[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 157 (Tuesday, November 9, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H11708-H11709]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     THE WTO NEEDS A MAJOR OVERHAUL, AND THE UNITED STATES HAS AN 
                          OPPORTUNITY TO DO IT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 19, 1999, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 4 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich), who 
preceded me, talked a little bit about the upcoming meeting of the 
World Trade Organization, and I would like to follow up on that.
  It was Renato Ruggiero, the former director general of the World 
Trade Organization, who said, and I quote, we are writing the 
Constitution of a new world government, end quote.
  Well, they left out a few things when they wrote that new 
constitution. They left out consumer rights and protections. They left 
out labor rights. They left out environmental rights and protections.
  The United States has a tremendous opportunity, in hosting the 
beginning of the next round of negotiations at the World Trade 
Organization, to initiate a major overhaul of this horribly flawed 
agreement and drag it kicking and screaming into at least the late 20th 
Century.
  Labor rights, well there seems to be agreement on labor rights. The 
President has admitted that perhaps the nonbinding, face-saving, 
political butt-covering side agreements on labor and the environment, 
which were not binding, which helped push NAFTA through this 
organization here, the House of Representatives, gave enough people 
political cover, will not be enough in the future for trade agreements 
and, if called, he and the vice president, for labor agreements to be 
core labor protections, to be core to any future

[[Page H11709]]

agreement, the only problem is, their employee, the special trade 
representative, Charlene Barshefsky, does not seem to share their 
views.
  When pressed in a press conference last week to expand upon what is 
the United States talking about here, they cannot be serious about 
putting labor protections into an international trade agreement, by 
God, then what would capital do? How could it run around the world 
looking for the most exploited sources of labor?
  She said, quote, this is not a negotiating group. It is an analytic 
working group designed to draw upon the expertise of other multilateral 
institutions in order to answer a series of analytic points.
  Now, that does not sound an awful lot like labor protections. It does 
not sound like it will get us to the point made by the previous 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich), stopping trafficking in goods 
produced by forced child labor around the world. No, that is a little 
too far for the World Trade Organization, and if Ms. Barshefsky has her 
way, it will be too far for the United States of America to go. That is 
pathetic.
  She goes on to say, the issue of sanctions is nowhere in this 
proposal and it is certainly not on the table, and then she goes on in 
another much longer quote I do not have time to give, to say that this 
analytical look at labor protections will lead everybody to the 
conclusion that the best way to bring up labor standards around the 
world is not to have any; sort of like the theory of the Republicans 
here in Congress. If we did not have a minimum wage the market would 
set one and it would be good for everybody.
  Well, maybe not the people who earn the minimum wage or just above 
it, but it would be good for the employers.
  The same thing with the World Trade Organization and Carlene 
Barshefsky. They want to say the market will bring about in the future 
some sort of labor protections without these horrible dictates.
  In fact, they are undermining our own laws here in the United States 
with the World Trade Organization, a little secretive body of 3 people 
who are exempt from conflict of interest, exempt from public 
disclosure, make binding decisions on trade disputes.
  The U.S. has lost a number of trade disputes on environmental issues 
over the last few years, but they have won one big one.
  We are going to force the Europeans to take hormone-laced beef. By 
God, that is a big victory for the U.S. and we should have more of 
this. We do not want to reform this organization. We do not want 
transparency and doing away with conflict of interest rules. We do not 
want any system of juris prudence the American people can understand. 
We do not want to allow environmental groups or labor groups to 
intervene and mess up the decision-making process of the World Trade 
Organization.
  We have a tremendous opportunity as the United States of America to 
lead, and maybe we have to get rid of Ms. Barshefsky to do that.

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