Labor, Environment Lose With ‘Fast-Track’
In an informal poll of friends and co-workers I have found a sizable demand for high-quality, pirated software. With Christmas coming up, they would be delighted to buy quality copies of Microsoft Word for the going price in China--$5 a copy.
Why not then sign free-trade agreements with China, Chile and other countries that would satisfy this burgeoning demand?
Business leaders rightly argue that pirated software today precludes the development of new improved software in the future.
To prevent this, the U.S. government negotiates trade agreements that provide strong ground rules for the fair treatment of intellectual property rights and tough sanctions for violators.
Are these the only ground rules that trade needs? Congress will answer this question, perhaps today, in its vote on “fast-track,” legislation that limits Congress to an up or down vote on trade agreements. The best route toward embracing the global economy and ensuring that trade expands in a healthy way is a “no” vote on this bill.
While the language of this bill does a very good job of protecting patents and investment, it excludes labor and environmental standards from the main body of trade agreements. This fast-track sends a strong message to potential U.S. trading partners: You must strengthen your investment and patent guarantees to enter into a free trade agreement, but the worst labor and environmental conditions are acceptable.
The issue is not free trade versus protectionism. Both sides in this debate want to see trade expand. The issue isn’t even the merits of fast-track. Many who have pledged to vote “no” agree that congressional amendment can slow or even derail trade negotiations.
The real issue is having basic labor and environmental standards that allow working families to share in the benefits of trade rather than be pulled down by it. Democratic values and economic success reinforce each other. Workers who have basic rights are more likely to obtain a fairer share of their productivity. This in turn creates growing markets for trade, not simply sites for low wage labor.
Consider the case of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Standing in an industrial park in Juarez, Mexico, one sees a striking economic success story. The maquiladoras, or duty-free assembly plants, now employ 940,000 workers, up from 550,000 when NAFTA was passed. The quality and productivity of the new plants rival their counterparts in Japan or the United States.
A trip to where maquiladora workers live tells a far different story. The average wage hovers around 80 cents an hour. Many workers have been reduced to living in houses constructed out of the packing crates for materials shipped to the plants in which they work.
Weak labor standards have given us the technologies of Silicon Valley combined with the living conditions of Calcutta. Small wonder that fast-track proponents seldom mention NAFTA, despite the fact that a “yes” vote today would lay the basis for a super-NAFTA throughout the Americas.
Isn’t asking for labor or environmental standards superimposing U.S. values on other countries? Just the opposite. Labor standards allow workers to exercise their basic rights to join a union and bargain freely. And they ensure that U.S. workers will not lose these rights.
These minimal standards strengthen democratic values not only at the bargaining table but also in society. They ensure that companies that play by the rules are not pulled down by those that don’t. Ignoring these minimal standards also is a standard that locks in the status quo. In the first four years of NAFTA, for example, not a single independent union has been formed in the maquiladora industry, and real wages have dropped by more than 25%.
On a trip to South America last August, House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt saw where this status quo leads. In a meeting with textile workers in Santiago, Chile, one expressed fears that the plant would be closed and moved to China as other plants already had done. Despite $1.20 an hour wages in Chile, Chinese wages are yet lower and environmental regulations more lax.
The net result of a “no” vote on fast-track today could be economic growth in which more people share, a strengthening of democracy and more robust trading relationships.
