by James Parks, Mar 20, 2007

When President Bush visited Guatemala last week, he talked about how free trade, especially the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), can spread opportunity, provide jobs and help lift people out of poverty.

But the Guatemala that Bush and his heavily guarded entourage did not see is the one that workers in that country know all too well—a nation where children and adults are forced to work in sweatshops for little pay and under terrible conditions, where workers’ rights are ignored or not enforced.

Consider what Bush did not talk about in Guatemala:

• Employees trying to form a union in a plant making Jones Apparel Group garments lost their jobs last October and have not been reinstated, despite repeated allegations of violations of the company’s code of conduct by organizations such as United Students Against Sweatshops, the Worker Rights Consortium and the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers’ Federation.
• The January murder of the head of the port workers union, Pedro Zamora, then in the midst of contentious negotiations with management. As Washington Post reporter Peter Goodman wrote March 16:

Nearly two years have passed since the countries of Central America vowed to strengthen worker rights as they sought votes in Congress for the Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA. Yet there has been little if any progress, according to diplomats, labor inspectors, workers and managers.

“The situation is the same now as it was,” said Homero Fuentes, director of the Commission for the Verification of Codes of Conduct, a Guatemalan group hired by multinational companies to inspect local factories and plantations. “The law hasn’t been reformed, and people just don’t obey the law. There’s a culture of impunity.”

• Less than 10 miles from where Bush spoke, children as young as 13 years old work in a food-processing plant under deplorable conditions, according to the radio program “Democracy Now.”

With Congress poised to consider several trade bills in the next few months, AFL-CIO Legislation Director William Samuel wrote to members of both houses, pointing out the Post article. He told the lawmakers the article illustrates a message working families have been delivering for years: The model for U.S. trade deals such as CAFTA and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) before it has failed to improve working conditions anywhere. (Click here to read the full article.)

In the letter, Samuel says:

The continued abuse of workers in these nations, up to and including murder, only goes to underscore that a new model is urgently needed if workers are to enjoy basic labor rights, and with them, a better standard of living.

It is time for an honest assessment of current trade policy and a decisive change in course toward agreements that are truly world class. Otherwise, our trade policy will continue to fail.

To read the full letter, click here. 

Samuel’s letter comes as the Bush administration is pushing to get several trade deals to Congress before its Fast Track trade promotion authority expires June 30.

The Bush White House last month began its push to renew Fast Track, which allows the president to negotiate trade deals but prevents Congress from improving or rejecting harmful provisions by allowing only “yes” or “no” votes on such agreements. Fast Track would enable the Bush administration to pass more bad trade deals that are skewed in favor of Big Business, not workers.

Earlier this month, the AFL-CIO Executive Council adopted a statement that calls on Congress to institute new reforms on trade that stop our jobs from being exported and put our workers and the companies they work for on a level playing field.

The Executive Council statement outlines the principles that should be embodied in all U.S. trade policies:

• Enforceable International Labor Organization standards in every trade agreement, so no government and no corporation can gain a comparative advantage by violating workers’ human rights.
• Reform of the environment, investment, government procurement, intellectual property rights and services provisions in trade agreements.
• Our negotiators must not put our trade laws on the chopping block, nor should they make irreversible commitments with respect to immigration policy.
• We need more transparency and much broader public participation in the negotiation of trade rules, at both the national and international levels. Business is not the only constituency affected by trade, and it should not be the only nongovernmental group at the table when these deals are cut.

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