US unions rally against Malaysian
pact By Anil Netto
KUALA LUMPUR - United States trade unions
have joined forces with their Malaysian
counterparts to strongly oppose ongoing
negotiations toward a bilateral free trade
agreement (FTA) until workers' concerns from both
countries are addressed.
The American
Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial
Organizations (AFL-CIO) and the Malaysian Trades
Unions Congress (MTUC) are poised to ink a joint
declaration agreed on in Kuala Lumpur last week.
The declaration resembles those that US labor
federations had previously signed with their union
counterparts in South Korea
last June, in Central America in 2002 and in
Australia in 2001.
The Kuala Lumpur
declaration asserts that economic integration
between the two countries must result in broadly
shared benefits for working people and
communities, and not simply extend and enforce
corporate power and privilege. It also warns that
violations to workers' rights have reached crisis
levels.
The AFL-CIO is a voluntary
federation of 54 national and international labor
unions, representing 10 million workers in the
United States. The MTUC, on the other hand, is an
umbrella movement of Malaysian trade unions
representing around half a million workers.
The joint declaration by the trade union
movements stands in stark contrast to the
floundering official FTA negotiations with Korea
and Malaysia. US trade officials are struggling to
wrap up their separate negotiations with both
countries by March so that the drafts can be
presented to Congress for approval before the
expiry on June 30 of a fast-track trade
promotional authority.
Malaysian
International Trade and Industry Minister Rafidah
Aziz said it was unlikely the US-Malaysia
negotiations could be completed before the
deadline, but Malaysia was willing to continue
beyond that in any case. Negotiations have
stumbled over thorny issues, such as proposed
measures to give US firms access to government
procurement and the service sector in Malaysia. In
South Korea, the stumbling blocks are the required
opening of Seoul's car, beef and pharmaceutical
markets and how the US applies its anti-dumping
rules.
Kuala Lumpur-based economist
Subramaniam Pillay says that the US labor
federation has traditionally been concerned with
protecting jobs, while the MTUC is more concerned
about the erosion of workers' rights. These were
legitimate concerns for unions, he added.
"Malaysian unions want to use this [joint
declaration] as a leverage to strengthen workers'
rights here. And the AFL-CIO may want to use it to
protect workers from job losses in the United
States."
No more NAFTAs American unionists argue they are not just
concerned about job losses in the United States.
"It is not just northern unions trying to take
jobs from Malaysia," said AFL-CIO global economic
specialist Jeff Vogt. "We want to make sure that
trade between our two countries is equitable to
our workers."
Vogt argued that there was
no need for US FTAs to demand intellectual
property rights that went beyond the World Trade
Organization regime. Neither was there a need for
FTAs to grant excessive rights to investors.
Joining forces with developing countries' trade
union movements to oppose FTAs "gives us more
credibility in our advocacy in the United States
[and allows us] to say, 'look, we are not being
protectionist'," he added.
The Kuala
Lumpur declaration states that it is clear that
the US-Malaysia FTA will be based on "the same
failed model as the North American Free Trade
Agreement [NAFTA]".
Over the past 12
years, NAFTA has facilitated corporate mobility
and flexibility, but has arguably resulted in the
loss of more than a million jobs and various other
business opportunities in the United States.
Critics say it has kept US wages low and
undermined environmental and public health care
protections. In Mexico, workers' real wages have
remain flat or worsened, while inequality has
widened, increasing the number of people in
poverty, they contend.
US trade unions and
their Asian counterparts want trade agreements to
include enforceable provisions to protect workers'
rights, public services and the environment. They
complain that the Bush administration has not
adequately addressed these concerns in the FTAs
they have negotiated.
In the Kuala Lumpur
declaration, the unions noted there was evidence
that the Malaysian government continues to oppose
any labor protection in a potential FTA with the
US, "based on a misguided notion that achieving
economic growth and international competitiveness
must be at the expense of core labor rights".
Unionists point out that FTAs typically
rely on weak national laws while provisions for
enforcement of labor standards, dispute resolution
and action against violators of workers' right are
weak, ineffective and difficult. In contrast, the
FTAs tend to provide excessive protection for
multinational corporate investment and profits,
they contend.
The MTUC and the AFL-CIO
said they were also deeply concerned with the lack
of transparency surrounding the negotiations and
the government's failure to consult trade unions
and civil society organizations in the process.
Malaysian unionists, meanwhile, are also
worried about a recent public submission for the
FTA negotiations made by the American Malaysian
Chamber of Commerce and the US Chamber of
Commerce. The two bodies argued that "while it is
important to protect the rights of workers,
Malaysia's current employment laws are too
restrictive and unbalanced against companies, thus
making it very difficult for employers to
terminate under-performing employees".
The
two bodies added that they would like to see
Malaysia's domestic labor laws and its Industrial
Relations Court reviewed, "to take into greater
consideration the needs of employers and the
ability of companies to remain competitive and
productive through proper management of their
workforces".
Union critics see these
comments as a thinly disguised desire to make it
easier to lay off workers, as it is in the United
States. Unionists are also deeply concerned that
more secure jobs will, through the implementation
of the FTA, be replaced with lower-paying
part-time positions for which employers' are not
required to pay benefits, such as health
insurance.
"The most important area we
[Malaysian unionists] are concerned about is
security of tenure, the outsourcing of jobs and
the sub-contracting of labor," said K Somasundram,
an MTUC official who participated in the
discussions with the AFL-CIO. "It is already
happening in the banking sector, with the
outsourcing of back-office services," he said.
"Unions are concerned because they feel that this
is one of the ways of busting unions as they will
then be outside the scope of representation."
In a statement in November, the executive
council of the AFL-CIO proposed a new approach to
make trade more fair and beneficial for all
workers. In particular, the group wants a slowdown
in US President George W Bush's rush to negotiate
new bilateral free trade agreements and a review
of all current agreements - a wish they might get
under a now Democrat-controlled Congress. The
executive council is also calling for reform of
the current trade regime to create a more just
global economy, "one that works for working
families and not just to boost the profits and
power of multinational corporations".
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