Faced with disagreements over a proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas treaty, the Bush administration plowed ahead and, in mid-December, announced it had negotiated a Central American Free Trade Area treaty, CAFTA.
The talks with Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Costa Rica, concluded on Dec. 17, ignoring marching demonstrators outside Washington's Mayflower Hotel.
News reports said four of the nations signed the draft CAFTA, but Costa Rica did not, and that Bush wants to add the Dominican Republic to it. Bush will send CAFTA to the GOP-run Congress in 2004 for an up-or-down vote with no amendments.
The AFL-CIO and other groups promptly vowed to fight CAFTA because it lacks labor rights. Bush "clearly has no interest in creating new rules for the global economy which work for working people, both in the United States and in other countries," AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney said.
CAFTA is modeled on the controversial U.S.-Canada-Mexico "free trade" treaty, NAFTA, and comes NAFTA's 10th anniversary.
The AFL-CIO marked that--and the loss of more than 700,000 U.S. industrial jobs to NAFTA-prompted moves--with a report on how Mexico failed its labor rights responsibilities under NAFTA.
"The three NAFTA countries promised to effectively enforce their laws that protect worker rights such as freedom of association, abolition of child labor, non-discrimination and equal pay for equal work. But (NAFTA) failed to live up to its high purpose," the report said.
Author Lance Compa, former director of NAFTA's commission on labor cooperation, reported Mexican employers routinely commit unfair labor practices designed to prevent workers from exercising their right to join a union.
Mexican labor law-breaking includes harassing and intimidating workers, hiring armed thugs and attack dogs to patrol election sites, forcing workers to declare their vote in front of supervisors and limiting the number of union supporters in voting areas, his report adds.
But Bush contends CAFTA "makes labor obligations part of (its) core text." CAFTA would also dump all tariffs and virtually all non-trade barriers between the U.S. and the other nations, a long U.S. Trade Representative's fact sheet says.
That includes dumping barriers to U.S. firms bidding on public services in Central America, open investment for U.S. companies there, complete U.S. market access for everything from telecommunications to computers to tourism to banks, abolition of residency requirements and U.S. access to government contracts.
Only one "labor obligation" USTR cites is mandatory. It says CAFTA requires "all parties to effectively enforce their own domestic labor laws." It says "dispute settlement procedures" can solve problems in that area when they arise.
NAFTA has an advisory labor commission that can urge, but not order, settlements of dispute--when another nation complains.
CAFTA also pledges the governments to bring their labor law enforcement up to International Labor Organization standards, and says "it is inappropriate to weaken or reduce domestic labor protections to encourage trade or investment."
All this didn't stop the protesters. "Defeating CAFTA will set back the already reeling FTAA, perhaps for good," their statement said. They called for teach-ins on U.S. campuses and demonstrations to accompany protests at prior bargaining sites--Cincinnati, Houston and New Orleans--and in Central America.
And it also has not changed the AFL-CIO's stand. Thea Lee, its international economics specialist, gave lawmakers a detailed critique of CAFTA when talks began on it in late 2002.
"Simply expanding market access and freeing capital will not stimulate real development in Central America. Increased trade must be accompanied by improvements in workers' rights, measures for debt reduction, a just immigration policy, and commercial rules that safeguard the public interest, not just private profits," Lee said last November.
"Any agreement that falls short of these proposals will be a failure for Central America and a failure for American workers, and we will work with our (regional) allies to oppose it.
"Workers in Central America have too often been excluded from the benefits of increased trade, as they continue to struggle to have their basic human rights respected in the workplace. Repeated and systematic violations of workers' rights retards" Central America, Lee added.
And those violations--and corporate exploitation of them--drag down standards for U.S. workers "who are thrown into a vicious race to the bottom with their fellow workers in the region," she said. No CAFTA country "comes close to meeting a minimum threshold of respect for ILO core labor standards.?
Mark Gruenberg writes for Press Associates, Inc., news service. Used by permission.
Faced with disagreements over a proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas treaty, the Bush administration plowed ahead and, in mid-December, announced it had negotiated a Central American Free Trade Area treaty, CAFTA.
The talks with Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Costa Rica, concluded on Dec. 17, ignoring marching demonstrators outside Washington’s Mayflower Hotel.
News reports said four of the nations signed the draft CAFTA, but Costa Rica did not, and that Bush wants to add the Dominican Republic to it. Bush will send CAFTA to the GOP-run Congress in 2004 for an up-or-down vote with no amendments.
The AFL-CIO and other groups promptly vowed to fight CAFTA because it lacks labor rights. Bush “clearly has no interest in creating new rules for the global economy which work for working people, both in the United States and in other countries,” AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney said.
CAFTA is modeled on the controversial U.S.-Canada-Mexico “free trade” treaty, NAFTA, and comes NAFTA’s 10th anniversary.
The AFL-CIO marked that–and the loss of more than 700,000 U.S. industrial jobs to NAFTA-prompted moves–with a report on how Mexico failed its labor rights responsibilities under NAFTA.
“The three NAFTA countries promised to effectively enforce their laws that protect worker rights such as freedom of association, abolition of child labor, non-discrimination and equal pay for equal work. But (NAFTA) failed to live up to its high purpose,” the report said.
Author Lance Compa, former director of NAFTA’s commission on labor cooperation, reported Mexican employers routinely commit unfair labor practices designed to prevent workers from exercising their right to join a union.
Mexican labor law-breaking includes harassing and intimidating workers, hiring armed thugs and attack dogs to patrol election sites, forcing workers to declare their vote in front of supervisors and limiting the number of union supporters in voting areas, his report adds.
But Bush contends CAFTA “makes labor obligations part of (its) core text.” CAFTA would also dump all tariffs and virtually all non-trade barriers between the U.S. and the other nations, a long U.S. Trade Representative’s fact sheet says.
That includes dumping barriers to U.S. firms bidding on public services in Central America, open investment for U.S. companies there, complete U.S. market access for everything from telecommunications to computers to tourism to banks, abolition of residency requirements and U.S. access to government contracts.
Only one “labor obligation” USTR cites is mandatory. It says CAFTA requires “all parties to effectively enforce their own domestic labor laws.” It says “dispute settlement procedures” can solve problems in that area when they arise.
NAFTA has an advisory labor commission that can urge, but not order, settlements of dispute–when another nation complains.
CAFTA also pledges the governments to bring their labor law enforcement up to International Labor Organization standards, and says “it is inappropriate to weaken or reduce domestic labor protections to encourage trade or investment.”
All this didn’t stop the protesters. “Defeating CAFTA will set back the already reeling FTAA, perhaps for good,” their statement said. They called for teach-ins on U.S. campuses and demonstrations to accompany protests at prior bargaining sites–Cincinnati, Houston and New Orleans–and in Central America.
And it also has not changed the AFL-CIO’s stand. Thea Lee, its international economics specialist, gave lawmakers a detailed critique of CAFTA when talks began on it in late 2002.
“Simply expanding market access and freeing capital will not stimulate real development in Central America. Increased trade must be accompanied by improvements in workers’ rights, measures for debt reduction, a just immigration policy, and commercial rules that safeguard the public interest, not just private profits,” Lee said last November.
“Any agreement that falls short of these proposals will be a failure for Central America and a failure for American workers, and we will work with our (regional) allies to oppose it.
“Workers in Central America have too often been excluded from the benefits of increased trade, as they continue to struggle to have their basic human rights respected in the workplace. Repeated and systematic violations of workers’ rights retards” Central America, Lee added.
And those violations–and corporate exploitation of them–drag down standards for U.S. workers “who are thrown into a vicious race to the bottom with their fellow workers in the region,” she said. No CAFTA country “comes close to meeting a minimum threshold of respect for ILO core labor standards.?
Mark Gruenberg writes for Press Associates, Inc., news service. Used by permission.