Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) for his kind words. What a privilege it has been to work with the gentleman.

This agreement as negotiated misses an historic opportunity. It fails a key growing challenge to globalization to expand trade so that its benefits are widely shared. Trade agreements must level up, not level down. And unlike Chile or Singapore or Australia, CAFTA nations have immense poverty, among the worst income inequalities in the world, and a weak middle class. And to change that, to change that, workers must be able to lift themselves up the economic ladder. And to do so, they have to have their basic internationally recognized rights, including the right to bargain and to associate.

The fact of the matter is contrary to any of the rhetoric that comes forth here tonight or any of the disclaimers, a majority of workers do not have enforceable rights in their nations' legal structures.

Unlike CBI now in effect, CAFTA gives Central American governments a pass on worker rights. All they have to do is to enforce their own laws, no matter how bad they are presently, or no matter how bad they make them in the future. It is a standard used nowhere else: Enforce your own laws in this agreement is a double standard that would stimulate a race to the bottom.

That is bad, number one, for millions of Central American workers mired in poverty.

Number two, it is bad for the nations desperately needing a growing middle class. Three, it is bad for our workers, who will not compete with nations who suppress their workers. And it is bad for our businesses who need middle classes to buy their products.

I want to emphasize this, because the President has talked about security. Denial of worker rights and persistent poverty and inequalities are a source of insecurity, not security. A denial of democracy in the workplace is harmful to the spread of democracy. So not heeding our repeated warnings, the administration negotiated this CAFTA so it shattered the bipartisan foundation many of us have tried to build.

CAFTA needs to be defeated so that it can be renegotiated to meet the challenge of globalization. And that challenge is to shape a trade agreement so that it spreads more broadly the benefits of expanded trade, not reinforces an unsustainable status quo. Defeat this CAFTA so we can renegotiate a CAFTA that meets the challenges of globalization.

Mr. Speaker, this bill before us, in a word, is a smoke screen; and it has so little smoke, let alone any fire, that Members can see straight through it.

At its very best, it is feeble; at its worse, it disguises what the real problem is.

The gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) raised the issue why this is on suspension. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), I, and others introduced legislation, H.R. 3306. And I want to ask the chairman of the subcommittee, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. English), and the gentleman from California (Chairman Thomas), why not put this bill not on suspension but regular order? Why not sit down with Democrats, including the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) and others, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin) and myself, and try to come up with a truly bipartisan bill? The other side of the aisle has not done that.

They say they are adding provisions adding countervailing duties, but then they add other provisions which make it essentially impossible to work. They talk about currency. I say to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. English), it is more reports. The Rangel bill talks about more than reports.

The Rangel bill has a definition of currency manipulation and the ability under 301 to do something about it. The Rangel bill also recreates super-301 so we will indeed be able to take action and ensures that this administration will take action when China does not meet its commitments.

This bill should be voted down so that we can have an honest discussion and debate on this floor about the way to handle this problem. The gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) said something about WTO violation. The bill that the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) introduced is completely consistent with our WTO obligations. So bringing that up is a total dodge.

This is an effort, I guess, to give some people some cover to vote for another bill. We should not be handling our relationships with China in that manipulative a way. I urge everybody to vote ``no'' on this bill and give this Congress, this House that is supposed to be the people's House, a chance to discuss this bill with amendments. This is another example of the abuse of power by this majority, stifling debate, trying to stuff things through on suspension, 40 minutes, no amendment.

What is going to happen is, I think, that this bill will be voted down so that we can take an honest, serious look at this problem on a bipartisan basis.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield to my colleague from the Ways and Means Committee, the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy), as much time as he shall consume.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much for his excellent statement.

It is now my pleasure to yield to another colleague who comes across the country from the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy), about as far east as you can get from the Dakotas, I think, the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Michaud).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much for his eloquent statement.

Mr. Speaker, I have had the opportunity tonight to listen to an hour that was presided over by my colleague on the Committee on Ways and Means on the majority side, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Turner), and his fellow Republicans and the statements of my colleagues on the Democratic side. It has been refreshing in this sense, that we have talked about the issues. I very much disagree with the statements of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Turner) and others, and I will get to that; but at least we have been talking about issues.

In the last few days, when it comes to CAFTA, that is not what the administration or the Republican majority have been doing. Instead, we have learned about a number of deals that have been cut, one of them relating to dams and locks in return for a vote; or if not in return, that being taken into account if the vote was cast.

We have heard the administration make statements regarding fabrics, regarding apparel and textiles. They have made commitments that they cannot on their own keep. And if history is any judge, they are unlikely to do so. They have made a commitment, for example, regarding pockets and linings, essentially reopening the agreement, saying that they are going to secure that change. However, the truth of the matter is it would take action by this Congress to do that, and not under Fast Track; and also there would have to be agreement by the six DR-CAFTA countries.

Regarding a provision of concern to Nicaragua, the administration has made some statement that Nicaragua will more or less back off. However, it is only for Nicaragua to make that statement.

And then there has been the same process regarding sugar in order to try to win some votes from people who object to the provisions on sugar. There have been statements about some adjustments that will be made or some further actions that will be taken. Again, they are not in the agreement. There is nothing that this administration can really say that it can be assured of producing.

Oh, and then I guess it was today I read about discussions relating to agricultural shipments to Cuba and some bargaining back and forth between some of the Members of this Congress and the administration regarding that.

So while I very much disagree with the statements in almost every case made by the majority regarding CAFTA, in a way they were talking about issues and they were not talking about bait being offered for people to cast their vote.

I want to talk about what is really, as I see it, and my colleagues in so many cases see it, as the overriding issue. Why are so many of us who have worked for expanded trade, who have helped to shape trade agreements opposed to this agreement? There are economic aspects, and one can argue them various ways. I suggest that they be kept to the economic data in perspective. One estimate is that in terms of GDP, the impact of CAFTA on the U.S. would be less than one-fifth of 1 percent. As to Central American countries, there is evidence on all sides of the issue, including dislocation, that would occur.

But, again, I want to talk about the larger issue, and that is where globalization is today and where it is going. Because here at CAFTA, globalization is at a crossroads, and that is why so many of us who have worked for expanded trade feel that we needed to take a hard look to judge whether this agreement was going to shape globalization so, as was put by President Clinton some years ago, it would level up, not level down.

I think the basic assumption of many proponents of CAFTA is, well, that does not really matter because trade is win-win; that there is no possible loss; that trade inevitably works out for everybody's benefit. But for those of us who, I say, have worked and often worked very hard and successfully to shape expanded trade the right way, we believe this does it the wrong way; that you need to shape trade agreements so it is not a race to the bottom.

And that is why the issues relating to worker rights are so important. That is what this basic issue is really all about. This is why Central America, Dominican Republic and CAFTA, matter so much in terms of where trade is going. Regarding the CAFTA countries, we are now talking about countries in a region that has, Latin America, the worst income distribution of any region in the world. We are talking about within most of the countries immense maldistribution of income. We are talking about immense poverty. There is a weak middle class in most of the countries.

It was interesting to read a Wall Street Journal article just a week ago. The headline was: ``In Latin America, Rich-Poor Chasm Stifles Growth,'' and I quote: ``Because of an abundance of natural resources and a large indigenous population, Latin American nations group up relying on raw materials, cheap manual labor to exploit them, and low government taxation. The system concentrated land ownership and wealth in a few hands, deprived governments of money to spend on education and other incentives, and essentially ordered the incentives for the elite to invest not in human capital or technology. Latin America has also historically relied on monopolies and franchises, leaving few opportunities for entrepreneurs to advance through hard work and innovation.''

If you look at the history of trade agreements, there has been an effort to begin to have them relate to workers, to take into account the capital of workers as well as financial capital. And so in recent years, we had agreements, Jordan, Cambodia, which essentially said to countries: look, take steps to make sure that workers have their basic rights.

We are not talking about the laws of the United States; we are talking about the five core internationally recognized rights: no child labor, also no forced labor, no discrimination in the workplace, and also, so importantly, the rights of workers to associate and to organize.

And what has happened is that this agreement is a step backwards from where we were going, a step backwards from Jordan, a step backwards from the Cambodia experiment, and also a step backwards from CBI and the second CBI, and what is called the ``generalized system of preferences.'' What this agreement says to a country when it comes to these basic rights of workers is, enforce your own laws, no matter what they are, no matter how bad they are. That is the standard: enforce your own laws.

That standard is not used in any other part of the agreement, whether it is intellectual properties or investments or tariffs or subsidies. Here it is: enforce your own laws.

There has been an effort to obscure what the reality is on the ground in Central America, but State Department reports make it clear, the ILO reports make it also very clear. There is

a recent report of USTR itself that it was required to give to Congress. That report also makes it clear.

In reality, workers do not have the ability to exercise internationally recognized rights. When they want to associate, essentially there can be action by the employer with impunity. In some cases all they have to do, if they fire workers who want to form a union, all they have to do is pay severance pay. That is the reality on the ground, and there are so many cases that prove it. In a Special Order that I took on some weeks ago, I spelled out one example in El Salvador.

Why does this matter? Why is it important that workers in Central America have their basic internationally recognized rights? Here is why it matters.

In these countries with immense poverty, in these countries with terrible maldistribution of income, in these countries with weak middle classes, if workers cannot exercise their rights, they are going to remain poor. Their countries are going to remain without the middle classes that they so badly need. Our workers are going to have to compete with workers whose rights are suppressed, and our workers are saying, no, they do not want to do that. And our companies and their workers are not going to have middles classes in Central America that can buy their goods.

So I want to say a few more words about the implications of all this. There has been talk about security and stability. I want to say to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, what undermines stability and security is when people are impoverished, when people have no opportunity to climb up the ladder to the middle class.

This was also in the Wall Street Journal, I read a letter to the editor by Rutilio Martinez, who is a professor in Colorado, and he was responding to an article about Chavez in Venezuela, and he is very much opposed to the Chavez regime. He concluded, ``The rest of Latin America, from Mexico to Argentina, should take notice what is happening in Venezuela and do something to improve their horrible distribution of wealth, otherwise soon there will be very many Venezuelas in this poverty-ridden but resource-rich region.''

A major threat to security in Central American countries is terrible income distribution. It is also the absence of strong middle classes and the presence of immense poverty. There was talk about certain groups in Central America opposing this agreement.

I just urge everybody to listen also to bishops who are there with their flock in Central America. I read from a recent joint statement concerning the Central American Free Trade Agreement by the Bishops' Secretariat of Central America and the chairman of the Domestic and International Policy Committees of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. ``In light of a recent visit to Washington, D.C., 23-24 June, 2004, by a delegation of six bishops representing the Church in Central America, the Bishops' Secretariat of Central America and the chairman of Domestic and International Policy Committees of the United States Conference of Bishops wish to express with one voice our observations and concerns about the U.S.-Central American Free Trade Agreement.''

I quote from just one of their concerns. This is in subsection 3. ``Many have claimed that CAFTA will lead to a significant increase in jobs. However, these jobs could principally be in assembly plants, maquilas, which mainly employ women, and which offer an unstable form of employment. Without proper worker protections, we know from our own experience that this type of employment will not foster authentic human development.''

It is said by some defenders of this agreement that the problem is not in the laws, it is enforcement. First of all, that is not true about the laws. No matter how much you put into enforcement, if the laws are inadequate, it will not work.

But also this administration is really not candid about its claims about money for enforcement. It cut moneys for the entity within the Department of Labor that deals with capacity-building of labor departments of other countries. It proposed cuts of 87 percent, and now it is being suggested that some of that money be put back. The record of this administration in terms of trying to bolster enforcement is abysmal. They are now coming forth and saying, well, we will reform, so support CAFTA.

The laws do not measure up to international standards. As I saw a few years ago in Central America in the maquilas in three of the countries, there are no rights of workers on the ground in reality. They are working for 75 cents an hour, maybe a buck, mostly young women in the maquilas, many with children, sole supporter of their children. As soon as they tried to have a voice in the workplace, a voice at work, that voice is kicked out, is snuffed out by their discharge.

Let me make just a few comments. Someone said, well, there are 44 million people, and they cannot buy high-end goods. That is not the issue at all. Let me just read quickly from an article that is going to be published in the Sister City News, ``Dos Pueblos: The New York- Tipitapa Nicaragua Sister City Project.'' Dos Pueblos is a nonprofit organization that began way back in 1987. They went to Nicaragua just recently and reported back, ``The salaries they receive, however, are covering fewer and fewer of their families' basic needs. While the minimum salary in 2003 covered 49.2 percent of the basic food basket, 53 products identified as necessary to feed a family of four for a month, the minimum pay in 2005 is only covering 26 percent of these costs.'' So it is not a question of buying a Cadillac, it is a question of buying food.

Mr. Speaker, it is tragic that this administration has handled trade and shattered the bipartisan foundation for trade that is so necessary, that is so vital that a number of us have wanted to help reestablish in this country. They have shattered that foundation.

Now they are going to come here on this floor in just a few days, and what they are apparently going to try to do once again, instead of getting 250 to 300 votes on a truly bipartisan basis, they are going to essentially, headstrong, I think head-in-the-sand in terms of good trade policy, see if they can squeeze out a victory by one or two votes.

That will not happen. If it did, it would be a defeat for the bipartisan foundation so essential for trade policy. It would be a defeat for the people of Central America, the workers there, for their countries that so badly need the development of a middle class, people moving up the ladder. It will be bad for our workers who refuse to compete against workers whose rights are so badly suppressed, and it will be bad for our companies who need middle classes to sell to.

In closing, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Turner) said at the very end that people supported Morocco, people supported Jordan, I did, because in those countries the rights, the internationally recognized rights of workers were in place, so enforce your own laws, there were laws to implement. There were conditions that were worthy of international respect. That is not true in CAFTA. It is not true in Central America.

We need to renegotiate. I am in favor of a CAFTA. So are others of my colleagues who have worked with me and who are leading this effort to make sure that CAFTA is defeated and we go back to the table and address these basic issues. Globalization is here to stay. The question is whether globalization is going to have its benefits spread, or essentially they are going to be distributed only to a minority.

If that continues to happen in Latin America, we are going to see more people voting with their feet, or voting at the ballot box as they have been doing. People want a share of globalization. They want a stake in globalization. In order to have that, they have to have a voice in the workplace. So that is what this is all about. There are other issues, but there is this larger issue. There is a test here, a test presented by the CAFTA agreement. This administration flunked the test, and now they are just charging ahead hoping to capture a narrow victory. It will not happen. It will be a defeat.

I urge we defeat CAFTA as negotiated and return to the table, which we can do, and refinish this agreement in about a month. In that way we can proudly say we met the challenges of globalization in this case in the year 2005.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 10 o'clock and 29 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Tuesday, July 26, 2005, at 9 a.m., for morning hour debates.

Mr. Chairman, I supported the State Department Authorization (FY 06-07) bill as reported by the International Relations Committee, and supported many of the amendments offered here on the floor of the House. However, this bill now also includes three major amendments which came up on the floor of the House, which are misguided and which I opposed.

The Rohrabacher amendment correctly acknowledges the importance of intelligence gathering, while it ignores allegations of serious abuses at Guantanamo Bay. These instances of abuse, combined with others have damaged our credibility around the world and hindered the effectiveness of our efforts in Iraq and the war on terror.

As to the Ros-Lehtinen amendment on Iraq, I have never supported setting a deadline for withdrawing American troops from Iraq. We do need an effective plan in place to transfer responsibility for Iraq's security to the Iraqi people as soon as possible. This requires specific and meaningful benchmarks to gauge progress and determine when our troops can return home. The Ros-Lehtinen amendment, which was never discussed in Committee, makes no reference at all to any benchmarks and contains language that gives support to a vague, open-ended commitment to keep our troops in Iraq indefinitely.

Finally, I support U.N. reform. The Hyde legislation regarding the U.N. when brought up separately in the House was opposed by 195 Members and was the subject of serious objections from the Bush Administration. It was also quite clear that it could not pass the Senate, so it is being bootstrapped to this bill. The Hyde Amendment lacks the flexibility needed for the Administration to effectively seek the necessary reforms at the U.N. For example, if a single one of 14 specific goals set forth in the amendment are not met by 2007, 50 percent of our dues would be withheld. Such a rigid approach would weaken the Bush Administration's hand to implement the changes which are necessary at the U.N.

Because the final State Department Authorization bill contains those three amendments, which I opposed, I am voting against final passage. I hope the Senate and Administration will seek the necessary improvements in this legislation.

Mr. Chairman, the fight against terrorism is very serious business and we need to give law enforcement the tools it needs to prevent terrorist attacks against the American people. When the Congress approved the PATRIOT Act four years ago, we recognized that the serious nature of the threat required giving law enforcement broad new powers to help prevent it. But we were wise enough to also recognize that under our Constitution, laws and traditions, such broad power requires checks and balances as well as continuous congressional oversight to ensure that this power is not abused.

I voted for the PATRIOT Act four years ago. I support most of the 166 provisions of the PATRIOT Act; indeed, today's debate has nothing to do with the vast majority of these provisions, which are already the permanent law of the land. The bill before the House today concerns only the 16 provisions of the PATRIOT Act subject to sunset--the provisions that have the most serious potential impact on the fundamental liberties of innocent Americans if they are abused. These 16 provisions involve the power of the government to enter and search people's homes without notice, to tap people's communications with roving wiretaps, and obtain people's library and health records. Because these provisions touch on the most basic liberties of citizens, we included sunsets so Congress would be required to revisit them. The sunsets balance the extraordinary powers given to law enforcement with oversight and accountability. More than that, the sunsets give Congress the opportunity to regularly review the PATRIOT Act and fine-tune it to adapt to changing circumstances.

The bill before the House takes away the sunset provisions for 14 of these sensitive provisions, and sets ineffectively long ten-year sunsets for the other two provisions. In so doing, this bill throws assured oversight and accountability out the window.

Let me say this. Many of us voted for the PATRIOT Act four years ago with the assurances that there would be meaningful oversight by Congress. For much of the past four years, the rigorous oversight we were promised simply didn't happen. It has only been in the last few months, as the sunset dates approached, that Congress has asked questions, and held the Administration's feet to the fire to provide basic information about how the PATRIOT Act is being implemented. Now the Majority proposes to discard the sunset provisions. The experience of the last four years shows that without sunsets, there is no oversight and no accountability.

I had hoped that the serious shortcomings in this bill could be corrected on the Floor today, but the Majority has blocked a number of important amendments Democrats sought to offer. I believe that many of these amendments would have been adopted had they been put to a vote. It didn't have to be this way. I understand that the Senate Judiciary Committee has unanimously approved its own version of the PATRIOT Act today that contains many of the improvements that the House Leadership denied us the opportunity to debate. I regret that the Leadership of the House has not embraced a similar bipartisan process.

I will vote for the motion to recommit the bill, which would correct the most serious shortfalls in the legislation; in particular, the lack of sunsets of key provisions--sunsets that were contained in the original PATRIOT Act.

I will therefore oppose passage of this legislation today in the hope that the bipartisan Senate Judiciary Committee's version will prevail in the Senate.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the four bills the House is considering today.

There is a real disconnect between the issues the American people say they want Congress to address, and the legislative agenda of the Majority Party that runs the House of Representatives. Three months ago, NBC News and the Wall Street Journal commissioned a poll that asked Americans about the issues they felt were important for Congress to be engaged on. The response was clear. The number-one ranked issue that Americans want Congress to deal is workplace health and safety. A full eighty-four percent of those surveyed said they wanted Congress to spend more time addressing this issue.

Americans are right to be concerned. Almost 6,000 workers a year die due to accidents in the workplace. Tens of thousands more die every year due to occupational illnesses.

So what is the response of the Congressional leaders? Today they have brought four bills to the House Floor that weaken enforcement of workplace health and safety. Instead of addressing the need to improve health and safety conditions on the job, these four bills

would undermine worker protections under the Occupational Safety and Health Act.

Are the American people wrong in demanding that Congress strengthen workplace health and safety? It seems to me that the Congressional leaders and the Majority Party are out of touch with working Americans that they continue to advance legislation that would take us in exactly the opposite direction.

I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing these workplace safety rollbacks.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join my colleagues today in support of H. Res. 333, which encourages the National Weekend of Prayer and Reflection for Darfur. The people of that troubled region have experienced almost unimaginable suffering. As many as 400,000 have already lost their lives to genocide, hunger, and disease. Two million more have been forced from their homes.

Almost one year ago, Congress recognized that the atrocities being committed in Darfur were genocide. Since then, we have begun to provide humanitarian assistance and funding for peacekeeping missions. I was pleased to vote for the recent Supplemental Appropriations Act, which included $400 million for emergency food relief and other humanitarian assistance in Darfur and elsewhere in Africa. Also included was $680 million for peacekeeping operations, much of which will be used in Sudan.

This is a start, but the Bush administration and Congress must do more to break the cycle of violence and hunger that grips Darfur.

Another step in the right direction is the commitment made at the G8 Summit in Gleneagles to double aid to Africa by 2010. A stronger Africa will be better prepared to respond to situations like Darfur, and hopefully to prevent them. We must now make sure that the United States leads the effort to reach this goal as soon as possible, rather than waiting until the last moment, or worse, not reaching it at all.

The National Weekend of Prayer and Reflection is an important effort to raise awareness of this terrible human tragedy. My hope is that it will also strengthen our resolve to end the atrocities being committed in Darfur.

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to respond to the last one minute, indeed to set the record straight. The gentleman from Florida said the Republican plans do not make solvency worse. Read the DeMint plan. The only way that the Shaw-McCrery plan does not make it worse is by borrowing money and by counting the same money twice.

The gentleman talks about the urgency of the shortfall, but the

McCrery-Shaw-et al. plan does zero to address the shortfall. It avoids the issue. It is what the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw) called a ``no-pain plan.'' It is a ``duck-the-issue plan.''

Essentially what the Republican plan proposed by the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. McCrery) is, it is filled with gimmicks. We need honest talk, not more gimmicks.

Mr. Speaker, as mentioned, this would be the 10th extension. And everyone has the right to ask, why another extension, instead of our buckling down and being able to pass a welfare reform bill.

There is an effort, I think, to blame the Senate. I do not think we forget who controls the Senate. But let us forget about that. Because I think the main problem is the approach of the House majority, and when it comes to this as has been true of so many other programs, it is their way or no way. And so far when it comes to further work on welfare reform, it has been no way.

Now, that may be better, and I think it is, than what they have proposed here; but still we should be able to, as I said, buckle down and tackle this issue. We have not done so.

There has been zero effort by the Republican majority in this House to sit down with Democrats and see where we go from here. Zero.

There has been success under welfare reform as we passed some years ago. There have been some successes. The rolls have been cut in half and the majority of those who are leaving welfare have worked since they left. And two-thirds now of the people receiving welfare or TANF are engaged in work. But the problem is that so many of them are not moving up the economic ladder.

These are the government figures: 60 to 70 percent of those who have moved from welfare to work, 60 to 70 percent are essentially earning at the poverty level or worse. In contrast, those who leave welfare and move into higher starting wages were 40 percent more likely to be working 2 years later, and those receiving child care assistance, the same way.

So some years ago we worked, President Clinton proposed it, there was passage by the House and Senate. He vetoed it twice because there was inadequate child care, inadequate health care. The Congress, with a number of us working on it, paid attention to those and it passed on a bipartisan basis. But there is no effort to move to another stage of welfare reform, and that is to make sure that it is structured so that people can move off welfare into jobs that do not lead them into poverty.

Instead, the Republican majority here has proposed not moving people off welfare into work that takes them out of poverty, but emphasizing or talking only really about those who are on welfare and moving into work regardless of the consequences. And we in the minority here have proposed bills that would continue State flexibility which would be taken away by the majority here and would reward States if they moved people off welfare into good-paying jobs. They would take care of the technical problems with health care, transitional Medicaid and also would restore full funding to the Social Services block grant.

So in a word, I say to the chairman of the subcommittee, instead of simply extending this bill because you are unwilling to sit down on a bipartisan basis and work on further important welfare reform, I urge you to instead of just kind of stonewalling, sit down with us and see if we cannot do still better.

Mr. Speaker, I submit into the Record the following statement of Professor Harley Shaiken, excerpted from the statement submitted in connection with the House Committee on Ways and Means hearing of April 21, 2005 on the Dominican Republic--Central America Free Trade Agreement.

The Dominican Republic--Central America Free Trade Agreement

(By Harley Shaiken)

statement for the house committee on ways and means, april 2005

The standard by which to judge this agreement is

straightforward: does the Dominican Republic-Central America

Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) promote development and

democracy, or does it create a small circle of wealthy

winners and a far larger group of impoverished losers?

Expanded trade has the potential to propel the former, but

this agreement delivers the later. The result threatens

rather than benefits U.S. workers. It's not that the train is

moving too slowly, it's that DR-CAFTA is running in the wrong

direction.

Plaguing the agreement is an unnecessary tradeoff: DR-CAFTA

opens trade while locking in the labor status quo or worse.

For citizens of Central America and the Dominican Republic,

the tradeoff represents a squandered opportunity; for U.S.

workers and their communities, it means an assault on wages

and working conditions; for firms it may mean easier access

to markets tomorrow but diminished markets in the coming

years. DR-CAFTA provides strong language and tough penalties

in all areas related to investment--at times riding roughshod

over the six countries--but abandons labor rights largely to

rhetoric and good intentions.

In some areas tough provisions favor special interests at

the expense of the Central American countries and the

Dominican Republic. Consider agriculture. The rural

population ranges from 34 percent in the Dominican Republic

to 60 percent in Guatemala. See Ferranti, D., G. Perry, W.

Foster, D. Lederman, A. Valdez, ``Beyond the City: The Rural

Contribution to Development,'' (Washinton D.C.: World Bank,

2005). How are small farmers supposed to compete with heavily

subsidized U.S. exports? Due to subsidies for rice

production, the U.S. exported paddy rice to Central America

at a price that was 18-20 percent lower than its cost of

production. See Oxfarn International, ``A raw deal for rice

under DR-CAFTA,'' November 2003, (5), http:// www.oxfam.org.uk/what__we__do/issues/trade/downloads/ bp68__Price. pdf. In pharmaceuticals, Professor Angelina

Godoy has found that ``the intellectual-property provisions

in CAFTA actually extend the length of time during which the

major pharmaceutical companies' products are guaranteed sole

access to markets'' which, in her view as well as that of

many other observers such as Amnesty International, ``just

may be a death sentence for many in the Dominican Republic

and Central America.'' See Angelina Godoy, ``What makes free

trade free?'' Seattle Times, April 14, 2005, http:// seattletimes.nwsource.com/htmllopinion/ 2002240604__nocafta14.html; and Amnesty International,

``Guatemala, Memorandum to the Government of Guatemala:

Amnesty International's concerns regarding the current human

rights situation,'' (Washington D.C.: Amnesty International,

April 20, 2005) http://web.amnesty.org/library/lndex/ ENGAMR340142005. Many Latin Americans are likely to view

provisions such as these as indicating that the U.S. is

more serious about strong-arming weaker neighbors than

sustainable economic integration.

Let's be clear from the start. This is not a debate about

``free trade'' versus ``protectionism.'' Instead, the

challenge is defining free trade for the twenty-first

century. The right trade agreement could both encourage

growth and move towards a more broadly shared prosperity,

defining what one might call ``smart trade.'' To do this,

comparative advantage must be defined by innovation rather

than repression. Labor standards are vital for protecting

workers, but they also can help expand purchasing power,

build healthier markets, and lay the basis for more robust

trade.

What then is wrong with the labor provisions in DR-CAFTA?

They send a clear message to the governments involved: the

current situation on labor rights is acceptable and even

fewer rights for workers will do. The agreement lays out

lofty labor rights goals and then backs them up with weak,

convoluted language and meager resources. Moreover, these

inadequate provisions replace language that has had a modest

positive impact. Consequently, firms willing to travel the

low road will define competitiveness, cutting off those who

want to do the right thing.

In this testimony, I plan to explore three themes: labor

laws and their enforcement, the promotion of reform, and

finally ``smart trade.''

labor laws and their enforcement

For millions throughout Central America and the Dominican

Republic, the issue of labor rights is not an abstraction but

an urgent need. Although labor laws differ among these six

countries, there is little serious debate among scholars as

to the situation on the ground. The issue is not simply

selective abuses but a systematic denial of the right to

freely join a union or the right to bargain collectively.

Numerous reports from the ILO, Human Rights Watch, the United

Nations, and the United States Department of State confirm

the seriousness of the problems. See U.S. State Department

Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, ``Country

Reports on Human Rights Practices 2004,'' for Costa Rica,

Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua,

February 29, 2005, http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/ cI4138.htm; Human Rights Watch, ``Deliberate Indifference: EI

Salvador's Failure to Protect Workers' Rights,'' vol. 15, no.

5, December 2003, http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/ elsalvador1203/; Human Rights Watch, ``CAFTA's Weak Labor

Rights Protections: Why the Present Accord Should be

Opposed,'' March 2004, http://hrw.org/englishl/docs/2004/03/ 09/cafta90days.pdf; ILO, ``Fundamental Principals and Rights

at Work: A Labour Law Study,'' (Geneva, International Labour

Office, 2003), http://www.ilo.org/public/english/dialogue/ download/cafta.pdf.

When it comes to making the choice on whether or not to

join a union, workers currently risk dismissal, blacklist,

violence, and even death. The results are readily apparent in

the low union density. In Guatemala less than 3 percent of

the workforce belongs to a union. See U.S. State Department,

Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, ``Guatemala

Country Report on Human Rights Practices 2004,'' February

29, 2005, http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/ 41762.htm. In El Salvador, no independent trade unions

have been formed in the last four years.

The low trade union density is only the tip of the iceberg.

The unions that do exist tend to be fragmented, weak, and

isolated. Effective collective bargaining has become a rarity

rather than the norm. The percentage of workers covered by

collective bargaining agreements in three ofthe six DR-CAFTA

countries based on 2003 data ranges from a low end of 1.4 and

1.5 percent in Honduras and Nicaragua, respectively, to 4.3

percent in El Salvador--not exactly a critical mass for

effective collective bargaining. See International Labour

Organization Decent Work Indicators Database http:// www.oit.or.cr/estad/td/indexe.php

A trade agreement should stimulate positive change, not

ratify the status quo or worse. What type of labor standards

might be rigorous enough to improve the conditions of work

yet flexible enough to recognize different levels of

development? One model is the five core labor standards

developed by the International Labor Organization (ILO). See

International Labor Organization, ``Fundamental ILO

Conventions,''

http://www.ilo.org/public/english/standards/norm/whatare/ fundam/index.htm. particularly the right of association

(Convention 87) and the right to organize and bargain

collectively (Convention 98).

Although DR-CAFTA pays rhetorical homage to these

standards, in practice it throws them overboard. The

agreement calls for each country to enforce its existing

labor codes, no matter how inadequate or distant from the ILO

standards. The agreement recognizes ``the right of each Party

to establish its own domestic labor standards, and to adopt

or modify accordingly its labor laws.'' It then goes on to

state that ``each Party shall strive to ensure that its laws

provide for labor standards consistent with the

internationally recognized labor rights. . . . and shall

strive to improve those standards in that light.'' See United

States Trade Representative, ``The Dominican Republic-Central

America Free Trade Agreement,'' August, 5, 2004, http:// www.ustr.gov/Trade_Agreements/Bilateral/DR-CAFTA/ DRCAFTA_Final_Texts/Section_Index.html. ``Strive to ensure''

and ``strive to improve''? This is the kind of language many

would like to see on April 15 when they have to pay their

taxes since it is virtually unenforceable. A standard based

on effort is hardly a serious standard. Instead of ``striving

to ensure'' international standards are met, the agreement

could commit to upholding them and provide clear penalties if

they are not upheld.

The domestic laws often read as if they are designed to

thwart the formation of unions, and slipshod enforcement

hardly improves the situation. Companies wanting to avoid

unions can do just about anything; workers seeking to join

unions face threats and intimidation. Protection against

anti-union bias is akin to snow in San Francisco; it happens

but not frequently. ``In practice, labor laws on the books in

Central America are not sufficient to deter employers from

violations,'' an International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF) study

found. See International Labor Rights Fund, ``An

Examination of Six Basic Labor Rights--Executive Summary

of Reports on Honduras, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador

and Guatemala,'' based on a study by Asociacion Servicios

de Promocion Laboral (ASEPROLA), April 5, 2005, http:// www.laborrights.org/. Byzantine regulations tend to tie

unions into knots, laying out registration procedures that

are more maze than procedure. In Honduras, for example,

the ILRF found ``obstacles and delays in union

registration constitute a violation of ILO Convention 87

on the right to associate.'' Ibid. Weak as labor rights

are, the track record hardly inspires confidence that they

won't be ratcheted downwards in response to globalization.

Enforcement is squeezed by impunity and corruption,

ineptitude and fear. In Guatemala, the U.S. State Department

concluded in its 2005 human rights report that ``Workers had

little confidence that the responsible executive and judicial

institutions would effectively protect or defend their rights

if violated.'' The report stated that ``the weakness of labor

inspectors, the failures of the judicial system, poverty, the

legacy of violent repression of labor activists during the

internal conflict, the climate of impunity, and the long-

standing hostility between the business establishment and

independent and self-governing labor associations all

constrained the exercise of worker rights.'' See U.S. State

Department, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor,

``Guatemala Country Report on Human Rights Practices 2004,''

February 29, 2005, http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/ 41762.htm.

The promotion of reform

There is little dispute that labor conditions are bad

today; the real question is will DR-CAFTA make them better?

In fact, it will make them worse. What makes the DR-CAFTA

approach particularly problematic is that it replaces the

modest existing protections for labor rights embedded in two

unilateral trade preference programs: the Generalized System

of Preferences (GSP) and the Caribbean Basin Initiative

(CBI). Much of the halting, modest reform that has taken

place in the region over the last 15 years stems from the

pressure brought through these programs. For example, EI

Salvador was put on GSP review for abusing worker rights in

1992 and labor law reform followed within two years. See AFL-

CIO, ``The Real Record on Workers' Rights in Central

America,'' (Washington D.C.: AFL-CIO, April 2005), http:// www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/globaleconomy/upload/ CAFTABook.pdf.

What impetus is supposed to change destructive practices

this deeply rooted? The core problem is one of political

will, not lack of technical resources. The most powerful

incentive for change is conditioning U.S. ratification on

domestic labor law reform. Unfortunately, that horse has

already left the barn. Some proponents argue expanded trade

will result in more democratic rights. Burgeoning trade does

not seem to have done much in Mexico--especially in the

export sector--in the first decade of NAFTA. Cross border

trade between the U.S. and Mexico has tripled yet the number

of independent unions remains in single digits.

Realistically, powerful elites retain a strong hold on the

DR-CAFTA economies. If expanded trade simply translates to

expanded income for these elites, a small number of wealthy

families may become wealthier and happier, but little will

be passed along to the majority of the people of these

countries. The growth of the middle class will be thwarted

and, ironically, the potential market for U.S. goods

dampened. By the same token, the pressure will

correspondingly increase on the wages and working

conditions for U.S. workers. The goal should be to

harmonize standards upwards not the other way around.

Smart trade

The entire ratification process has caused severe strains

and protests in civil society throughout Central America.

Reflecting the gap between the ratification process for

DRCAFTA and popular sentiment is the fact that legislatures

often had to pass the agreement in the dead of night. The

Honduran Congress ratified CAFTA in an early morning surprise

vote specifically because protests were expected. The

Guatemala Congress approved CAFTA in emergency session and

under exceptional circumstances also because of anticipated

protests. It passed by a lopsided vote of 126-12 on March 10;

a Gallup poll carried out two weeks later (March 14-23) found

that 65 percent of those polled felt that the agreement would

harm the country. See Matthew Kennis, ``Despite Ratification

Anti-CAFTA protests Continue in Guatemala,'' IRC Americas

Program, (Silver City, NM: International Relations Center,

April 13, 2005), http://www.americaspolicy.org/pdf/ commentary/0504guatcafta.pdf.

When it came to the issue of labor rights, tough

negotiating dissolved into acceptance of the status quo. The

danger, according to former President of Costa Rica Rodrigo

Carazo Odio, is that ``corporations take advantage of cheap

labor, operating in enclaves with limited links to the

national economy, trapping the region in a spiral of low

salaries, low aggregate value and lack of compliance with

basic labor standards, such as the freedom of association and

the right to collective negotiation.'' See Rodrigo Carazo

Odio, letter to the Members of the United States Congress

Washington, DC, May 27, 2004.

We need to reframe the debate on the issues of labor rights

and development. It is not a question of free trade versus

protectionism, but rather ``smart trade'' versus ``polarizing

trade.'' Smart trade recognizes rights, spurs economic growth

with equity, and promotes democracy; polarizing trade might

spur trade in the short run but the benefits go to the

winners' circle while the number of losers grows far larger.

Democracy itself could be a casualty.

Smart trade requires four provisions:

1. Upward harmonization of domestic labor law to match the

core ILO conventions as the goal of a three-year phase-in

period. The granting of trade and investment benefits would

follow agreed upon reform in a country's labor law. See Carol

Pier, ``The Right Way to Trade,'' Washington Post, August 1,

2003.

2. The ILO five core labor rights embedded in the core

agreement, subject to strong enforcement provisions and

penalties.

3. A development fund targeted for infrastructure and

education. This fund would reinforce competitiveness in the

six countries and place them on the ``high road.''

4. Expanded adjustment assistance for U.S. workers

negatively impacted by trade. This assistance should also be

proactive in industries threatened by trade.

No trade agreement can solve all the problems of

development and globalization, but it should point in the

right direction. A trade agreement that fosters prosperity

and promotes democracy is possible and essential for the

region and for the United States. Smart trade lays the basis

for growing incomes and markets in Central America and the

Dominican Republic and expanded U.S. exports and jobs. It

begins to define a better model for integrating into the

global economy. Unfortunately, that model is not this

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman very much for yielding,

and I want to join all of my colleagues in emphasizing the importance of this and congratulating the chairman and everybody concerned with willingness to take action on this.

As mentioned, this indeed is a serious problem. Each year about 80,000 women are diagnosed with gynecological cancers. If they are detected early, they are among the most curable. If they are not, they are among the most deadly, and so this education effort is so critical.

So I know the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis) cares so much about this. I do hope and trust that a way will be found to address this issue. So many lives are at stake.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 2745. There is a need for reform at the United Nations. No one disagrees with that, but the legislation before the House is an extreme and deeply flawed bill that would actually set back our efforts to strengthen and improve this important institution.

The problem with the amendment is its complete lack of flexibility. It requires the United States to withhold 50 percent of our dues if 32 of 39 specific goals are not met by 2007. Furthermore, 14 of those goals are mandatory, and if a single one is not met, our dues are withheld. Such a rigid approach weakens the Bush Administration's hand in negotiating the changes that we all agree are necessary there.

I want to quote from a June 14 letter to Speaker Hastert and Leader Pelosi from eight former U.S. Ambassadors to the United Nations. These ambassadors served in Republican and Democratic administrations alike, range broadly in their political persuasions, and include President Bush's most recent Ambassador to the U.N., John Danforth, as well as Madeleine Albright, Richard Holbrooke, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Donald McHenry, Thomas Pickering, Bill Richardson and Andrew Young.

In their letter, they write that ``withholding U.S. dues to the U.N. threatens to undermine our leadership and effectiveness at the U.N. and the reform effort itself--as well as the U.N.'s ability to take on responsibilities critical to protecting our national security. . . . Reforming the United Nations is the right goal. Withholding our dues to the U.N. is the wrong methodology.''

These distinguished former ambassadors go on to assert that, ``Withholding U.S. dues to the United Nations may sound like smart policy but would be counterproductive at this time. . . . It would create resentment, build animosity and actually strengthen opponents of reform.''

For these reasons, I will vote for the substitute offered by Ranking Member Lantos. The Lantos substitute would give Secretary of State Rice the tools and flexibility needed to bring about reform at the United Nations.

Let me conclude by saying that the bill before the House is a perfect example of how the priorities of the Majority are out of step with the needs of the country. It is simply amazing that the House is debating this bill--a bill that the President would almost certainly veto if it ever reached him--when there are so many more important and unmet needs that the House has yet to address and could effectively address.

Millions of manufacturing jobs have left the United States over the last four years, and more jobs are leaving every day. The cost of gasoline remains near record highs, yet we still have no strategy to deal with it. Over 40 million Americans have no health insurance, and the cost of health insurance for all Americans continues to rise. These are the issues that the American people need us to address.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this flawed and unbalanced bill.

The Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement presents an important crossroads for trade policy. It involves issues broader than those, for example, relating to sugar or textiles; and indeed, as President Bush said recently, it involves issues beyond trade, including ramifications for the future path of democracy.

It is an important test for globalization. What has been unfolding in Latin America, including Central America, is that substantial portions of the citizenry are not benefiting from globalization. They have increasingly responded with votes at the ballot box or in the streets. Doing so, they have raised sharply an underlying issue and that is whether the terms of expanded trade need to be shaped to spread the benefits or simply to assume that trade expansion by itself will adequately work that out.

It is for these reasons, not more narrow interests, why the issue of core labor standards in CAFTA is important for Central America and for the United States of America. The way it is handled in CAFTA undermines the chance that the benefits of expanded trade will be broadly shared. The goal of globalization must be to expand markets and raise living standards, not promote a race to the bottom.

An essential part of this leveling up is the ability of workers in developing nations to have the freedom to join together, to have a real voice at work, so they can move up the economic ladder. This is not true in Central America where recent State Department and International Labor Organization reports confirm that the basic legal framework is not in place to protect the rights of workers and enforcement of these defective laws is woefully inadequate. Regretfully, CAFTA as negotiated preserves the status quo or worse, because it says to these countries ``enforce your own laws'' when it comes to internationally recognized labor standards.

The Latin American region possesses the worst income inequality in the world and four of the Central American nations rank among the top 10 in Latin America with the most serious imbalances. Poverty is rampant in these countries. The middle class is dramatically weak. As has been true in the experience of other nations, including our own, this will not change unless workers can climb up the ladder and help develop a vibrant middle class.

A huge percentage of workers in this region are not actively benefiting from globalization because the current laws in these nations do not adequately allow them to participate fully in the workplace. The suppression of workers in the workplace also inhibits the steps necessary to promote democracy in society at large. The core labor and environmental provision in CAFTA--that each country must merely enforce its own law--is a double standard. This standard is not used anywhere else in CAFTA, whether as to intellectual property, tariff levels, or subsidies.

``Enforce your own laws'' is a ticket to a race to the bottom. Such an approach is harmful all around: for the inability of workers to earn enough to enter the middle class so badly lacking in and needed by Central American countries; for American workers who resist competition based on suppression of workers in other countries; and for our companies and our workers who need middle classes in other countries to purchase the goods and services that we produce.

CAFTA is a step backwards also from present trade agreements. The Caribbean Basin Initiative standard states: in determining whether to designate any country a benefit country under CBI, the President shall take into account ``whether or not such country has taken or is taking steps to afford workers in that country, including any designated zone in that country, internationally recognized rights.''

The GSP, Generalized System of Preferences, standard is this: the President shall not designate a country, a GSP beneficiary country if ``such country has not taken or is not taking steps to afford internationally recognized worker rights to workers in that country including any designated zone in that country.''

So CAFTA is a step backward from these standards. The provisions in CAFTA on worker rights as currently negotiated are substantially weaker than current U.S. law and would replace that current law. I will give you an example. In Guatemala over 900 Del Monte banana workers were fired in 1990 for protesting labor conditions. A GSP petition led USTR for the first time ever to self-initiate a worker rights review for Guatemala in October 2000. Guatemala subsequently passed labor reforms in April 2001, which included granting farm workers new rights to strike.

In preparation for CAFTA, however, Guatemala's constitutional courts struck down key parts of the 2001 labor reforms. In August of 2004, the Court rescinded the authority of the Ministry of Labor of that country to impose fines for labor rights violations, a key element of the 2001 agreement. Under CAFTA, the U.S. would have no recourse to challenge that development.

Now, let me go on, if I might, to a next point and that relates to the examples of Morocco and Chile and Singapore because those agreements are often used as examples as to why we should vote for CAFTA. I supported the agreements with Chile, with Morocco, and with Singapore. The situation in each of those countries was very different from Central American countries.

Chile has the international labor standards incorporated in their laws

and they enforce them. There is a vibrant labor movement and an active middle class. The same is essentially true in Singapore, active labor movements, workers have their right to associate if they want to organize, to form unions; and they have a tradition of a labor movement in Singapore.

Morocco, the question is asked, well, I voted for Morocco, why not CAFTA? And the answer is there are vast differences between the situations. Morocco took steps in the last years before the free trade agreement with them to truly, truly reorganize their labor laws. Also, Morocco has a tradition of a vibrant labor movement in the private sector as well as the public sector. So Central America is very different.

We voted, many of us on the Democratic side, for Morocco, Chile and Singapore; we believe in expanded trade as long as the terms of those of that trade agreement and of those trade agreements are shaped to spread the benefits across the population.

Let me say a word about Central American countries and the deficiencies in their laws, because much has been said of this and much was said today by our new USTR, a former colleague, Rob Portman. Look, USTR has tried to gloss over what the ILO says. They have tried to gloss over what is in the State Department reports themselves. But any objective look confirms that those reports say that the laws of those countries in terms of the basic international standards are defective. And this was spelled out in a letter that was sent by us on April 4 by the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin), the gentleman from California (Mr. Becerra), and myself to the acting trade representative, Peter Allgeier.

Mr. Speaker, this letter will be placed in the Record at the end of my remarks.

What the reports show is exemplified in a fairly recent case, and I will refer to it briefly. It relates to port workers in El Salvador. In that case they tried to organize, they tried to be represented, they tried to bring about democratic rights within the workplace. Thirty- four of the workers were fired last December when they were trying to form a union. And not only did the law not require their reinstatement, but only severance pay, which is a cheap bargain for an employer who wants to violate rights.

But a month later, the labor ministry denied the labor union's registration petition since now there were only seven workers left. Others had been fired. El Salvador law requires at least 35 members to form a labor organization, a provision that itself has been criticized by the International Labor Organization.

I just ask everybody to read the letter that we sent to Mr. Allgeier and the attached analysis of laws from the ILO reports and State Department reports. President Bush has correctly talked about freedom and democracy. He has said that everywhere. But what this CAFTA does is to sanction the status quo where there is no democracy in the workplace.

President Bush last month urged a vote for CAFTA because it would bring ``stability and security'' to the region.

I think the opposite is true. If workers are suppressed, it is a step towards insecurity and towards instability. Labor market freedom is a source of security, undercutting insecurity. What is a threat, what is a real threat to undemocratic forces, those who do not believe in democracy, is democracy in the workplace.

The President likes to quote the writings of Natan Sharansky, who has been minister in Israel until recently. Natan Sharansky says that a test of democracy is whether somebody can arise in the town square and speak his or her mind without punishment. If you use that test to the workplace, most places in Central America, the answer is there is no democracy. If somebody raises their voice too often, they are fired.

Now, let me just say a word about another argument that is used and that is, well, the problem is enforcement and the United States is going to help the nations of Central America with their enforcement. We are going to provide monies so that there is a stronger department of labor, et cetera, et cetera.

Well, today, Rob Portman, our ambassador, outlined a number of proposals for more funding to help CAFTA countries in technical assistance to strengthen enforcement of labor laws. He said the problem is not labor laws; it is enforcement. The correct analysis is there is a deep problem in their laws and a severe problem with the enforcement of flawed laws. But when you look at what was urged today by Mr. Portman, and I do not question his good faith about it, but I do question the credibility of it because it is the record, not the rhetoric, that really matters. And the record of this administration in providing technical assistance for the strengthening of labor unions in other countries is miserable.

This year, I just give a few examples, this year President Bush proposed crippling cuts to the budget for the International Labor Affairs Bureau known as ILAB. He proposed cutting funding by 87 percent from $94 million to $12 million.

According to the President, the 2006 budget, ``returns the agency to its original mission of research, analysis and advocacy.'' Well, what that means is there is not any emphasis on technical assistance.

Also, the President's five budget requests in previous years proposed funding cuts for ILAB of more than 50 percent.

So I do not believe that the answer is simply more money going to agencies in other countries. I think the laws have to be in order. The regulations must not strangle efforts of people to assert their freedom in the labor market, but I do think better enforcement would be useful of good laws. The record of the administration in terms of technical assistance is terribly weak, in fact.

Now, let me discuss another issue that has come up when we discuss CAFTA. Increasingly, this administration has used our trade challenges from China as a reason to vote for CAFTA. This is happening more and more. It is not credible. It is at best boot strap. Look, we have to shape trade policy so that there can be effective competition with China, that is for sure. That relates to currency, and we just a short time ago had, I think, a rather ineffective meeting with the administration on the currency issue.

It also includes trade in apparel and textiles. We have seen a major influx of apparel from China with the end of the quotas. In order to have an effective trade policy, vis-a-vis, China, in the apparel and textile areas, we have to do the following.

Number one, we have to actively use remedies that were written into the agreement with China in its accession to the WTO. We worked hard to get those provisions into the WTO China accession agreement, and the administration has hesitated to use them effectively. They did not effectively anticipate this problem, and when the problem really sprouted, their response initially was very weak.

Second point regarding this: We do need to have and take steps to bring about a strong Caribbean apparel and textile structure, Caribbean including the United States. To do that, one of the steps that is necessary is to have compliance with international core labor standards. That would be a source of strength, not of weakness. It would be trying to compete and compete effectively, rather than trying to compete with China as to who can most suppress worker rights.

In that regard, I do think we ought to look at what is sometimes pointed to, and that is, the Clinton legacy because I have read some articles that have said that those of us who have raised this set of issues about globalization, who have raised this set of issues about shaping trade policy and have applied it to this critical step, vis-a- vis, CAFTA, that those of us who are doing that are taking a step backwards from where the Clinton administration was. The contrary is true. The contrary is really what this is all about.

For example, Jordan. Today, Ambassador Portman, and I am glad to call him ambassador now, he was a colleague, said that the Jordan agreement is not as strong as CAFTA when it comes to core labor standards. That simply is an incorrect analysis of Jordan. Jordan has a clear reference to the core standards: child labor, forced labor, anti-discrimination and the

right of workers to associate and to bargain collectively. It has references to those five core labor standards in the Jordan agreement, number one.

Number two, Jordan has a provision to make sure that Jordan cannot slip backwards, cannot move away from that standard. That is not true in CAFTA. Enforce your own laws, it can be present laws or revised laws that are even worse.

Thirdly, as to enforcement, it is not at all correct to say that the provisions in CAFTA, that those provisions are nearly as strong as was negotiated with Jordan. Essentially the Jordan FTA, the U.S.-Jordan FTA said that each country could take the necessary steps to enforce the obligations of the other, and it is true the Bush administration later entered a letter, a side letter, that put some brakes on the ability of the Bush administration to implement the Jordan agreement, but that is not what was negotiated.

What President Clinton did increasingly in his later years was to say to the world, I favor expanded trade, I believe in it, it has to be done in ways that shape so that there is a leveling up and not down. That is language that he used in his speeches. He referred to them at the University of Chicago speech, and that was the flavor of his speech at Davos. I was there when he gave the speech. He spent half of his time talking about the benefits of expanded trade. He also spent the second half saying if those benefits were going to be real and move globalization ahead, there needed to be, he said, a leveling up and not a leveling down.

When people say we cannot impose standards on other countries, and that was said I think it was yesterday or maybe earlier today by the chairman of our committee, I do not understand that. Trade agreements, like any other contract, involve imposition. We are going to have to change laws as a result of trade agreements. That was true under the Uruguay Round agreements. It is true of tariffs. We are going to have to change our laws regarding tariffs.

Now we are not talking about imposing American standards in CAFTA. What we are talking about is placing internationally recognized standards in the declaration of the ILO that every country involved here, Dominican Republic, Central American, U.S., has endorsed putting them into the agreement, in the body of the agreement enforceably with reasonable transition. That is important.

So let it be clear, the opposition to CAFTA, as negotiated, is not being led by those the administration likes to dismiss as in ``protectionists'' or ``isolationists.'' Those shoes do not fit. The opposition leadership involves those of us who have favored expanded trade and have helped to shape and pass trade agreements in the last decade.

For us, CAFTA is an important line in the sand, affecting the future effectiveness of globalization. If the U.S. does not seize the opportunity to shape the rule of trade and competition in CAFTA, it will have chosen simply to be on the receiving end of the consequences, both positive and negative of globalization.

I favor a CAFTA but not this agreement as it stands, and we can quickly fix this agreement by renegotiating CAFTA to include internationally recognized labor standards, with enforcement and a reasonable transition. In doing so, we would advance the interests of U.S. businesses and workers and expand the benefits of globalization beyond the status quo and any privileged minority in any of these countries.

We would take also an important step, and I want to emphasize this, an important step towards reestablishing a bipartisan foundation for trade. That bipartisan foundation has been eroded under this administration, and it is that bipartisan foundation that needs to be reestablished because it is so critical for tackling tough trade issues ahead, for example, in the Doha Round. We cannot tackle these tough issues of agriculture, various parts of agriculture, or of services, including financial services, we cannot tackle them, nontariff barriers, unless there is a solid, nonpartisan, bipartisan foundation. We cannot do it by trying to squeeze out a one vote majority.

Security, economic and political, is best achieved in the region of Central America by closing the dangerous gap between rich and poor, by development of a real middle class and a larger middle class and by expansion of freedom operating in the workplace and spreading throughout the society, it did, by the way, not only in our country, but in Poland and so many other places.

I want to close by emphasizing what is at stake, that this security, economic and political, is in the self-interest of our country, of our businesses and of our workers. We need to address this issue of core labor standards, not only for the benefit of the workers in the other countries, of the development of a so badly needed middle class in those countries, but also because our workers increasingly refuse to compete with countries where the workers are suppressed. That is eroding the support for international trade in this country, and we need to reaffirm its importance by reaffirming some basic principles. That is going to be good, as I said, for our country, for our businesses, and for our workers.

I am not sure of the timetable for CAFTA. What I am sure is as of today, it would not pass. There may be an effort to try to make it pass by all kinds of deals, which those of us who favor expanded trade would never agree to. It may be endeavored to pass through some kinds of deals unrelated to trade, offering this and that, unrelated again to trade. That would be a terrible mistake.

We have an opportunity here to reconfigure CAFTA in a way that would bring about strong bipartisan support and be a foundation for the development of stable relationships within Central America and the Dominican Republic and between them and ourselves.

Also, as I said, we would be able to reestablish the bipartisan foundation that once prevailed for international trade in this institution. Without it, CAFTA, in my judgment, should not and cannot pass, and there is likely trouble in tackling the other issues that need to be addressed boldly, honestly and effectively.

The material I referred to previously I will insert into the Record at this point.

House of Representatives,

Committee on Ways and Means,

Washington, DC, April 4, 2005.

Hon. Peter Allgeier,

Acting U.S. Trade Representative,

Washington, DC.

Dear Ambassador Allgeier: In recent weeks, advocates for

the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) have made

assertions that the CAFTA countries' laws comply with basic,

internationally-recognized rules that ensure common decency

and fairness to working people. These advocates argue that

the only outstanding issue concerning the rights of workers

in the CAFTA countries is a lack of adequate enforcement of

existing labor laws.

Unfortunately, CAFTA advocates' rhetoric is not supported

by the facts. There are still no fewer than 20 areas in which

the CAFTA countries' labor laws fail to comply with even the

most basic international norms, as documented by the

International Labor Organization (ILO), the U.S. Department

of State and multiple non-governmental organizations.

More than a year ago, in November 2003, a number of us

wrote to you outlining these problems in detail. We had hoped

that doing so might lead to actions to remedy those problems,

or at least to a constructive dialogue about them. However,

the Members who signed that letter have yet to receive any

response to the list of problems documented in that letter--

either from your office or from the countries concerned. In

fact, the labor laws in at least one of the CAFTA countries

have been weakened in recent months.

In light of the fact that Congress may soon be considering

the CAFTA, it is important to move beyond rhetoric to the

facts. We urge you to provide documented information

concerning any amendments CAFTA countries have made to their

laws to address the shortcomings noted in the attached list.

Those shortcomings cannot be overcome with better enforcement

efforts. Even the best enforcement of inadequate laws--

whether relating to intellectual property, services

regulation or technical standards for manufactured products--

cannot yield acceptable results.

We support the right CAFTA for the Central American

countries and the Dominican Republic, just as we have

strongly supported the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI)

programs. These programs have done much to strengthen

economic ties with our friends and neighbors in Central

America and the Caribbean in ways that benefit both the

United States and the region.

However, the CBI programs were built on the dual pillars of

expanded economic opportunity and a strong framework for

trade. In particular, the programs were expressly conditioned

on the countries making progress in achieving basic labor

standards. By contrast,

the CAFTA moves backward by not including even these minimum

standards, and using instead a standard for each country of

``enforce your own laws.'' Ensuring that the CAFTA countries

both adopt and effectively maintain in their laws the most

basic standards of decency and fairness to working people is

important to their workers, their societies, and to U.S.

workers. It also is critical to ensuring strong and

sustainable economic growth and promoting increased standards

of living.

We welcome and support all efforts to improve the capacity

of Central American countries to improve the enforcement of

their labor laws. In fact, for the last four years, we have

fought for better funding of such programs and against

massive Administration budget cuts for labor technical

assistance programs--many of these programs eroded-out or

slashed by up to 90 percent in budgets submitted by the

Administration. The Administration's track record gives us

little confidence that the one-time grant of $20 million

included in the FY05 Foreign Operations Appropriations Act

for labor and environmental technical assistance in the CAFTA

countries represents the kind of real and sustained

commitment needed in these areas. Moreover, such efforts on

enforcement are no substitute for getting it right on basic

laws.

Sincerely,

Benjamin L. Cardin,

Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Trade.

Xavier Becerra,

Member.

Charles B. Rangel,

Ranking Member.

Sander M. Levin,

Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Social Security.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the proposal that we withdraw from the WTO. I urge that we look at this basic question: on balance, would we be better off if there were not a WTO? And I think the answer to that is we would not be.

Expanded trade has occurred in this country and in this world. It is not a win-win proposition, as some people like to say. There are losers as well as winners, both individually and in nations. It is not an easy proposition, expanded trade. However, globalization is here to stay. There is no turning back the clock. The question is to try to make the hands tick well and in the right direction.

There has been some argument about sovereignty. It is not true that WTO decisions do not impact U.S. laws. That is not true. I supported the GATT agreement; I helped to shape the implementation language. Did it have some impact on U.S. laws? Yes. Were there some requirements that U.S. laws be changed? Yes. By definition, tariff agreements require changes in laws here and everywhere else, unless they are decreed by edict. The WTO changed from GATT, and so now there is a final dispute settlement mechanism. I think on balance that was a good idea because, otherwise, every country could veto, and that was not workable.

But we have to look at the problems as well as the promise, the problems as well as the achievements.

The dispute settlement system is flawed. The answer is not to withdraw from the WTO; it is to work hard to change the dispute settlement system. As was said earlier, it is very opaque, that is true. There is not an openness that there should be; and when it comes to our safeguard provisions that many of us worked hard to put into law, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin), who is the ranking member, was part and parcel of that, as well as the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), and those on the Republican side, we worked hard to put safeguards in. Every challenge to safeguards has been upheld by the WTO. We have lost every case. We have not known what went into the consideration of the decision fully, we did not see all the briefs, and we did not know the basis for the decisions, in many cases. In some cases they went beyond the language of the WTO agreements.

A Wall Street Journal article earlier this month had this statement about panelists: ``They don't have time to develop expertise and procedural and technical aspects of the dispute settlement system.'' And we are going to have them judge the Boeing, the complicated Boeing case, for example? We need to change, and work harder to change, the dispute settlement system, not to withdraw from the WTO.

So there are some major structural problems.

Also, relating to China, I have been very dissatisfied with the way the WTO has handled the annual review of China's obligations that we worked so hard to bring about. Part of the problem is with the WTO in Geneva, part of the problem has been our administration that has not vigorously, and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin) has worked so hard to illustrate this, the administration has not worked actively enough to get China to live up to its agreements. So more needs to be done by the administration, and we have been losing too many cases, and we have been filing too few cases.

So my suggestion is that we focus today on the accomplishments, but also the barriers, to effective operation of the WTO.

One issue the WTO has totally failed to address relates to core labor standards. On environment, they have kind of a group that looks at environmental issues.

On core labor standards, there has been resistance to address this. Years ago, there was a proposal by the Clinton administration to set up a working group within the WTO. That was resisted, resisted by many, including developing nations.

I think now, as developing nations have to compete with each other, including China, where labor standards essentially are nonexistent, those developing nations are beginning to say, well, maybe the WTO should address it. But it has not.

The argument was, okay, let us use bilateral agreements as building blocks in a number of areas, including core labor standards. And that is why I want to say just a few words now about the failure of this administration to use bilateral agreements effectively as a building block when it comes to basic core labor standards, the ILO labor standards, child labor, forced labor, nondiscrimination, and the right of workers to assemble, to organize, to have unions if they desire, and to bargain collectively.

CAFTA is a vital agreement in terms of where globalization is going. In Latin America, there is growing unrest and changes in government, in part because of the failure to have the large numbers of people, the largest proportion of people, share in the benefits of globalization.

So what did this administration do under these circumstances? It negotiates a standard, enforce your own laws. Enforce your own laws is only used as to core labor standards, not as to intellectual property or tariffs or anything else. And the tragedy of it is that the laws in Central America, to some extent the Dominican Republic, do not meet the basic standards giving people the freedom in the labor market. That is the basic fact. The ILO reports say so, despite what the administration tries to say. Their own State Department reports say that, despite what the administration and our new USTR, Mr. Portman, said this morning.

What is at stake is the development of a middle class that is so critical. And I am going to say more about this later today. The experience in countries is that workers are a critical part of the evolution towards a strong middle class.

There was a reference by Mr. Portman to Jordan. And what he said, that CAFTA is stronger than Jordan, it is simply not true. It is not correct. Jordan has reference in its agreement to the core labor standards, that is not true of CAFTA. And the enforcement capability in Jordan was left to each country to undertake.

So I just wanted to comment on this, because the bilateral agreements were supposed to be a building block where the WTO did not address an issue; and there is a failure at this critical point of globalization, a critical missed opportunity in terms of helping the benefits of globilization being widely shared.

I want to close, and I will say more about this later today, why it matters to the U.S. It matters in terms of Central America, which, as I say, has such income disparities that are true of Latin America generally.

What it means is, as to Central America, if workers are not going to be able to participate, to have freedom, to be able to associate, to become a part of the workplace, and are going to remain in poverty, it is bad for those workers, it is bad for those countries that desperately need a middle class, it is bad for our workers who will not compete with countries where workers are suppressed, and it is bad for our companies if there is no strong middle class to purchase our products.

So I am deeply disappointed by this effort to skirt this basic issue at this important time. A building block? No, CAFTA moves backwards from the present status instead of moving forward. And this notion that we are going to give more money to our Labor Department to enforce the laws, when they are cutting the budget, this Congress and the administration, are cutting these moneys for ILAB and other parts of the Labor Department. You cannot pour money to enforce inadequate laws and have it work out well.

So, in a word, what we need is a trade policy built on a bipartisan foundation, which is not true today. What we need is a trade policy that helps move globalization forward, that makes sure that more and more people share in the benefits of globalization. Pulling out of the WTO is not going to accomplish that. Instead, we need to work together to make the WTO more responsive in all respects and also to make sure that our bilateral agreements meet the challenges that the WTO is not meeting today. On the latter, this administration continues to fail.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Meeks).