[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Page 20177]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           ANTHONY G. FREEMAN

  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, at the end of this week, Anthony G. Freeman 
will leave the post of Director of the Washington Office of the 
International Labor Organization, or ILO, after almost a decade serving 
this specialized agency of the United Nations in its liaison with the 
executive and federal branches of the U.S. Government. These last 9 
years spent in this important role follow his 33-year career as a U.S. 
Foreign Service Officer.
  In that career, Mr. Freeman represented our country all over the 
world: in Valencia, Spain and Rome, Italy; in Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo 
and La Paz. From 1983 to 1992, he served as Coordinator for 
International Labor Affairs and the Agency for International 
Development. In that capacity, he was Special Assistant to three 
Secretaries of State.
  Tony Freeman's professional focus has been advancing the role of 
freedom of labor around the world, promoting the dignity and safety of 
workers wherever they toiled. He was a labor specialist who served as 
labor officer in many of his posts around the world. This experience 
was developed over three decades, culminating in his last assignment at 
the State Department as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for 
Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. No one understands better than Tony 
Freeman that true democracy cannot exist without human rights and 
neither exist without the freedom of the working man and woman.
  Some may not be aware of the importance that American labor has 
played in U.S. foreign policy through the decades. Some may not 
appreciate the role that the American worker has played in building 
alliances with workers around the world, conveying and supporting 
traditions of freedom--freedom to work and to organize and to be free 
of oppression--that are an essential aspect of American society. 
American unions, working through the State Department and working 
independently, have done great work advancing freedom around the 
planet, and continue to do so today.
  American unions were some of the greatest forces fighting communism 
during the cold war. The great Irving Brown, who I am pleased to say 
became my mentor and friend early in my career, when he introduced me 
to a fledgling Polish union named Solidarity, made his reputation 
immediately after World War II, when he worked tirelessly with Italian 
and French labor movements to prevent those nations from succumbing to 
Soviet influence.
  Lane Kirkland, the president of the AFL-CIO from 1979-1995, was a 
staunch anti-communist who played an important role in defending 
Solidarity in its early years. I was happy to work with these great 
men. I come from the working class. I worked as a lather to support my 
young family while I went to school, and I am proud to this day that I 
was a union member. It was easy and natural for me to work with other 
anti-communists from the labor movement to help defeat Soviet tyranny. 
In later years, Lane Kirkland would say to me, ``Orrin, if only your 
domestic policy was as good as your foreign policy.'' ``Well, Lane,'' I 
would retort, ``I could pay you the same compliment!''
  After 33 years working labor issues at the Department of State, Tony 
Freeman accepted the position of Director of the Washington Office of 
the International Labor Organization in late 1994. I first worked 
closely with Tony in 1995 and 1996, when a misguided congressional 
initiative threatened to defund U.S. participation in the ILO. It was a 
time when the ILO needed to make itself relevant to U.S. audiences, 
particularly Congress. Irving Brown's legacy with the ILO, when we all 
worked together to fight Soviet communism, was a great historical 
achievement, but that did not move policy-makers in Washington 
searching for new roles for international organizations in the post-
Cold War era.
  I joined with the late senator from New York, Daniel Patrick 
Moynihan, who, incidentally, did his doctoral dissertation on the ILO, 
to defend continued U.S. support for this organization. Supporters of 
the ILO came to our offices, including representatives from the Labor 
Department, unions and U.S. businesses. The beauty and strength of the 
ILO is that it is the only tripartite international organization of its 
type in the world, where workers and employers from all member nations 
join to address labor questions alongside their governments. We made 
our case that the ILO's relevance in an era of expanding trade and 
globalization, as well as spreading transnational challenges like child 
labor exploitation, was greater than ever.
  And we prevailed, and the U.S. continues to play a role in that 
important body. All of the coordination to preserve that role was 
organized by Tony Freeman, and today I want to express my personal 
gratitude for that important work in 1996.
  Tony's efforts did not peak then, and he spent the following years 
raising the ILO's visibility, and its new missions, before new 
audiences in the U.S. He developed closer ties between the ILO and 
human rights groups in the U.S. He drew their attention to the basic 
human right of working people around the world to have a voice in the 
workplace, and to the work of the ILO to free people trapped in slavery 
and bondage, including the forced laborers in Burma. He strengthened 
the common bond between the ILO and organizations and policy makers 
fighting to end abusive child labor and saw large increases in U.S. 
funding for the ILO's child labor programs. In addition, Tony Freeman 
worked tirelessly to gain U.S. ratification of ILO conventions, and, 
during his tenure at the ILO, he made a signal contribution to the 
efforts that led to U.S. ratification of Convention No. 176 on Safety 
and Health in Mines in 2001.
  I understand that Tony will be teaching in Washington in the coming 
years, as well as continuing to offer his lifetime of experience and 
counsel. I am relieved to hear this, because we still need Tony 
Freeman's experience. He has lived a great life of service to the 
working man and woman, across all borders, and he has served the 
American public well. Today, I wish to honor the work of Tony Freeman 
all these years. I thank him for his 33 years in the State Department. 
I thank him for the critical leadership he provided the International 
Labor Organization. I thank him for putting up with all my Irving Brown 
stories. I thank him for his friendship. Most of all, I wish to thank 
Tony Freeman for his service to his country.

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