US Unions Insist on Clear Trade Sanctions in Fast Track

 
Both moderate "New Democrats" and the Republican administration have produced trade negotiation guidelines that attempt to sidestep the thorny issue of labor rights.

The president's trade agenda claims to incorporate workers' rights in two ways: first, as an unenforceable negotiating objective; and second, through a "toolbox" of parallel measures that will not be linked directly to trade and are not funded adequately under the Bush administration's proposed budget. Bush's agenda also calls for reauthorizing and improving worker dislocation programs-but his proposed budget cuts funding for these programs by 13%. The administration's proposal actually is weaker than previous fast track bills in some areas. The Trade Act of 1974 and the Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988 both specifically directed the president to negotiate for the adoption of workers' rights in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (now part of the WTO); the president's outline drops this language. In addition, while previous bills emphasized the concrete goal of adopting labor standards in trade agreements, the president's outline contains the much vaguer goal of "encouraging�adherence to core labor standards in connection with international trade."

The unions have not been impressed with the administration's non-binding toolbox approach, or with alternative proposals floated by a group of Democratic critics. The AFL-CIO points out that the New Democrats call only for "parity in negotiating objectives" for labor and the environment. Unions believe that if labor and the environment are not mandated, then Bush will not make any progress in those areas. Time and time again, they argue, negotiators return from closed-door sessions to say that they tried their best, but they had to move on due to opposition from other countries. The unions insist that if the US administration were forced to insist on labor and environmental clauses, these elements would be included. For that reason, the AFL-CIO unions are sticking to their guns and their own negotiating principles:

• Trade negotiating authority must require the inclusion of enforceable workers' rights and environmental standards in the core of all new trade agreements. New trade agreements must ensure that all workers can freely exercise their fundamental rights and require governments to respect and promote the core labor standards laid out by the International Labor Organization in its 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. Workers' rights and environmental standards must be covered by the same dispute resolution and enforcement provisions as the rest of the agreement. An agreement that does not meet these principles must not be considered under fast track procedures. Monetary fines modeled on the NAFTA labor side agreement or the Canada-Chile agreement are inadequate and have proven an ineffective means of enforcement. "It is not sufficient simply to list workers' rights and environmental protections among the negotiating objectives," the union statement reads. "Workers' rights have been among our negotiating objectives for more than 25 years, with very little progress being made."
   

• Congress must ensure that ordinary citizens have access to negotiating texts on a timely basis, and that negotiators are accountable to both Congress and the public as to whether mandatory negotiating targets are being met.
   

• Trade agreements must not undermine public services or public health, nor allow individual investors to challenge state laws in secret. Trade authority must delineate responsibilities for investors, not just rights, and must not require privatization and deregulation as a condition of market access.
   

• Trade negotiating authority must also instruct US negotiators that a top priority is to defend and strengthen US trade laws. Fast-tracked trade agreements must not prevent governments from implementing national policies to promote a strong manufacturing sector.

 
With the US Senate now being run by "fair trade" supporter Tom Dashle, it is unlikely that any progress will be made under these very strict guidelines. Unless some bold new initiative on the social dimension is produced, fast track will languish. This possibility has strengthened the hand of the Europeans and led countries like Chile to look again at Mercosur as a means to hedge their bets on a FTAA in 2005.