[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 77 (Monday, June 13, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H4374-H4375]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     CAFTA: A LOSE-LOSE PROPOSITION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gene Green) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight during the 5-
minute time in opposition to the flawed free trade agreement the 
administration signed with the Dominican Republic and Central American 
countries. My colleague from Ohio (Mr. Brown) has an hour later, but I 
wanted to do a 5-minute on the Central American Free Trade Agreement 
and the Dominican Republic.
  Over the past year we have continued to learn about this agreement. 
During this time the opposition to CAFTA, as it is called, has only 
grown stronger. The more we learn, the more we realize that CAFTA is a 
lose-lose proposition. It is no secret that CAFTA is modeled after the 
NAFTA agreement that was supposed to create new markets for U.S. 
products and lift up the low-income people in Mexico. The unfortunate 
result of NAFTA was the loss of 50,000 jobs and a widening of the 
income gap in Mexico.
  Make no mistake, wealth in Mexico has increased since NAFTA, but it 
has not been evenly distributed. Since NAFTA, an additional 19 million 
Mexicans are impoverished, and President Vicente Fox has stated that 54 
million Mexicans are too poor to meet their basic needs. With 10 
percent of the Mexican population controlling half of the nation's 
wealth, it is easy to see that the average Mexican worker has not 
benefited from NAFTA. One would think our country would learn from the 
many failures of NAFTA instead of applying the nearly identical trade 
provisions to the Central American and Dominican Republic.
  I have long opposed free trade agreements with countries with 
substantially lower standards of living than we have here in the United 
States. I am proud to represent the third most blue-collar district in 
our country. The workers in our district benefit from the labor laws on 
the books of our country. While our labor laws could certainly be 
strengthened, they ensure that our blue-collar workers receive a living 
wage and make up a thriving middle class in our country, although a 
shrinking middle class in our country, might I add.
  I have no doubts whatsoever about the skills and productivity of our 
American workers, but they cannot compete against similar workers in 
Nicaragua, for example, where wages average about $200 a month. This 
salary differential puts the American worker and American products at a 
disadvantage, one that this country should not allow to be exploited 
through a free trade agreement.
  The labor laws of the CAFTA countries do not come close to meeting 
international standards. Each of the DR-CAFTA countries has been cited 
by the International Labor Organization for policies which provide 
inadequate protection against antiunion discrimination. Four of the 
five countries have laws on the books that significantly impede 
workers' ability to strike, and each of the countries has laws that 
restrict union formation or union leadership.
  Mr. Speaker, free enterprise includes not only me as a 
businessperson, but also me as a person to be able to collectively 
bargain for my wages and my working conditions. What is worse, the 
CAFTA agreement has no real enforcement mechanism to force a change in 
these labor laws. True, the agreement

[[Page H4375]]

technically requires the enforcement of all labor laws, and as a 
penalty for failing to enforce its labor laws, a CAFTA country must pay 
a fine to improve the labor conditions. However, the agreement contains 
no guarantee that the fine will be used for that purpose. In fact, as a 
party to the CAFTA agreement, the U.S. has the ability to withdraw 
trade benefits only based on whether that fine is paid, not on how that 
money is used.
  This provision violates the spirit of the fast track negotiating 
authority under which Congress will consider CAFTA. Under fast track, 
all parts of an agreement must be subject to equal remedies. Yet under 
CAFTA, the penalties for labor violations are much weaker than those 
involved in commercial disputes, whether it be copyright or some other 
commercial dispute.
  Make no mistake about it, this agreement is not in the interest of 
the Central American worker or the American worker. This agreement 
would just open the door for American multinational corporations or 
other countries' multinational corporations to shift their operations 
overseas for cheap Central American labor. In the interest of both 
American workers and the Central American workers, I encourage my 
colleagues to join me, and a majority of this House, in opposition to 
DR-CAFTA.

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