

Ask HN: Why does the AFL-CIO support SOPA? - peteforde

One thing I've noticed is that the unions are on board with SOPA and named alongside the MPAA, RIAA and their ilk. However, I am unable to fathom why the unions are pro-OWS and pro-SOPA... and it turns out, they are not (so far as I can tell).<p>If you search on the http://aflcio.org/ site for sopa, you get three results. Two are blog posts on the AFL-CIO site, one is a link to an external news story. One blog hit is an anti-SOPA comment, and the other is a legitimate blog post that mentions how Richard Trumka (the organization's president) spoke out in support of the PROTECT-IP act in May 2011.<p>http://blog.aflcio.org/2011/11/30/justice-dept-launches-campaign-against-counterfeit-goods/<p>There's no mention of SOPA by the organization, and the most recent quote is about another act and it's now seven months old. Trumka's position at the time was that "solving the problem of counterfeiting, piracy and intellectual property theft [is] critical to creating and sustaining the jobs needed to revive the economy".<p>It seems to me like the anti-SOPA/pro-sanity movement should take the momentum gained from the GoDaddy flip-flop and target the AFL-CIO next. They don't appear to have a strong position and supporting SOPA + OWS simultaneously is deeply contradictory.<p>I'm a Canadian and have no ties to labour politics, but my understanding is that SOPA harms the working class. They should be fundamentally opposed to the passing of the bill, and we should give them an opportunity to change their mind as GoDaddy did earlier today.
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josephmosby
Counterfeit goods are not just media/entertainment/online content. Many of the
organizations in support of the bill are brand-name manufacturers whose goods
are easily counterfeited in other countries.

AFL-CIO members could argue that SOPA/PIPA would allow the AG to block foreign
sites that sell counterfeit goods, thereby forcing individuals to buy the
"official" goods domestically (where they would be manufactured by American
labor). Granted, I don't know if there are any brand-name manufacturers still
making their goods in the U.S., but that would be the obvious argument to my
eyes.

