Finally, Someone is Putting the "International" Back into International Workers' Movement

If you could see me right now, you'd see me dancing.  Although I can't prove it, I have been screaming for this to happen for a long time:

A global coalition of unions is launching an unprecedented campaign to organize workers around the world at US retail giant Wal-Mart, seeking to bring a new level of globalization to the labor movement.

The Wal-Mart campaign was set to be officially launched at a meeting in Chicago Monday of Union Network International (UNI), a group that includes 900 unions in some 140 countries.

The campaign aims to draw from labor organizations around the world to pressure Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer and largest private company in terms of revenues, and a frequent target of unions for driving down wages as well as prices.

  Not every country is happy to believe the lie that consumers have to trade off workers' rights to save two cents on paper towels.  Tearing down international borders is really the only hope labor has in the fight against WalMart since they took the fight to the global level.  Once China acheives similar purchasing power to the United States, the jig will be up.   If this union education  effort/membership drive can get up to speed by then, there may be a chance to head WalMart off at the pass. 

Related: The US is making noise about scrapping a UN reform plan:

The United States has launched a last-minute drive to scrap much of a draft plan for comprehensive U.N. reform just weeks before it is to be adopted at a world summit, Western diplomats said on Wednesday. One option put forward by Washington would be to return to square one and launch line-by-line negotiations on the document, the diplomats said, insisting on anonymity so as not to anger Washington.

Negotiation tactics, petulant posturing, whatever - this is the part of the story that I want to know more about:

"To be fair, they are not a voice crying in the wilderness," said this diplomat, adding that developing nations also had reservations about much of the text.

But the section of the document on development and poverty was the top target of the U.S. revisions, a tactic certain to anger developing nations, which make up the overwhelming majority of the U.N. membership, the diplomats said.

I want to see those sections.  I wouldn't be surprised if they dealt with, among other things, worker's rights in developing nations.  Workers of the word, unite!