Reply #28: wow

[drfemoe]

that isn't the plan at all. Support who you want, but the idea that Dean doesn't address labor issues is way off the mark.

http://issues2002.org/2004/Howard_Dean_Free_Trade.htm
--snip--
KERRY: Yes, it is fair, because Gov. Dean has said very specifically that we should not trade with countries until they have labor and environment standards that are equal to the US. That means we would trade with no countries. It is a policy for shutting the door. It's either a policy for shutting the door, if you believe it, or it's a policy of just telling people what they want to hear.

DEAN: I supported NAFTA, I supported the WTO. We benefited in Vermont from trade. But in the Midwest, our manufacturing jobs are hemorrhaging. We have to go back and revise every single trade agreement that we have to include labor standards, environmental standards & human rights standards. If we don't, the trade policy that we seek to help globalize and help workers around the country & the world is going to fail.
Source: Debate at Pace University in Lower Manhattan Sep 25, 2003
--snip-- .. much more

http://www.vote-smart.org/speech_detail.php?speech_id=M000003450&keyword=&phrase=free+trade&contain=
--snip--
Question: What is your policy on trade?
--snip--
The reason there's a middle class in this country is that in the early 1900s and late 1800s the trade union movement began to protect the people who were working in those factories where there were enormous concentrations of wealth that was not diffused to the entire society. The trade union movement began the development of the possibility that industrial workers could support a middle class lifestyle. The reason this country is the greatest country on earth, and is a stable democracy is that there's an enormous - and unfortunately shrinking - middle class and that middle class was created by (a) the emergence of small business and (b) more importantly the trade union movement.
--snip-- much more