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




                            WHAT IS THE WTO?

  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, with all the talk about the meeting of the 
WTO in Seattle, it is worth answering the question, what is the WTO? 
The World Trade Organization, the Uruguay Round of the GATT, General 
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, is a broad-ranging set of international 
trade rules that, number one, imposes obligations on foreign countries 
that are beneficial to U.S. multinational companies and, number two, it 
imposes obligations on the Federal and State governments that place 
tight limitations on Congress and the State legislatures that are 
beneficial to foreign multinational companies.
  The WTO makes the world the oyster of large multinational businesses, 
because the WTO takes away the inability of national governments to set 
the laws of their countries. National governments, including the United 
States, lose the ability to pass laws affecting the import of products 
that are dangerous or that are made where there are no worker 
protections, child labor prohibitions, minimum wage standards or where 
workers are deprived of the right to organize into unions and bargain 
collectively.
  Even if the import of those products would put U.S. workers out of 
work or would endanger consumers or the environment, the WTO says no.
  At the current time, there is a WTO panel hearing arguments against 
France's ban on asbestos, a proven carcinogen in humans and a 
substantial workplace danger.
  According to the Congressional Research Service, legislation passed 
in the U.S. Congress to ban imports of products made with child labor, 
quote, would be inconsistent with GATT articles, unquote. In other 
words, the WTO would not permit Congress to ban products made with 
child labor.
  So here is the imbalance: The WTO permits measures that make it 
easier for large companies to locate anywhere in the world but the WTO 
forbids a country from banning a product made with child labor.
  What would happen if the U.S. passed a law that banned the import of 
products made with child labor? Any one of the 131 member countries 
could seek a tribunal in Geneva to overturn the U.S. law. Companies 
that profit from products made from child labor would be expected to 
lobby countries to bring such a case. It is possible that companies 
would be able to bring such a case themselves, without persuading a 
country government to do so, if the WTO is expanded some more. If a WTO 
panel of trade bureaucrats ruled that any child labor ban violated the 
WTO, the U.S. would have to repeal the law or pay damages.
  According to the Congressional Research Service, that is just what 
the WTO tribunal would rule.
  So when the World Trade agreement was negotiated, we gave away the 
United States' greatest negotiating leverage, access to the U.S. 
market, to improve the rights and living standards of workers in the 
U.S. and around the world. The U.S. has basically unilaterally ceded 
this.
  In the next few weeks, trade ministers from many of the world's 
countries will be meeting in Seattle to discuss how to expand the WTO. 
The U.S. is sending many negotiators, but will they be bargaining for 
what we need? What we need, what the working people in the United 
States and overseas need, is to renegotiate the WTO before any 
expansion occurs. We need to place limitations on the WTO. We need to 
explicitly enable the United States and other countries to prohibit 
import of products made with child and forced labor.
  We need to be able to use the leverage of access to the U.S. market 
and other markets to guarantee the rights of workers to organize into 
unions and bargain collectively; to be protected by workplace safety 
and right-to-know standards that are minimally equivalent to current 
U.S. standards; and to benefit from legal minimum wage levels.
  We need the WTO to be limited to improve conditions for workers in 
the U.S. and around the world. American workers would benefit. They 
would have less reason to be pressured into abandoning efforts to 
improve wages and conditions by employer threats to move plants and 
equipment to the Third World.

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