MONEY & BUSINESS: "Labor Unions Without Borders: Will workers of the world (finally) unite? Leaders say yes, but barriers loom," by Renuka Rayassam, U.S. News & World Report, 16 July 2007, p. 46.

BRIEFING: "A world wide web of terror: Al-Qaeda's most famous web propagandist is jailed, but the internet remains its best friend," The Economist, 14 July 2007, p. 28.

Interesting first piece that got me thinking.

You think about unions as useful primarily in the "rising" or industrialization phase and less so once you move into the post-industrial, where hopefully you're covering most people with portable benes like medical and retirement (I realize that's a grand simplification, but tell me where I'm wrong).

If that's the case, then you see unions dying on the vine in increasingly post-industrial/manufacturing US (as a share of GDP, value of manufacturing remains stable, as Brink Lindsey points out, and it's just less people involved over time) and fighting a rear guard action to prevent undercutting by rising New Core economies (esp. China).

Like my advice to industry in general: you can't fight this and win, so better to join and co-opt. For industry, they need access to the rising markets and the globalizing R&D and the cheaper labor, plus they want to be part of the roll-up that creates tomorrow's globally-integrated enterprises that not only sell to the connected world but become agents of connection to the bottom billion by reacquainting themselves with the challenges of selling to the bottom of the pyramid.

To miss out on this global evolution is simply to say goodbye to the future.

So this article makes sense to me: unions need to "go back to the future" by moving into countries where their role as organizers and rule-set providers remains at its peak (no longer in the Old Core but now in the New Core). Plus, by tapping into that dynamic, they set the standards for the planet by capturing so many bodies at once.

The alternative, again, is withering on the vine back home, becoming increasingly irrelevant.

So yeah, it's not just al Qaeda taking advantage of the web and cheaper air travel and lower communications barriers.

You gotta remember that with any new connecting technology, the bad guys always get out ahead at first, only to later be overwhelmed by legitimate uses and put on the run by increasingly sophisticated policing and judicial systems. We're just beginning to peak on our understanding of the info revolution. So none of this surprising, just annoying.