Workers’ rights a part of trade deals
Politico | October 2, 2011
Workers’ rights a part of trade deals
By: Rep. Sander Levin
In a rapidly globalizing economic world, our nation needs a trade policy that promotes jobs and prosperity for all our citizens. The free-trade agreements negotiated by the Bush administration were seriously flawed. They reflected a basic controlling theory that more trade is always better, even if it flows one way and the terms and conditions are flawed.
The South Korea trade agreement, as originally negotiated by the Bush administration, is a case in point. It would have opened up more of the Korean market for U.S. services and some agricultural products, but it failed to break down barriers in the automotive sector, which represented 75 percent of the large U.S. trade deficit with South Korea.
For decades, South Korea employed a unique and ever-changing regulatory regime to discriminate against auto imports, sheltering its market and using the proceeds to help penetrate the wide-open American market. The results spoke for themselves: In 2010, at least 515,000 Korean cars were exported to the U.S. and only 14,000 American cars were exported to South Korea. If Congress had done what Republicans repeatedly urged — approve the South Korea trade agreement — there would not have been the opportunity to rectify this one-way street in trade. That opportunity was seized by the Obama administration as it sought to change U.S. trade policy.
Working with House Democrats, the Obama administration began discussions with the South Korean government, achieving a fundamental breakthrough. The agreement opens South Korea’s market to U.S. automakers and sets an important precedent for ensuring future agreements secure two-way trade for American products. The trade agreement now deserves our support.
The free-trade agreements with Peru, Panama and Colombia pose a different set of challenges.
Workers there need basic labor rights to improve their financial standing and climb the economic ladder. This is critical to increasing U.S. exports and jobs. The development of a middle class creates consumers and robust markets for our products and services. It is also vitally important to U.S. workers who are correct in asserting they should not unfairly compete with workers whose rights are suppressed.
Unfortunately, the Bush administration believed trade was an end — in and of itself — and rejected including meaningful workers’ rights and environmental standards in trade agreements.
When House Democrats gained the majority in 2007, we renegotiated the terms of the Peru agreement. We overcame Bush administration resistance and included basic labor and environmental standards that led to its passage.
The Obama administration and congressional Democrats continued that success by working with Panama to bring its labor laws in compliance with international labor standards and address our concerns about Panama’s status as a tax haven. That trade agreement now deserves our support. The United States has maintained a trade surplus with Panama for more than 20 years — $5.7 billion in 2010 — and the trade agreement is expected to increase that surplus.
The U.S.-Colombia relationship is important in both economic and security terms. What prevented action on that agreement, as negotiated by the Bush administration, was that despite the fact that it opened some markets for American products, it failed to address a fundamental shortcoming in terms of U.S. trade policy.
Colombian workers have long been without their basic rights. State Department and International Labor Organization reports have long documented massive evidence of laws and practices limiting workers’ ability to exercise their basic rights. Violence persists against a wide range of targets, including workers and their leaders, and there has been minimal progress to prosecute those responsible, even on key cases.
The Colombian Action Plan Related to Labor Rights announced by President Barack Obama and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos in April was a step toward addressing these basic problems. The plan includes specific commitments and deadlines on workers’ rights, violence and impunity.
We should be focused on effectively carrying out the action plan. The Colombia trade agreement’s entry into force should be contingent on the plan’s meaningful implementation.
The Republicans’ refusal to reference the action plan in the trade agreement’s implementing bill — and the Obama administration’s acquiescence to that refusal — is a fundamental flaw that is becoming increasingly apparent.
Already, Colombia has not met some of the obligations in a meaningful way. In all key areas, compliance with the action plan must be more than a check-the-box exercise. The track record is not as encouraging as I hoped it would be after my last visit to Colombia in June.
The most troubling development is Colombia’s response to the pervasive problem of employers camouflaging true employment relationships through the use of so-called cooperatives and other contractual relationships to prevent workers from organizing. The ILO has long identified this practice of avoiding direct employment as a key impediment to Colombian workers exercising their basic rights.
Colombia initially committed to stopping such abuses. It passed far-reaching legislation and proposed potentially effective regulations. It now appears to be backing away from that commitment and is narrowly interpreting the new law and regulations to apply solely to cooperatives, creating massive loopholes. As a result, Colombian employers, including a major beverage company, are simply converting cooperatives to other contract forms to continue to prevent workers from exercising their basic labor rights.
Colombia also has failed to stop employers from using other tactics aimed at thwarting workers from organizing, such as “collective pacts,” or direct negotiations with workers used to diminish support for unions. The ILO called on Colombia to ban collective pacts in unionized workplaces. The action plan did not adopt the organization’s recommendation, but it at least required Colombia make it illegal to offer better terms under a collective pact than under a union agreement.
Unfortunately, Colombian employers, including a major aviation company, are permitted to circumvent this minimal requirement by simply naming collective pacts something else, such as “voluntary benefit agreements.”
Explicitly linking the Colombia trade agreement’s entry into force, which could occur months after the congressional vote, to meaningful implementation of the action plan is crucial to ensuring the labor concerns that have held up consideration of the pact are actually addressed. It would spell out the context as a basis for effective enforcement through the dispute-settlement process of the trade agreement’s worker rights standard and signal the Obama administration is fully committed to enforcing workers’ rights under the accord.
Including the action plan in the implementing legislation also would have provided leverage and encouragement to important reform groups in Colombian civil society supporting vigorous implementation and enforcement of the action plan as part of the spread of broad democratic values.
Worker rights and the action plan deserve to be elevated, not relegated.
Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.) is the ranking member on the Ways and Means Committee.
