Wyden and Smith cast deciding votes for CAFTA in committee

Oregon U.S. Senators Ron Wyden and Gordon Smith voted against fair trade and a fair deal for American workers when they cast the deciding votes on the Senate Finance Committee June 14 in favor of a “mock markup” of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).

Wyden broke ranks with seven fellow Democrats on the committee with his vote to approve CAFTA in the form in which it was presented by the Bush Administration on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. The committee vote was 11-9. A “no” vote by Wyden would have resulted in a 10-10 tie that would have dealt a blow to the Bush Administration’s drive to pass the trade treaty. The other Democrat supporting CAFTA was Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas. Two Republicans — Olympia Snowe of Maine and Mike Crapo of Idaho —opposed it.

The vote of the Senate Finance Committee was non-binding, but it represented a significant first test of support for CAFTA in the one chamber of Congress which has traditionally been a rubber stamp for trade agreements. Less than two weeks after the vote, the Bush Administration submitted its trade legislation to Congress. At press time, the Senate Finance Committee was scheduled to vote on the final treaty on June 28. Under self-imposed “fast-track” rules for ratifying trade deals, Congress has no more than 90 legislative days to consider the agreement once it is submitted. The Senate may act before July 1 and the House later in the month.

No trade agreement has ever failed to win passage in the Congress. The votes have been close in the House and lopsided in the Senate.

CAFTA is modeled on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which, according to the AFL-CIO, has proven to be a graveyard for good jobs in Oregon. The state lost more than 9,000 jobs due to escalating trade imbalances with Mexico since NAFTA took effect in 1994. Nationally, the jobs lost due to NAFTA approach 900,000, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

CAFTA would join the United States to Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic just as NAFTA joined the U.S., Mexico and Canada.

“The senators sided with corporations that want cheaper labor to make the products they sell to American consumers, and turned their backs on American workers whose jobs depend on competing fairly in the global economy,” said Judy O’Connor, executive secretary-treasurer of the Northwest Oregon Labor Council and chair of the Oregon AFL-CIO’s Trade Committee. “Their votes will haunt Oregon workers for decades to come if CAFTA is eventually approved by the Congress.”

Wyden had a perfect opportunity to oppose the trade treaty after an amendment offered by Massachusetts Senator John Kerry to include labor rights failed on a 10-10 vote. Wyden supported the amendment.

“We are particularly disappointed with the vote of Senator Wyden, who has told us he supports the ‘smart trade’ reforms advocated by Senator Kerry,” said Ken Allen, executive director of Oregon AFSCME Council 75.

In a statement following his vote, Wyden said, “Smart trade means that we make or grow something here and sell it there. That’s the kind of trade I want to be for and that’s the kind of trade this agreement will promote.”

He said Oregon’s agriculture and high-tech industries will benefit from CAFTA.

Wyden said that he would have preferred the treaty had followed the U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement, particularly with respect to its labor standards and other protections for workers. But, he continued, rejection of CAFTA likely would signal an alarm for industries to clear out of Central America and move elsewhere.

“I believe the Senate should harbor no illusions: The only other real ‘elsewhere’ today is China, which is swiftly becoming an economic juggernaut,” Wyden said. He added:

“Are U.S. interests better served by forcing more economic power to be concentrated in China’s hands, or by establishing closer economic ties with our neighbors in Central America? Does the United States want to hand China a golden opportunity to amass even more economic clout? To me, the less desirable option is for the Senate to reject the agreement.”

Wyden did manage to win a voice vote amendment for expansion of trade adjustment assistance for service workers who lose their jobs due to foreign trade impacts due to CAFTA. “But that’s like voting for more bandages, while ignoring the job deaths by a thousand cuts that will be caused by another flawed trade deal,” said Oregon AFL-CIO President Tim Nesbitt.

Congress Daily reported June 20 that the final CAFTA language to be submitted to the Senate is not expected to include the trade adjustment assistance.

In fact, when it comes to deal-making on trade agreements, a promise made is rarely a promise kept. Since 1992, more than four out of every five promises made to members of Congress to nail down their votes on trade agreements were broken, according to a recent analysis by Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.

Public Citizen tracked the fate of 93 side deals made with members of Congress in order to secure their votes for the passage of NAFTA, renewal of preferential trading status for China and the approval of take-it-or-leave-it trade negotiating authority for the Bush Administration. Of those 93 deals struck, only 16 were consummated. The other 77 were never implemented, funded or completed, even though some of those deals were incorporated in legislation.

“Even on the rare occasion that a promise is initially funded,” writes Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, “the funding is either terminated or the promised policy ruled illegal under the WTO and eliminated.”

And while Wyden’s support of CAFTA was particularly galling to Oregon union members, it also ran counter to the Democratic Party’s platform on trade, which was approved at the party convention last July. That platform states in part:

“We will build on and strengthen the progress made in the Jordan agreement to include strong and enforceable labor and environmental standards in the core of new free-trade agreements. And no trade agreement should stop government from protecting the environment, food safety or the health of its citizens. Nor should an agreement give greater rights to foreign investors than to U.S. investors, require the privatization of our vital public services, or limit our government’s ability to create good jobs in our communities.”

Like NAFTA, CAFTA fails to treat its labor provisions on the same basis as its investor provisions. Also, CAFTA allows foreign corporations to challenge U.S. laws in private tribunals if those laws constitute what the corporations believe are restraints of trade.

Both of these provisions appear to contradict the Democratic Party platform on trade. And, both are inconsistent with directives to the Bush Administration for minimally acceptable trading terms that were incorporated in the fast-track trade negotiating authority approved by the Senate in 2002.

“CAFTA includes two sets of provisions relating to workers: First, it requires that nations uphold their own labor laws, but it makes no stipulation as to what those laws require, and includes only token enforcement provisions. Second, it calls on countries to ‘strive to’ achieve the most basic standards, like the ‘elimination of the worst forms of child labor,’ but includes absolutely no provisions to enforce these negligible standards,” Kerry said. His amendment would have imposed enforcement.

“This means a U.S. worker might well lose his or her job to a facility operating at conditions far, far below what anyone would deem acceptable in the modern economy,” Kerry continued.

“By contrast, CAFTA provides an elaborate and thorough process of very specific rules, investigation, dispute, appeal and punishment to protect corporations’ economic rights and interests ... The fundamental question is, ‘why does CAFTA not provide the same protection for workers’ economic rights and interests?’ There can be no doubt that CAFTA creates a horribly unfair double standard that punishes workers,” Kerry added.

Four Democratic members of Oregon’s House delegation have announced their opposition to CAFTA. They are Earl Blumenauer, Peter DeFazio, Darlene Hooley and David Wu. Oregon’s fifth member, Greg Walden, who represents Oregon’s Second District, remains undecided.

Democrat Brian Baird of Southwest Washington opposes the trade treaty.

“This agreement actually weakens existing labor standards for the region,” Baird said. “Under the Caribbean Basin Initiative, which Congress enacted in 2000, Central American countries with which we trade must maintain internationally-recognized labor standards. Under CAFTA, however, such countries need not maintain such standards. Moreover, CAFTA maintains exceedingly weak enforcement provisions for labor violations. It is wholly unnecessary for the Administration to weaken these existing standards.”

At an anti-CAFTA labor rally in Eugene in May, DeFazio told the crowd that the Bush Administration was out “trying to buy the votes that they can’t get on principle. Ask anyone who votes for it,” said DeFazio, “what did you sell your vote for?”

According to the Washington Post, U.S. business leaders are threatening to cut off campaign contributions to members of Congress who oppose the trade deal. “If you [lawmakers] are going to vote against it, it’s going to cost you,” Thomas J. Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, warned recently during a meeting on Capitol Hill of leaders of a 500-plus business-trade association coalition.

In Eugene, DeFazio said trade treaties such as NAFTA and CAFTA aren’t about working people in Mexico and Central America buying U.S. goods; “They can’t afford them. It was always about U.S. manufacturers chasing the cheapest and most exploited labor in the world.”

“How many times is Congress going to be suckered?” he asked.

© Oregon Labor Press Publishing Co. Inc.