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House Set to Vote on Removing Fast Track Timetable from Colombia Trade Deal |
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced that tomorrow the House will vote to lift the 90-day Fast Track time limit for the House to vote on the Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that President Bush sent to Congress yesterday.
Pelosi said Congress and the president should be focusing their energy on the needs of America’s working families during these precarious economic times, not on the flawed trade deal. She told reporters she told Bush on Monday that:
we really had to continue our conversation about addressing the economic concerns of America’s working families.
Says AFL-CIO President John Sweeney:
We agree with Speaker Pelosi that Congress must keep a hard focus on the economic crisis facing America’s working families—and certainly before consideration of another flawed trade deal. We applaud her for taking decisive action to reassert congressional authority over trade.
The AFL-CIO position on the Colombia FTA remains unchanged: The violence, murders, impunity and violations of workers’ rights in Colombia must end. Until and unless the Colombian government achieves sustained results on the ground to that effect, the AFL-CIO will muster all its resources in opposition to this agreement.
Because the Colombia deal was negotiated under the now-expired Fast Track trade promotion authority, Congress normally would have only 90 legislative days to vote up or down on the agreement, but Pelosi noted the House has the right to set its own rules.
The violence against trade union members in Colombia has claimed more than 2,500 lives since 1986, including 39 murdered in 2007, and another 17 killed so far this year 2008—a rate of more than one a week. Yet the Colombian government has obtained convictions in less than 3 percent of the cases and has done little to stop the bloodshed or guarantee worker and human rights in the country.
This morning, the AFL-CIO took out a full-page ad in three influential Capitol Hill publications. Telling Congress, “Don’t Reward Murder,” the ads say the fight against the Colombia FTA is
about even more than the wrong-headed trade policies that have cost our country millions of manufacturing jobs, boosted trade deficits to record levels and shredded the paychecks of U.S. workers. It’s about cold-blooded murder.
Congress should refuse to approve this agreement until workers in Colombia can exercise their fundamental human rights without fear. Working families in Colombia as well as in the United States deserve no less.
To learn more about the Colombia FTA, click here. To send a message to your congressional representative click here.
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Sir —
Your comments quote political statements but ignore the facts. Colombia, with U.S. aid, has demonstrated sustained results during the Uribe administration on reducing anti-union violence. (Don’t forget that the country has been suffering a civil war for many years.) So much progress, in fact, that the murder rate for labor activists in Colombia is lower than the murder rate in Colombia as a whole and in major U.S. cities, including Washington, DC, and Baltimore.
Also, Speaker Pelosi and you fail to point out that the House, under her leadership, has voted twice during the last 12 months to extend tariff-free access for goods from Colombia, while U.S.-made goods face tariffs there. By refusing to hold a vote on an agreement that would open the Colombian market to the manufactured products of U.S. labor, she is NOT helping American workers. Export growth is what has kept this country out of recession until now. Just when we need to keep it going, Pelosi is taking a very wrong turn and American workers, union members and non-union, should know that. The logic is as plain as the nose on your face.
Colombia don’t need FTA with USA, we can get a good partnership with other great governments like Venezuela, Mr, Hugo Chavez, Venezuelan President will like to involve Colombia as one important member of the new communistic region in the world, he will like to support our terrorist of FARC, they only kill a thousand of people including hundred kinder garden students in SEGOVIA school few years ago, also they kidnapping, foreign visitor to request payment.
Now democrats in USA said that they will no support FTA because its terrible country for unionist, so from now FARC will focus their attach to such people in order to sent such great signal or told to the democrats to attack the FTA.
Mr. Mark Levinson, Mr. Sherrod Brown, Ms. Olympia Snowe, Ms. Nancy Pelosi how many times they visited Colombia?
We are 45Millions populations country, and 44.8 Millions persons are hard workers, doing our best to get better country, but regrettable we have 200.000 persons within the terrorist groups, drugs traffickers,
Colombia and of the older democracy in America, with continue growing because our agriculture sectors (medium class families) very hard working to produce the best coffee, the most beautiful flowers, the best banana, the great creativity in textile products using our Colombian cotton production, Can you understand that this is no intensive crops?, Can you understand that our textile products come from small family industries, no from big industrials monopoly, Yes we are no rich people so we must do our hand work to produce more than 50% of our export, other export come from oil, coal and other natural resources.
“Colombia is … the most dangerous place in the world to”, before you said this you must get the opinion of thousand of US visitors that come to Colombia and enjoy their time with our people, if you don’t believe them, you are invited to visit Colombia at any time and see by your eyes.
Thanks for the opportunity to comment in your blog
Yes, let’s do look at the facts. Murders of union members have decreased in Colombia. However it still leads the world in those murders. It is still #1 in killing union members. The administration hinders the judicial system that is overworked and understaffed. The arrest and conviction rate of murders is less than 10%, which is way worse than any city in the USA.
Murders are down, but forced disappearances are up. Kidnappings are said to be down, but the way they count them has been changed and the US government report still calls kidnapping a “serious problem.” They claim over 30,000 paramilitary (the largest killer of union members) have demobilized but since over 99% serve no jail time they are remobilizing and new groups are forming at amazing rates pretty much unchecked.
According to reports by both the US State Department and the Organization of American States (OAS) over the last few years there has been a significant increase (one report says 92%) in murders of innocent civilians by Colombian security forces.
And how about that American aid. So far it totals over $5 billion dollars. The 2007 state department report for 2006 showed that half of the money in that year actually went to American corporations. And a check of the campaign donor list for Bush’s last campaign shows all of them were heavy contributors. Now that leaves the other half going to Colombia. Many Colombians state they believe the American money feeds corruption and keeps the drug trading going because politicians make so much from it. Indeed corruption is a major problem in Colombia. Here are quotes from two US government reports about Colombia, “The country suffered from endemic corruption and graft in both the public and private sectors.” The report for 2007 states, “The World Bank’s worldwide governance indicators reflected that government corruption was a problem.”
It is corruption that keeps labor laws from being enforced.
Pelosi voted for the extension of the current FTA with Colombia because I believe she cares about the people of Colombia and wanted them continue having an opportunity to keep making progress before signing a permanent FTA. I believe she wants a Colombia that has a viable market for US goods and makes a fair trading partner benefiting both countries.. And rather than just cutting them off, she wants to give them time to become that. If anyone is playing politics here, it is the Republicans.