TPN: The US labor movement has never liked what has come to be called “globalization” in general or NAFTA in particular. Despite that the politicians in Washington, including some who were elected with organized labor’s backing, pushed through NAFTA and now seem intent on creating a Free Trade Area of the Americas based upon NAFTA.

Is the labor movement preparing an effort to defeat the FTAA and repeal NAFTA, or is it now willing to accept certain features of regional economic integration, provided that the NAFTA model is reformed to eliminate the features that make it a corporate tool to move production to places with low wages and weak or non-existent unions?

TL: The labor movement’s views on trade and globalization have for a long time stressed that the current set of global rules and institutions have utterly failed to deliver good jobs and wages at home; equitable, sustainable, and democratic development abroad; or a framework of global rules that provides a coherent and socially progressive basis for economic integration. We do not outright oppose the idea that trade, investment, and immigration flows have the potential to bring benefits to American workers and our brothers and sisters in our trading partners, and therefore we have always tried to state our views on particular trade agreements or institutions in terms of the standards of democracy, accountability, and fairness that they would need to meet to generate widespread benefits.

However, given the current domestic and international dialogue on these issues, we see little progressive movement in the foreseeable future. For that reason, the AFL-CIO has initiated a campaign to defeat the Free Trade Area of the Americas, in conjunction with labor unions, environmentalists, development organizations, people of faith, family farmers, students, and other progressive social activists around the hemisphere (see the recent AFL-CIO Executive Council resolution on FTAA: An Action Plan to Oppose the FTAA, as well as an earlier resolution outlining policy problems with the FTAA). We are an active member of the Hemispheric Social Alliance, which has outlined a progressive alternative to the FTAA, the “Alternative for the Americas,” available on-line at http://www.art-us.org ).

TPN: Given the extent that multinational corporations already have their production spread all over the world, is the US labor movement giving any serious thought to alliances with unions in other countries to bargain for worldwide prevailing wage rates on an industry-by- industry basis?

TL: The AFL-CIO gives both serious thought and significant resources to building strong alliances with unions in other countries, both through our International Affairs Department and our Solidarity Center, which has offices and staff in 27 developing countries, and programs in about 60 countries (see the website: http://www.solidaritycenter.org for details on programs). However, most of our work involves education, technical support, and coordination of strategic goals, rather than bargaining for worldwide prevailing wage rates, which does not seem feasible in the current political and legal context. We do, however, work with the Global Union Federations (also known as International Trade Secretariats, which represent unions from different countries in the same sector) to facilitate communications and coordination between unions in different countries that are bargaining with the same company (like Goodyear or GE).

TPN: If there is movement in this direction, could you give some examples? What are the principal obstacles to such a development?

TL: Here is a news clipping about one recent example:

NEWS from the North American Regional Office of the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions
Kenneth S. Zinn, North American Regional Coordinator
Tel: (202) 974-8080/Fax: (202) 974-8084

Global Union Network Backs Steelworkers in Goodyear Contract Talks

CINCINNATI, March 13 --- Union leaders representing employees of Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. (NYSE: GT) in 27 countries joined the negotiating team of the
United Steelworkers of America (USWA) here today for the opening of master
contract negotiations with the company.

The talks will address contracts covering 20,000 active workers and 22,000
retirees across the United States. The current three- year agreement is set
to expire on April 19, 2003 at the Goodyear and Dunlop plants and on July 6,
2003 at the Kelly-Springfield facilities.

The international delegation included rubber workers union officials from
Brazil, the United Kingdom, Turkey and Germany. Together with the USWA,
they comprise the steering committee of the Goodyear Global Union Network of
the 20-million-member International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and
General Workers’ Unions (ICEM), a global union federation. The network
includes Goodyear unions on six continents and is chaired by USWA
International Vice President Andrew V. Palm.

Palm will lead the USWA Goodyear/Kelly- Springfield/Dunlop bargaining team.
“The security of our members’ jobs, wages, benefits and retirement earnings
are our paramount concern,” he stated. “We are convinced that Goodyear can
return to profitability while also ensuring these basic protections.

“We are proud and grateful that the Goodyear unions from around the world
are standing by our side,” Palm continued. “Their presence here at the
opening of our contract negotiations demonstrates our unity and resolve to
work together across borders for the common benefit of Goodyear workers
everywhere in the world.”

The USWA local unions involved in the contract negotiations include those
from Akron/Green, Ohio; Gadsden, Ala.; Buffalo, N.Y.; St. Mary’s, Ohio;
Lincoln, Neb.; Topeka, Kan.; Freeport, Ill.; Tyler, Texas; Danville, Va.;
Marysville, Ohio; Union City, Tenn.; Sun Prairie, Wis.; Huntsville, Ala.;
Fayetteville, N.C.

“The trade union movement is developing the capacity to have the same global
reach as the multinational corporations for which our members work,” said
Carlos Antonio da Silva of the Latin American rubber workers union
federation FUTINAL from Brazil. “What you’re seeing here in Cincinnati is
global unionism in action.”

The other union leaders who were present were Joao Batista Gonçalves of
FUTINAL from Brazil; Bill Holmes of the U.K. union AMICUS; Karl-Heinz
Schädel, chairman of the Goodyear Dunlop Central Works Council of Germany
and member of the Goodyear European Works Council steering committee from
the German union IG Bergbau Chemie Energie; Abdullah Karacan, president of
the Turkish union Lastik-Is; Kemal Özkan of Lastik- Is; and Marc Welters and
Kenneth Zinn of the ICEM.

In addition to providing support to the USWA, the international union
leaders had an opportunity to discuss matters affecting Goodyear workers
around the world with senior company management.

“We are pleased to have this opportunity to have a dialogue with Goodyear
senior management,” said the U.K.’s Bill Holmes, “and hope to continue the
discussion and reach an understanding with the company so that Goodyear
workers the world over are treated with the same dignity and respect.”

TPN: Does the AFL-CIO see anything positive for the Americas in the example of regional economic integration set by the European Union?

TL: Yes. Both the concept of upward harmonization of social standards and of significant resource transfers to help poorer regions or disadvantaged groups upgrade their skills and infrastructure seem like appropriate and desirable underpinnings for deeper social and economic integration. Movement in the EU on the former has been quite slow, however. Even the concept of a European Parliament, however weak, at least recognizes that economic integration necessarily brings a need for a democratic political forum where important transnational issues can be addressed.

TPN: I remember the strong AFL-CIO support for the organizing efforts of the United Farmworkers, and the modest results obtained.

Now a US-based corporation, Chiquita Brands, which has its international headquarters in Cincinnati, is making an all-out push to destroy the union at one of its subsidiaries in Panama, the Puerto Armuelles Fruit Company (PAFCO). Chiquita wants to devolve PAFCO into an “independent co-op” that can only sell its bananas through Chiquita, with this “co-op” receiving price subsidies from the Panamanian government. Chiquita has also demanded that when it closes PAFCO, the Panamanian government should pay the severance pay that the company would legally owe the workers. The union, SITRACHILCO (Sindicato de Trabajadores del Chiriqui Land Company, said land company being an intermediate subsidiary standing between Chiquita and PAFCO), has proposed to take over the PAFCO farms, which are on land leased from the Panamanian government, and negotiate a distribution agreement with a German corporation. Chiquita complains that this would be a violation of its property rights.

It seems that the only significant current manifestation of political consciousness about the banana industry in the United States has to do with supporting Chiquita in its battle against European banana import quotas.

Does the sympathy that American labor had for the movement headed by Cesar Chavez transfer to farmworkers in Latin American countries?

TL: Of course.

TPN: Has the AFL-CIO had anything to say, or will it have something to say, about international union-busting directed from Cincinnati? Does the AFL-CIO support Chiquita Brands in its argument with the European Union?

TL: We do not support Chiquita in its argument with the European Union and have written to the US Trade Representative expressing this view.

TPN: Moreover, does the AFL-CIO have a position on the worldwide market in food commodities in general?

TL: No.

TPN: The Panama News regularly receives and frequently publishes articles from the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. The ICFTU really despises the government of Venezuela, and seemed to look favorably on last year’s coup that would have replaced the elected president with a dictatorship headed by the president of the Chamber of Commerce. More recently, we have received some mail from folks who claim to be labor activists denouncing the president of Brazil, who rose to prominence as a labor leader, for backing the Chávez administration in neighboring Venezuela.

Does the American labor movement really support the replacement of the elected Venezuelan government with one headed by the Chamber of Commerce? Is the American labor movement hostile to the Brazilian government of Lula da Silva? Are there significant competing schools of thought within the AFL-CIO about political developments in South America?

TL: On the question of Venezuela, the AFL-CIO condemns violence, coups and all other anti-democratic methods as means of resolving the grave social and political crisis in Venezuela.

Last month the Executive Council protested the Venezuelan government's arrest warrant against the country's principal labor leader, as follows:

"The AFL-CIO is gravely concerned about the order of detention issued recently against Carlos Ortega, president of the Venezuelan Confederation of Workers (CTV). The order by the judge, Maikel José Moreno of the Public Ministry, is based on accusations of treason, civil rebellion, instigation of crimes, gang activity and devastation.
"These accusations appear to be an attempt to criminalize Mr. Ortega’s exercise of basic civil rights, civil protest and freedom of expression. Such an attempt would violate fundamental human rights guaranteed in the Bolivarian Constitution of Venezuela. Directed at the leader of Venezuela’s principal labor confederation, the detention order also will have a chilling effect on the exercise of freedom of association, guaranteed in the International Labor Organization’s Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.
"The AFL-CIO joins with the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions in condemning any action by the Venezuelan government to criminalize or otherwise restrict the rights of trade unionists, and holds the government responsible for the physical well being of Brother Ortega and all other trade union leaders."

On Brazil, the AFL-CIO has very close and cordial ties with the current Brazilian government, as well as with the Brazilian unions. When Lula came to Washington, the entire staff of the AFL-CIO headquarters greeted him in the lobby with enthusiastic cheering and chanting. We consider his election a real bright spot in hemispheric politics and look forward to working with him and his administration on many issues.

TPN: Ask any of the mainstream international human rights groups, or most reporters covering the situation in Colombia, and they will tell you that the AUC paramilitary is a functional if officially denied auxiliary of the Colombian military forces --- one that assassinates labor activists, among others.

Does the AFL-CIO take a stand on the activities of paramilitary death squads in Colombia?

TL: We strongly condemn the violent repression of workers’ rights and the vicious murder of union organizers by the paramilitary death squads, which we understand are associated with the Colombian government.

In an Executive Council resolution, the AFL-CIO said: "we condemn violence and drug trafficking, whether carried out by the military, paramilitary forces, or the guerrillas. Nevertheless, we think the United States should not deepen its entanglement with a military which has been responsible for the violence perpetuated against trade unionists.

TPN: A major economic controversy between Latin America and the United States has do do with intellectual property laws. On the one hand, our region has been known as a place where music, videos and computer programs from the United States have been pirated with impunity. On the other hand, US academics and pharmaceutical companies are known for learning ancient indigenous herbal medical knowledge and then going back to the US and claiming patent rights on it. We even had an American medical researcher come down to Panama, take a blood sample from a woman with a natural immunity to a certain virus, and then claim a patent on her genes. In Panama the US-based Business Software Alliance has effectively been deputized to search private offices for pirate programs, the prices of our medicines are for the most part set at European and North American levels by pharmaceutical companies based there, a lot of the most modern computer programs are not licensed to be sold here and our anti-monopoly laws are mostly theoretical.

Abstract as these issues may seem to a lot of people, the job prospects of a lot of workers in both the United States and Latin America are affected by them.

Does the AFL-CIO have a position on international intellectual property rights, and if it does, what might that be?

TL: We have taken the position that public health concerns should take precedence in trade disputes and that the US government should not seek provisions in trade agreements which impede access of developing countries to life-saving medicines. We also want to ensure that the concerns of our members who make their living through their own intellectual property (writers, musicians, actors) are protected.

TPN: Does the AFL-CIO advocate reforms to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund and the ways that they operate?

TL: Yes.

TPN: If so, what changes would the American labor movement like to see?

TL: Too often, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank pressure countries to "reform" their economies in the wrong direction. The IFIs press for deregulation, privatization, liberalization of trade and financial markets, slashing social programs, and so-called labor market flexibility. Instead, the IFIs must work with developing country governments, trade unions, and other citizens' organizations to promote core workers' rights, strengthen the rule of law, and promote democratic reforms. The AFL-CIO will continue to insist that the US Executive Directors of the IMF and World Bank work to change the policies of these institutions.

TPN: The labor movement notoriously doesn’t like the World Trade Organization’s power to overturn national legislation for which working people fought. Does the AFL-CIO seek to change this situation by pulling the United States out of the WTO, or is the preferred strategy one of reforming the WTO?

TL: An Executive Council resolution on the WTO advocated the following:

"We call upon the trade ministers at the 1999 Seattle WTO Ministerial to:

1. Incorporate core workers' rights and environmental protection into WTO rules with strong enforcement procedures. These core workers' rights must include:
   
   • freedom of association;
     
   • the right to organize and bargain collectively;
     
   • prohibition on the use of any form of forced or compulsory labor;
     
   • a minimum age for the employment of children; and
     
   • prohibition on discrimination in employment.
   
   
2. Ensure that WTO rules do not undermine legitimate national regulations protecting public health, the environment, and social programs. Unrestricted movement of goods and capital must not take precedence over public welfare.
   
3. Ensure that governments at all levels can protect human and labor rights by withdrawing benefits from governments that fail to guarantee and enforce them.
   
4. Strengthen the safeguard provisions to ensure timely and effective national actions can be taken when unanticipated import surges threaten domestic industries.
   
5. Develop accession criteria to ensure that new WTO members are in compliance with core workers' rights.
   
6. Undertake major institutional reforms to improve the transparency and accountability of WTO proceedings and ensure access to the WTO's dispute settlement process by unions and other citizen organizations."

TPN: The US labor movement was largely built by first and second generation immigrants, but also has a long history of opposition to the importation of cheap foreign labor to destroy unions. Surely these are recurring themes for the AFL-CIO.

Does the AFL-CIO have anything new to say about immigration? How important are Latin American and Caribbean immigrant communities in the AFL-CIO’s current organizing efforts?

TL: Our Executive Council resolution on immigration was welcomed by the immigrant community and widely praised as ushering in a new policy.

That resolution says, in part:

"The AFL-CIO believes the current system of immigration enforcement in the United States is broken and needs to be fixed. Our starting points are simple:

• Undocumented workers and their families make enormous contributions to their communities and workplaces and should be provided permanent legal status through a new amnesty program.
  
• Regulated legal immigration is better than unregulated illegal immigration.
  
• Immigrant workers should have full workplace rights in order to protect their own interests as well as the labor rights of all American workers.
  
• Labor and business should work together to design cooperative mechanisms that allow law-abiding employers to satisfy legitimate needs for new workers in a timely manner without compromising the rights and opportunities of workers already here.
  
• Labor and business should cooperate to undertake expanded efforts to educate and train American workers in order to upgrade their skill levels in ways that enhance our shared economic prosperity.
  
• Criminal penalties should be established to punish employers who recruit undocumented workers from abroad for the purpose of exploiting workers for economic gain."

Recent immigrants are key to future organizing efforts, and the AFL-CIO continues to work closely with many progressive immigrant rights groups to protect the rights of all American workers, regardless of their legal status."