[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 172 (Wednesday, November 7, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H13215-H13216]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS

  (Ms. KAPTUR asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, every time the United States signs a free 
trade agreement with a developing country, this time the Bush Peru 
agreement, we end up outsourcing more wealth and more middle-class 
jobs. We're already in deficit with Peru under existing conditions. And 
just like Mexico, when we signed that agreement, we went from a surplus 
to a gigantic deficit.
  If labor provisions in the agreement are so good, why are no trade 
unions in our country or Peru supporting the agreement? Could it be 
because the agreement does not require the Peruvians to comply with 
core labor ``rights'', but rather, with vague and unenforceable labor 
``principles'' which are then cleverly placed in the preamble or the 
declaration of the agreement and not in the enforceable and binding 
core standards, as do the International Labor Organization conventions?
  You know, this week the Peruvian miners are talking to us. They are 
on

[[Page H13216]]

strike; 6,300 miners who mine gold and silver and zinc and copper and 
molybdenum in that country. They're on strike but the Peru Labor 
Ministry has ordered them back to work or they will lose their jobs in 
3 days. Isn't it time for us to hear the voices of the people of Peru 
as well as the voices of the people of our own country who have lost so 
many jobs due to these unfair trade agreements?
  Peru doesn't intend to enforce international labor rights.

                          ____________________