[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 6938-6939]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




         PROPOSED TRADE AGREEMENTS WITH COLOMBIA, PERU AND OMAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Lynch) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. LYNCH. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to address the House on the 
matter of the three proposed trade agreements that we are about to 
consider, namely, Colombia, Peru and the Sultanate of Oman trade 
agreements.
  Every Member of this body knows or should know the history of job 
loss in this country, and you would think, as my colleague from Texas 
said, that when you find yourself in a hole, you would stop digging, 
but not us. Here we go again.
  Just like the other so-called free trade agreements, the Colombia, 
Peru and Oman trade agreements contain no meaningful language or 
effective labor or environmental standards for workers in those 
countries. These so-called free trade agreements seek to reinforce the 
status quo in the host countries.
  Mr. Speaker, what we have here is identical language to the 
problematic and inadequate language that was contained in CAFTA and 
NAFTA before that.
  Instead of enforceable labor provisions with teeth, these free trade 
agreements suggest only that those Nations adopt and enforce their own 
labor laws. They offer no assurance that existing labor problems will 
be resolved, and they allow labor laws to be weakened or eliminated in 
the future, with no possibility of recourse.
  Now, some may wonder why the President and the administration chose 
these three countries for the next round of free trade agreements. It 
seems to me, after looking at the agreements, the Bush administration 
went out to the nations with the very worst examples of labor laws, 
protections and enforcement in the world, and some of the well-
documented and more troubling aspects of these agreements consist. 
First of all, in Colombia, in 2004, over 200 trade unionists were 
killed, making it the most dangerous country in the world for workers 
seeking to exercise their freedom to form unions. More than 3,000 union 
members have been killed in Colombia since 1985, and only five people 
have been indicted in those cases.
  In Peru, the U.S. State Department has indicated that child labor 
remains a serious problem. This is our own U.S. State Department. They 
estimate that 2.3 million children between the ages of 6 and 17 are 
engaged in work in that country. Now, when we talk about free trade, 
that is not free trade. That is asking the American worker to compete 
with children who are being paid very low wages and being exploited in 
these other countries.
  In Oman, their 2003 labor laws remain in serious violation of the 
International Labor Organization's most important and fundamental 
rights: freedom of association and the right to organize and bargain 
collectively.

[[Page 6939]]

There are no independent unions in that country.
  Mr. Speaker, while trade sanctions and serious remedies are granted 
to the commercial trade and investment provisions of these free trade 
agreements, the labor and environmental standards are totally 
ineffectual.
  It is interesting to me that the negotiators can get good protections 
for intellectual property rights and other commercial rights, but when 
it comes to labor and environmental standards, it is just not 
happening.
  I want to address the House especially within the context of the 
immigration problem that we are running up against in recent days. We 
have folks that are tunneling into our country from Mexico. They are 
swimming across rivers. They are hiding in containers from foreign 
countries and dying in the process of trying to get here, number one, 
to get out of the countries that they are in because they are in a 
troubled state and they know they have got no rights; secondly, to give 
their families hope in coming here.
  It seems to me, if we wanted to stop some of the immigration 
problems, we could include in our trade agreements provisions that 
protect those workers in their own countries. Then maybe they would not 
be lining up to come to this country with hopes of getting out of that 
situation.
  Secondly, we also talk a lot that we have got a major effort in Iraq, 
and the President of the United States has described it in many cases 
as an effort to export democracy. Well, I have got news for you; you do 
not export democracy through the Defense Department.
  This is where you export democracy, in our trade agreement, through 
our Commerce Department. Democracy is all about opportunity, and we 
should in our trade agreements give these foreign workers an 
opportunity to stay in their own country, to buy goods from us that 
would create a good dynamic by creating jobs in this country. Democracy 
is about opportunity, and if we are really serious about exporting 
democracy, it starts right here. It starts with our free trade 
agreements.
  This is just a terrible series of trade agreements. It offers no 
opportunities to these foreign workers. We are going to exacerbate the 
immigration problem because, as long as these people do not have a 
right to earn a decent living and have decent working conditions in 
their own country, they are still going to be coming here.
  So we can help on two fronts by adopting fair labor standards in our 
trade agreements, and I urge my colleagues to reject the Peru, 
Colombian and Oman trade agreements.

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