More on WTO

[nin@xxxxxx]

Dear Burmanet readers,

I have been encouraged by many positive responses for my earlier 
posting on WTO. I thank you all who e-mailed me personally. 
Here is a bit more on WTO.

With metta,
Dr. Khin Ni Ni Thein
WRTC
 .................................................................
The Water, Research and Training Centre (WRTC) for a new Burma is 
a non-governmental, non-profit, educational foundation, explicitly
apolitical in nature, working for the Burmese peoples by promoting 
and improving their access to research and training opportunities 
and education in the water and rural sector in Burma and abroad.
P.O. Box 118, 2600 AC Delft, The Netherlands. 
http://wrtcburma.org
Tel. +31-15-2151814, Fax +31-15-214 39 22, E-mail nin@xxxxxx
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Subject: FW  More on WTO


2)  No. 197
Wednesday October 13, 1999
Page AA-4
ISSN 1523-567X

Leading the News

International Trade
Gephardt Calls for 'a Seat at the Table'
For Labor, Environmentalists in WTO Talks

LOS ANGELES--The next round of World Trade Organization negotiations
should include representatives of organized labor and environmental
groups, House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.) said Oct. 11 at the
AFL-CIO's biennial convention.

The WTO should have the labor and environmental issues "squarely on the
agenda," Gephardt said, to avoid the kind of misery that the North
American Free Trade Agreement has produced in Mexico.

In a speech to delegates and a press conference afterward, Gephardt
endorsed the AFL-CIO's call for a massive rally of workers and their
families to coincide with the Nov. 30 WTO ministerial meeting in Seattle.

The first step toward getting a place at the negotiating table "is to get
out in the street" in Seattle, Gephardt said in response to a reporter's
question.

In his address, Gephardt said the misery among workers in the
"maquiladora" industrial area near the U.S.-Mexican border is now worse
than in 1993, just prior to the NAFTA signing, because negotiators refused
to heed the calls of organized labor--and Gephardt--to include labor
rights and environmental protections in the body of the agreement.

Gephardt called for adoption of what he termed "a new path," one that
promotes greater international trade, but also establishes protections for
human and worker rights and the environment. "It's not the easy way, but
it's the right way," he said.

He also chided business interests that oppose inclusion of such
protections in trade agreements, noting they have no qualms about pushing
for similar safeguards for capital flows and intellectual property rights.

At the press briefing, Gephardt, who has already endorsed Vice President
Al Gore for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, said that if, as
expected, the AFL-CIO officially endorsed Gore before the convention's
end, Oct. 13, it would be because Gore "earned it on his record" of
supporting working families.

Gephardt acknowledged that Gore backed the NAFTA treaty that organized
labor vehemently opposed. But the vice president is now espousing an
approach to global trade much closer to his and the AFL-CIO's, he added.

Trumka Echoes Call

The core of that approach is including in the WTO basic workers' rights
and environmental protections, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka
told the convention audience shortly after Gephardt's address.

Those rights should include freedom of association, the right to organize
and bargain, no use of forced or compulsory labor, no child labor and no
discrimination, Trumka said. Moreover, the WTO should include strong
enforcement procedures, so that membership benefits may be withdrawn
quickly from governments that fail to enforce the rules, Trumka added.

The AFL-CIO also wants new applicants to the WTO to comply with workers'
rights before they are admitted, Trumka said. "If human and workers'
rights have no place in China, then China has no place in the WTO," he
said.

Trumka, who echoed Gephardt's call for "a seat at the table" for unions
and other citizens' organizations, also demanded that the WTO establish
stronger safeguards so that national action can be taken quickly when
import surges threaten domestic industries.

AFL-CIO's Broader Attack

Trumka's remarks were part of the AFL-CIO's broader attack on what it
views as the flawed rules now governing global trade. Those rules have led
to huge trade deficits in the United States, the loss of hundreds of
thousands of high-paying manufacturing jobs, and "a system of
international rules that has undermined domestic measures designed to
protect human rights and the environment," according to a resolution on
the global economy to be debated at the convention. Trade and investment
rules have focused on promoting the mobility of goods, services, and
capital across borders, but have failed to adequately address the social
impact of such liberalization, the resolution charged.

"As a result, American workers have found themselves increasingly in
head-to-head competition with workers in other countries who lack basic
human rights and legitimate national regulations protecting the
environment," it added.

To combat this situation, the resolution calls for the AFL-CIO to push for
strengthening workers' rights provisions in existing U.S. trade laws and a
renegotiation of NAFTA to correct "serious flaws in a number of areas,
including investment rules, safeguard measures, and cross-border trucking
access. The labor and environmental side agreements need to be
strengthened and made enforceable."

The resolution also calls for development of a comprehensive national
policy on the transfer of technology, production, and production
techniques that makes the rights and interests of U.S. workers a priority.

By Tom Gilroy

Copyright 1999 by The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc., Washington
D.C.
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