism,' and the union, would take over the city hall, the courthouse and police headquarters, capture and imprison all officials and release the union men."<2> A "Union Veterans Song" declared:

"We are veteran Union boys
We uphold the Constitution ...
We fought in 1861
To free this world from slavery...
And now we have to fight again
But this time for our Freedom
From being General Motors Slaves..."<3>

What are we to make of this story? The union war vets certainly seemed to be organizing an armed insurrection against the legally constituted authorities. And yet they were doing so in the name of the U.S. Constitution ...

Courts regularly issued injunctions ordering the cessation of strikes, and lawyers allied with the labor movement had no use for this argument, but it was deeply ingrained in the American working class. The often conservative AFL said that a worker confronted with an unconstitutional injunction had an imperative duty to "refuse obedience and to take whatever consequence may ensue"<9> ...

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=41&ItemID=10206

[ninkasi]

1. This is a worthwhile article

With global economy being used to drive wages down by country shopping, big multi national corporations have seceded in making life much worse for many people. It would be good if there could be some limited version of global law, concerning human and labor rights.

No business should be allowed to plunder another countries natural resources, and sell them to the highest bidder. The true shame, of course, is that the powers that be won't let it happen. In an ideal world (yeah, like that's gonna happen), workers would stand together to demand human rights, a living wage, and human dignity.

The gap in wealth here in this country is growing at an alarming rate, and will end up driving us into Third World status. The rich, though, will profit by this, adding even more wealth to their already obscene levels.