Jan. 7, 2011:NWLP
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Unions split on new U.S.-Korea Trade Agreement
Officials from the Auto
Workers and UFCW say the
deal will create union jobs
WASHINGTON, D.C. (PAI) — The United
Auto Workers (UAW) and United Food and Com-
mercial Workers (UFCW) may be in the minority
JANUARY 7, 2011
among top U.S. unions in backing the revised
U.S.-Korea Trade Agreement. The AFL-CIO and
United Steelworkers Union — among others —
say the new pact negotiated by President Barack
Obama falls short.
Ironically, the split could help the trade deal
pass Capitol Hill, most likely during the new 112th
Congress that opened this month.
UAW said the new pact will help U.S. car and
part exports to Korea, while UFCW hailed the deal
for opening the Korean beef market. Thousands of
its members work in meat-processing plants.
UFCW called the pact “a small but not insignifi-
cant step forward” in battling for fair trade.
Obama announced the revised deal in early De-
cember. It keeps U.S. tariffs on Korean cars and
trucks for years, while giving more entry for U.S.
cars and machinery into the Korean market, he
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
said. If lawmakers approve legislation to imple-
ment the pact — they can’t vote on the pact itself
and can’t amend it — it would be the biggest U.S.
trade deal since the jobs-losing North American
Free Trade Agreement of 1993.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Steel-
workers President Leo Gerard said that despite the
Koreans’ concessions on cars and trucks, the re-
vised pact still doesn’t protect U.S. workers.
“Labor has consistently argued the
investment and government procure-
ment provisions in the Korea deal will
encourage off-shoring,” Trumka ex-
plained. “Despite progress in improv-
ing the labor chapter in 2007, it is clear
that in both the United States and South
Korea, workers continue to face re-
peated challenges to their exercise of
fundamental human rights on the job —
especially freedom of association and
the right to organize and bargain collec-
tively. This deal does nothing to im-
prove or strengthen” labor provisions
inserted by former President George W.
Bush, he added.
Gerard said the Steelworkers were
included in the talks (along with the
UAW) with the Obama Administration.
Gerard praised the Administration for
moving away from Bush’s original
FTA, but said the union’s Executive
Board “carefully reviewed” the revised
pact, deciding it fell short in allowing
outsourcing of U.S. jobs and in letting
Korea import goods from China for
transshipment to the U.S., among other
failings.
“The auto sector is of vital impor-
tance to our members who make the
glass, tires, steel, plastics and countless
other products that are part of the supply
chain in the auto and auto parts sector,”
Gerard explained. The union worked
with Obama to prepare “a negotiating
approach in the auto sector that we
could support. Regrettably, the South
Koreans showed little willingness to
move off of their positions at those
talks.”
Gerard said the final agreement “will
result in increased access to the U.S.
market for Korean producers with in-
sufficient assurance the closed South
Korean market will sufficiently open up
to our auto exports and other manufac-
tured goods, such as steel. Provisions
were not included in the FTA to reduce
the flood of products that could be
shipped from China and other countries
to Korea to be assembled into South
Korean exports that will benefit from
the terms of the FTA. The lack of strong
rule of origin provisions ... will directly
and adversely impact USW members in
a number of industrial sectors.”
Communications Workers of Amer-
ica also weighed in, saying the deal fails
on worker rights and gives multi-na-
tional corporations too much leeway.
“This agreement gives investment
and legal protections to large multi-na-
tional corporations, which shift jobs off-
shore in search of the lowest labor and
environmental costs and highest profits.
With no counter balance, multi-national
corporations whipsaw workers and na-
tions to prevent and eliminate bargain-
ing rights,” the union said.
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