December 10, 2010
At our national convention in 2009 our union declared: “The ‘neoliberal’ corporate agenda affects us all. Downsizing and outsourcing in the private sector, privatization, deregulation, and budget cuts in the public sector, along with ‘free trade’ agreements, negatively impact working people globally.” We declared: “The fate of our planet demands that we place the well being of the majority of the world’s people ahead of profits for the few.”
The negotiations that concluded December 3rd regarding key points of conflict on the pending Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS - FTA) do just the opposite. While the Administration has touted KORUS - FTA as promoting jobs, our experience with NAFTA has convinced us that these agreements do far more to increase corporate profits than to create jobs or put food on the tables of working families.
We experienced the impact of NAFTA directly, through the loss of tens of thousands of our members jobs, and many other U.S. and Canadian workers shared the same fate. Nor did it benefit workers in Mexico. Our well-paid union jobs with safe working conditions were transformed into poorly paid jobs with few benefits and fewer protections, bankrupting the better paid small and middle sized domestic companies who employed the vast majority of Mexican workers. Meanwhile, the destruction of Mexican agriculture forced workers off the land, into cities, and in many cases across the border at great personal risk and anguish as workers left their families in search of work. Labor rights were trampled as the Mexican government facilitated agreements with corrupt “official” unions; over the past year, independent unions have faced escalating attacks by the government and employers, calling into question the most basic principles of freedom of association.
Unions in Korea face similar challenges. Just a few weeks ago, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) and the Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU) declared: “As widely known, the current Korean government headed by President Lee Myung-Bak is notorious for its unparalleled hostility towards trade unions and is the most repressive administration in this regard in the last two decades...” They also face serious attacks on their labor rights, including imprisonment for legitimate union activity, the unilateral cancellation of collective bargaining agreements and the denial of basic rights of freedom of association to many public sector and contingent workers.
They are not alone. Many people are unaware that here in the United States public sector workers in many states do not have the benefit of union representation and in several U.S. states, including North Carolina, UE members are prohibited by state law from engaging in collective bargaining. Many other groups of workers – domestic workers, farm workers, part time or contingent workers and others – enjoy limited protections or are excluded altogether from our labor laws. Our system of labor law is seriously broken.
In KORUS-FTA, instead of requiring specific compliance with the International Labor Organization’s conventions that establish internationally recognized core labor standards and fighting to increase standards around the world, one of the purported accomplishments of the US negotiators is to have forced Korea to actually lower environmental and safety standards. At a time when our children’s future is at serious risk due to the failure to adequately address the causes of global warming, our government has forced the deterioration of standards for food and car safety, including automotive standards for gas mileage.
Nor has the agreement – originally negotiated by President Bush – been altered to eliminate the much-criticized investor-state provisions. These provisions permit companies to sue governments for damages over actions, including financial, health or environmental regulations, that the companies claim interfere with their actual or anticipated profits. In addition, Public Citizen has noted: “Signed before the financial crisis, the pact calls for financial services deregulation that is at odds with the lessons we’ve learned from the economic crisis and that may conflict with recent reforms made by both the U.S. and Korea.”
This agreement must also be viewed in light of the increased tensions between North and South Korea, as an attempt to shore up South Korea’s president and broaden the national security relationship with South Korea. The need to declare a victory by political leaders cannot come at the expense of increased militarization and the well-being of working people in the U.S. and Korea.
Not only is it seriously deficient, but it will likely grease the wheels for similar agreements with Colombia and Panama – both countries with egregious records on labor rights.
This NAFTA-like bill must be stopped. Instead we call on Congress to pass and implement the Trade Reform, Accountability, Development, and Employment (TRADE) Act: review and renegotiate existing trade agreements, and commit to principles to be included in future trade agreements. Further, we call on the administration to develop a serious industrial policy for the United States, staunch the cuts in the public sector, create a public works program by executive order and generate jobs by providing money to small and middle sized businesses instead of reckless bailouts to transnational corporations and banks.
John H. Hovis Bruce J.Klipple Robert B. Kingsley
General President General Secretary-Treasurer Director of Organization