How is the recent NYC transit strike like a dispute in Ireland over Latvian workers being hired to work on ferries? In both instances, workers are being pitted against each other in the name of cutting costs and boosting profits.

In the transit strike, the workers were fighting to keep their pensions and health care; our billionaire mayor (the man who referred to strikers as thugs) and the transit authority tried to gin up anger against the strikers among other workers in New Yorkers by painting the strikers as greedy workers who have benefits other workers don’t enjoy. It was an ugly attempt to turn one worker against another, and, in some cases, it succeeded.

In Ireland, it’s a different scenario with a similar thrust. As The New York Time reports today, an Irish ferry company is dumping hundreds of unionized Irish workers, replacing them with Latvian workers who will work for less than half of the Irish minimum wage (the company, Irish Ferries, does this neat feat by registering its ships in Cyprus).

The plan has caused an uproar in a country where unemployment is quite low; mass demonstrations have taken place to support the unionized workers. The ferry story is just another example of how globalization drives down wages–which is the central force behind global competition.

This whole dispute gets quite ugly because it appears that some of the public support for the union members has a racist bent to it. People are blaming the Latvian workers for their demise.

And, therein, lies the comparison to NYC–the relentless drive to cut benefits and wages is, in many places, turning worker against worker. In some cases, it makes workers, who have no benefits, angry at those who do. In other case, it turns into racism. Sometimes, it’s a little of both. The challenge for the labor movement, here and abroad, is to make sure people understand that the real enemy is a billionaire mayor, a transit authority or corporate leaders who are intent on cutting back everyone’s standard of living, except their own.