People All Over the World Favor Labor Standards in Trade Deals including nine out of 10 in the USA

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/04/07/people-all-over-the-world-favor-labor-standards-in-trade-deals/

People All Over the World Favor Labor Standards in Trade Deals

by James Parks, Apr 7, 2007

Strong majorities in countries around the world—including nine out of 10 in the United States—support requiring trade agreements to meet minimum labor and environmental standards, a multinational poll finds.

The Bush administration long has opposed the inclusion of meaningful and enforceable worker core rights and environmental standards in trade agreements.

But the U.S. public is nearly unanimous in support of both labor and environmental standards. Ninety-three percent of those polled agree that “countries that are part of international trade agreements should be required to maintain minimum standards for working conditions.” Only 5 percent disagree. Support for environmental standards is equally overwhelming, with 91 percent saying such protections should be included and only 5 percent saying they should not.

“The American public is clearly concerned that trade agreements fail to protect either workers or the environment,” says Christopher Whitney, executive director for studies at The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, which conducted the poll, along with WorldPublicOpinion.org and polling organizations around the world.

This strengthens the hand of those in Congress who share this apprehension, particularly as the White House increases its willingness to negotiate these issues with Congress in advance of the expiration of the president’s trade-promotion authority. Many newly elected members of Congress say they have heard voters’ concerns about bad trade deals and plan to work for fair trade.The Bush administration is pushing hard to renew Fast Track trade-pomotion authority, which expires June 30. The Fast Track law, which was narrowly passed by the Republican Congress in 2002, allows the president to negotiate trade deals but prevents Congress from improving or rejecting harmful provisions by amending such trade packages. Working families strongly opposed the 2002 legislation, and the AFL-CIO union movement recently joined in coalition with other fair trade activists to battle against unfair trade deals, including Fast Track authority. The public in Mexico, one of the three partners in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), also favors including both labor and environmental standards in trade deals.According to a study by the Economic Policy Institute, NAFTA failed workers in Mexico, Canada and the United States. The report’s co-authors told a Washington, D.C., briefing last month:

In each nation, while workers’ productivity grew, workers’ salaries remained stagnant or dropped, and the wealth of those at the top increased significantly. In Mexico, many of the jobs created under NAFTA were low wage with no benefits and no future, says Carlos Salas, professor at Mexico’s El Colegio de Tlaxcala and Institute of Labor Studies. So it’s not surprising that the Mexican public is in favor by a wide margin of making labor standards a part of trade deals. Sixty-seven percent of Mexicans say standards for working conditions should be included, and 76 percent think environmental rules should be included.In other poll results:

* Argentines overwhelmingly support both types of protections: 89 percent say minimum standards for working conditions should be required, and 90 percent say minimum standards for protection of the environment should be mandatory.

* Majorities in four developing Asian countries—China, India, Thailand and the Philippines—say trade agreements should require governments to maintain “minimum standards” for working conditions or for the protection of the environment.

* Large majorities in three Eastern European countries—Poland, Armenia and Ukraine—also favor such protections, as do an overwhelming majority of Israelis.



“It has often been assumed that when leaders of developing countries argue against including labor or environmental standards in trade agreements they represent the wishes of their people,” says Steven Kull, editor of WorldPublicOpinion.org.

[PDJane]

1. Well of course.........

because people in general are suffering from the growing wage gap and learning about how it affects them at home.

It's time for a vast, left wing conspiracy, thank you.

[jwirr]

2. Workers of the World Unite. Finally.

[htuttle]

3. Requiring the right to collective bargaining and a ban on child labor in trade treaties...

...is the first step toward dealing with the 'outsourcing problem'.

There's a hell of a lot of other steps, but that is definitely the first one.

[burrowowl]

4. K&R

Peoples of the World Unite against exploitation by laissez-faire fascist corporatists!