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On January 23rd 2010 US China labor exchange met for the 6th time. The China Labor Exchange group has been meeting for 2 ½ years now. It is a meeting between some US labor union members and individuals with close ties to the Chinese labor movement. But despite the absence of official Chinese union representatives, these meetings present an important opportunity for exchange and mutual learning about the labor movement in the US and China, as well as for discussing potentials for future collaboration. This is of particular importance in a context, where high level union talks between the AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations) and the ACFTU (All-China Federation of Trade Unions) are not yet taking place.
What do Chinese and American workers have in common? Where are potentials for cooperation? Before summarizing the meeting, I first give some background information about the US labor movement and China to make clear why such a meeting is rather unusual for the US context.