UNION LEADERS APPLAUD DELAY OF
U.S.-COLOMBIA ‘FREE TRADE’ PACT

Union leaders applauded a 224-195 House vote on April 10 to delay congressional consideration of the U.S.-Colombia “free trade” pact. And AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney may have raised the bar for ever bringing the controversial measure to Congress. That’s because Sweeney, at the end of his prepared statement, said the pact should never come up on Capitol Hill until murders of Colombian unionists stop.

The vote, engineered by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA.) derails the “fast track” that anti-worker GOP President George W. Bush put the U.S.-Colombia pact on when he sent it to Congress, after only a perfunctory phone call to its Democratic leaders, on April 7.

Under “fast track” rules for such trade pacts, lawmakers were supposed to have only 90 days to vote on legislation implementing the U.S.-Colombia trade pact, not the agreement itself. They couldn’t amend the legislation to include workers’ rights. The pact has weak workers’ rights provisions in its text.

Pelosi pushed through a vote, mostly on party lines, to change the rules and stop that 90-day clock. The Republicans screamed it was really a vote against the pact, and echoed Bush’s theme the U.S.-Colombia pact is vital to national security and to protecting democracy in Latin America against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a fierce Bush critic who governs that next-door nation.

“We ought to look after American workers first before we look after Colombian workers,” Kennedy said at a small press conference April 10. “I personally do not accept” the U.S.-Colombia deal. Added Sweeney: “We don’t see any reason agreement should be reached this way. Economic stimulus should be first.”

But in his prepared remarks after the House vote, Sweeney went even further.

“With the U.S. economy entering a potentially severe recession, with the trade deficit running at about $2 billion a day, and with unemployment on the rise, the last thing we need is another flawed trade agreement with a country that cannot even guarantee the rule of law, let alone basic human rights for its workers,” he said.

At the end, he added: “Congress should give its full attention to addressing the urgent needs of our failing economy. And there should be no vote on the U.S.-Colombia FTA until Colombia ends the violence against trade unionists and assures they can exercise their basic rights without fear.”

That could be a tall order. Both unions and congressional Democrats make Colombia’s record of 2,500-plus murders of unionists over the last 15 years by Right Wing paramilitaries--some of them paid by U.S.-based multi-nationals--with few or no prosecutions a key reason for opposing the so-called “free trade” pact.

The business community, meanwhile, geared up a huge campaign to try to get Congress to pass the pact’s implementing legislation. Besides the Chamber of Commerce, business participants include the Retail Industry Leaders Association, a Wal-Mart-funded front group.

The delay also gives labor more time for its ongoing campaign to kill the U.S.-Colombia trade pact. Analysts differed on whether House Democrats would have voted as a bloc against the trade pact had the roll-call been scheduled soon. Some analysts said so-called “New Democrats,” more allied with the business community, would have deserted Pelosi and unionists and sided with Bush. Others disagreed.

The pact would dump all tariffs and other trade restrictions between the U.S. and the South American nation. Virtually all Colombian goods enter the U.S. duty free under another, more limited pact that has some labor protections. Some U.S. goods face Colombian tariffs and restrictions. And Colombia not only has a murderous labor record, but its government actively opposes unions. The nation is only 4% union.