AFL-CIO Executive Council: Trade Policies, Economic Downturn Go Hand in Hand

by James Parks, Mar 4, 2008

With the U.S. economy in a downhill slide, our flawed trade policies must be reformed to put good jobs at the center of a coherent global economic strategy. Meeting in San Diego, the AFL-CIO Executive Council said in a statement today that our struggle to compete successfully in the global economy is connected with the many other challenges facing the U.S. economy and working families.

The Executive Council, which is meeting March 4-6,  approved two statements on trade today, “What Is Wrong With U.S. Trade Policy?” and “No Free Trade With Colombia Until Workers’ Rights Are Respected.” 

As the council points out, our trade and tax policies have encouraged employers to shift jobs overseas, and the resulting trade deficit has cost even more jobs here at home, decimating our manufacturing industries and eroding real wages. 

The Executive Council also warned that the huge trade deficit threatens our national security by making our nation increasingly dependent on foreign governments—which may or may not share our objectives—to fund our mounting debt. It also provides capital for countries such as China, with whom we have a record deficit, to invest in Wall Street and possibly use that influence to thwart efforts to respond to its unfair and predatory trade practices. 

At the same time, the Bush administration’s rush to dismantle government regulations has left our nation vulnerable to unsafe imported food and other products.    

Key to the trade problem is the assault on unions and workers’ rights here in the United States, which is closely connected with similar assaults worldwide.  

In no place is that more true than in Colombia, the most dangerous place in the world for trade unionists. In its statement on Colombia, the Executive Council strongly opposed any effort to pass a free trade agreement with Colombia, saying:  

The AFL-CIO stands in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Colombia in opposition to violence against trade unionists, for justice and for the rights of workers in both Colombia and the United States to organize and bargain collectively without fear of firing, without fear of retribution and certainly without fear for our safety.   

The AFL-CIO remains strongly opposed to the Colombia FTA. Should it come up for a vote this year, we will mobilize the unions and the resources of the federation to defeat it.

In sum, the council pointed out:  

We can’t rebuild the middle class here in America unless America’s workers have the freedom to choose a union and to bargain collectively for their fair share of the wealth they create. And we can’t protect the right to organize in America if the rights of workers worldwide are routinely trampled.   

To make our national trade policies work for working people around the globe, the Executive Council called for, among other things, a national strategy to rebuild our manufacturing base, a moratorium on future trade agreements until a new trade policy is in place that creates good jobs here and an increased global effort to address the challenge of climate change.  

Click here to read the statement “What Is Wrong With U.S. Trade Policy?” and here for “No Free Trade With Colombia Until Workers’ Rights Are Respected.”  

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