[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 27 (Monday, March 13, 2000)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E283]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 FORMER UAW PRESIDENT UNDERSTANDS THAT PNTR FOR CHINA IS IN AMERICA'S 
                           NATIONAL INTEREST

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                           HON. DOUG BEREUTER

                              of nebraska

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, March 13, 2000

  Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, as the debate on providing China with 
Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) status conditioned on China's 
entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) intensifies, I recommend 
to my colleagues and submit for the Record the following commentary 
written by Leonard Woodcock in the Los Angeles Times on March 9, 2000. 
A key lieutenant in the 1930's drive to unionize the U.S. auto 
industry, Mr. Woodcock rose in the union ranks to become president of 
the United Auto Workers union from 1971-1977. Later that decade he 
served as the United States Ambassador to China. Indeed, Mr. Woodcock 
is uniquely qualified to judge from a labor perspective the merits and 
impact of providing China with PNTR in the context of the United 
States-China WTO bilateral accession agreement. He supports the 
agreement and PNTR status for China. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, it is hard 
to understand why other labor leaders and their Democratic supporters 
in Congress cannot be as supportive as is the former president of the 
United Auto Workers, Leonard Woodcock.

               [From the Los Angeles Times, Mar. 9, 2000]

                   Evolution Doesn't Occur Overnight


WTO agreement: Organized labor should support it. It's in both U.S. and 
                           Chinese interests

                         (By Leonard Woodcock)

       The recent U.S.-China World Trade Organization bilateral 
     accession agreement appears to be good for workers in both 
     countries. I was privileged, as U.S. ambassador to China, to 
     sign the 1979 trade agreement that provided for most-favored-
     nation trade status to China and have, as a private citizen, 
     been involved with this issue for many years.
       American labor has a tremendous interest in China's trading 
     on fair terms with the U.S. The agreement we signed with 
     China this past November marks the largest single step ever 
     taken toward achieving that goal. The agreement expands 
     American jobs. And while China already enjoys WTO-based 
     access to our economy, this agreement will open China's 
     economy to unprecedented levels of American exports, many of 
     which are high-quality goods produced by high-paying jobs.
       There is reason to fear unfair trade practices. Yet this 
     agreement actually provides better protections than our 
     existing laws allow. It stipulates 12 years of protections 
     against market surges and provides unusually strong anti-
     dumping laws--which aim to counter unfairly priced imports--
     for 15 years.
       I have, therefore, been startled by organized labor's 
     vociferous negative reaction to this agreement. The reality 
     is that the U.S. as a whole benefits mightily from this 
     historic accord. The AFL-CIO argues that nothing in this 
     agreement demands that free trade unions be formed in China. 
     Yet the WTO does not require this of any of its 136 member 
     countries, and the WTO is the wrong instrument to use to 
     achieve unionization.
       We should, instead, be asking a more important question: 
     Are Chinese workers better off with or without this 
     agreement? The answer is that this agreement, in a variety of 
     ways, will be enormously beneficial to Chinese workers.
       On a subtle level, the changes the agreement requires of 
     China's economic system will work in favor of investment by 
     Western firms and take away some of the key advantages Asian 
     firms now enjoy in China. Every survey has demonstrated that 
     working conditions and environmental standards in plants run 
     by West European and North American firms are usually better 
     than those in Asian and in indigenous Chinese firms.
       The greater foreign presence also will expose Chinese 
     workers to more ideas about organization and rights. That is 
     perhaps one reason why almost every Chinese political 
     dissident who has spoken out on this issue has called the 
     U.S.-China WTO agreement good news for freedom in China.
       The trade deficit with China is a troublesome one to the 
     labor movement. We need to put it in perspective in two ways. 
     First, if we were to block access of goods from China to the 
     U.S., this would not increase American jobs. That is because 
     the Chinese exports--mostly toys, tools, apparel, cheap 
     electronics, etc.--would be produced in other low-wage 
     countries, not in the U.S. Yet if China stopped buying from 
     us, we would lose about 400,000 jobs, mostly high-wage.
       Second, a large portion of exports from ``China'' are goods 
     produced in the main in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Southeast Asia. 
     The major components are then shipped to China for final 
     assembly and packaging, but the entire cost of the item 
     (often only 15% of which was contributed in China) is 
     attributed to China's export ledger. Exports to the U.S. from 
     Hong Kong and Taiwan have declined over the past decade 
     almost as fast as imports from China have increased. Yet the 
     companies making the profits are in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and 
     they will simply shift their operations to Vietnam or 
     elsewhere if we close down exports from China.
       Americans are broadly concerned about the rights and 
     quality of life of Chinese citizens. My perspective on this 
     serious issue is influenced by my experience in the U.S. In 
     my lifetime, women were not allowed the vote, and labor was 
     not allowed to organize. And, in my lifetime, although the 
     law did not permit lynching, it was protected and carried out 
     by legal officeholders. As time passed, we made progress, and 
     I doubt if lectures or threats from foreigners would have 
     moved things faster.
       Democracy, including rights for workers, is an evolutionary 
     process. Isolation and containment will not promote improved 
     rights for a people. Rather, working together and from within 
     a society will, over time, promote improved conditions. The 
     U.S.-China WTO agreement will speed up the evolutionary 
     process in China. American labor should support it because it 
     is in our interests, and it is the interests of Chinese 
     workers too.

     

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