In lame-duck session
Congress passes anti-worker trade law
WASHINGTON, D.C. — As one of
its last acts before adjourning, the Re-
publican-controlled 109th Congress
passed a detailed trade law in its lame-
duck post-election session — one day
after it was introduced.
The 213-page bill, sponsored by
Rep. Bill Thomas (R-Calif.), covers
trade and tariff policy with dozens of na-
tions. It was approved Dec. 8 by the
House in a 212-184 vote, then added as
an amendment to an even larger tax and
health care bill that had passed the Sen-
ate by unanimous consent Dec. 7 .
The AFL-CIO opposed the bill be-
cause of several provisions, including
one which granted “permanent normal
trade relations” to Vietnam. With little
time to spare, AFL-CIO legislative di-
rector Bill Samuel sent a letter to mem-
bers of Congress urging a “no” vote.
“Our trade relations with Vietnam
should remain governed by existing
agreements until Vietnam takes mean-
ingful steps to bring practice and law re-
garding workers’rights into compliance
with international standards,” Samuel
wrote.
The bill exempts Vietnam from a
1974 requirement that communist coun-
tries undergo an annual human rights re-
view before trade with the United States
can be approved.
It also eliminates import tariffs on
over 500 products, including industrial
metals and chemicals, aircraft parts,
electric pencil sharpeners, coffee mak-
ers and juicers, camera lenses, footwear
... the list goes on for 100 pages.
The bill changes U.S. trade policy
with Haiti, allowing companies to im-
port into the United States tariff-free
clothing assembled in Haiti that is made
with fabric from third countries. Previ-
ously, tariff-free imports from Haiti had
to be made with U.S.-manufactured fab-
ric.
And it extends low tariffs to imports
from four South American countries —
Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia
— if trade agreements with those coun-
tries are ratified within six months.
Ecuador and Bolivia aren’t currently ne-
gotiating any such trade agreement,
while deals reached in 2006 with Peru
and Colombia are strongly opposed by
U.S. unions. All four countries are con-
sidered to have poor records of protect-
ing workers’ rights.
Both political parties split over the
bill, with a slight majority of Democrats
voting no, and three-fifths of Republi-
cans voting yes.
Southwest Washington Congress-
man Brian Baird (D) voted for the bill,
as did Oregon’s Darlene Hooley (D) and
Greg Walden (R). Voting against it were
Oregon Congressmen David Wu (D)
and Peter DeFazio (D); Earl Blume-
nauer (D) didn’t cast a vote.
Many of the issues addressed by the
bill are important to U.S. workers and
domestic producers, said Thea Lee,
chief international economist at the na-
tional AFL-CIO, but the bill was passed
without debate or serious consideration.
“It was a typical Bill Thomas ma-
neuver to try to cram a whole bunch of
things into a bill and try to rush it though
without giving members of Congress
time to look at it,” Lee said.
Thomas, who headed the Ways and
Means Committee, did not seek re-elec-
tion in 2006.
Oregon AFL-CIO joins
Manufacturing 21 group
The Oregon AFL-CIO Executive
Board on Dec. 14 approved joining the
Manufacturing 21 Coalition, a business-
based organization trying to recruit more
workers to the industrial sector. The
group, which includes union shops such
as Boeing Co., Freightliner and Cascade
General, says a looming worker short-
age will leave their businesses unable to
fill jobs with skilled workers.
“We have a lot of common interests,”
said Barbara Byrd, secretary-treasurer of
the state labor federation. “It’s good that
we will be at the table to discuss those
interests.”
The Manufacturing 21 Coalition was
formed several years ago because of a
growing difficulty finding skilled work-
ers. A spokesman said over the next 10
years Oregon is expected to lose 50,000
to 60,000 skilled workers to retirement
— the vast majority of them from the
Portland metropolitan area.
The state’s manufacturing industry
supplies about 208,000 jobs to the econ-
omy — the fourth-highest number of
jobs in the state behind trade, govern-
ment and education.
Byrd wants to see a push to recruit
more high school graduates into manu-
facturing and other skilled blue-collar
jobs.
One of the Manufacturing 21 Coali-
tion’s objectives is to educate school
counselors on the opportunities for train-
ing and family-wage jobs in manufac-
turing. Its primary goal, however, is to
create a Center for Manufacturing and
Infrastructure Engineering. The $25 mil-
lion center would be a shared facility to
educate and train workers for careers in
industrial manufacturing. Funds for the
building would come from the coali-
tion’s private-sector members, govern-
ment, and private grants and economic
development money.
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