SMOOT OPERATORS:

No plans to change CAFTA labor provisions -US aide (Reuters, 05.05.04)

The Bush administration has no plans to change labor provisions of a new free trade pact with five Central American countries to encourage more Democrats to vote for it, a U.S. official said on Friday.

"We believe that the approach that we've adopted in CAFTA (U.S.-Central American Free Trade Agreement) is the approach that was agreed upon by Congress" in 2002, Regina Vargo, assistant U.S. trade representative for the Americas, told reporters after a speech to a business group.

Top Democrats have warned CAFTA is in trouble in Congress because of its labor provisions, which they say say are too weak. They want the agreement renegotiated to require the five countries -- Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua -- to incorporate the International Labor Organization's "core labor standards" into their laws.

Those include the right to collective bargaining and freedom of association and the elimination of forced labor and discriminatory employment practices.
But in a speech to the Association of American Chambers of Commerce in Latin America, Vargo said the CAFTA labor provisions were consistent with Congress' instructions that countries only be required to enforce their own labor laws as a condition of becoming a U.S. free trade partner.

Remember a couple years ago how no self-respecting free trader could possibly vote for George W. Bush because of the steel tariffs--here's a preview of what they'd get instead.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 7, 2004 7:48 AM