Deviating from free-trade model

“See, I just don’t want to just reduce our dependence on foreign oil and then end up being dependent on foreign technologies. I don’t want to have to import a hybrid car – I want to build a hybrid car here. I don’t want to have to import a hybrid truck…

“I don’t want to have to import a windmill from someplace else – l want to build a windmill right here in Indiana…And that’s just the beginning.”

Thus, on August 5, did President Obama announce $2,400,000,000 in grants to develop “the next generation of fuel-efficient cars and trucks powered by the next generation of battery technologies – all made right here in the U.S. of A.”

About two-thirds of the $2,400,000,000 in grants are to be used to develop and produce advanced vehicle batteries. At present even U.S.-made hybrids, such as the Ford Fusion, depend on imported batteries, primarily from Asia.

While the President was in Indiana, Vice President Biden was in Michigan and Commerce Secretary Locke in Missouri to deliver the good news to two other hard hit areas that will share the stimulus money. “After too many years of economic growth fueled by speculation and short-term thinking,” Locke said, “these types of investment will help recapture the spirit of innovation that has always moved us forward.”

This stimulus money, while much needed and welcomed, will fall far short in regaining the manufacturing jobs lost in recent years. Michigan is estimated to gain up to 30,000 jobs in manufacturing batteries by 2020 if all goes well. But the state has lost some 250,000 industrial jobs since 2005.

Nationally, we Americans continue to consume way more than we produce here. The U.S. trade deficit ballooned by $37,300,000,000 in May. Canada alone added $600,000,000 to that deficit.

Canada is complaining that the “made-in-the-USA” special electric car grants to cities and states violate free trade principles and free trade pacts. But, according to the Financial Post, Canadian provinces have long-standing “buy provincial” policies that apply to their spending for infrastructure and procurement.

As a result, the Obama administration is apparently free to deviate from its free trade model under those circumstances. But it will still have to cope, sooner rather than later, with modernizing a global trade and investment system designed for the past century.

In pursuing that reform, a focus only on the narrow interests of the United States would not just be a world-class blunder; it would be a loser in a World Trade Organization that has 153 members, most from the developing world.

The current system poses problems for people everywhere. Two glaring examples are the protections it gives to the rights of cross-border investors and owners of intellectual property rights without balancing those global rights with corresponding global responsibilities.

Unions here and abroad have long demanded that trade agreements protect labor rights as it does the rights of capital. Had these demands been met (say) three decades ago, it would have made a difference in how globalization evolved. Now those demands, still valid, will have to be part of a package that takes into account the rights of people in the developing world in regard to issues such as foreign investment and intellectual property.


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Pioneering worker rights as human rights

Yes, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights treats the basic rights of workers as human rights, but who takes that seriously? Roy J. Adams, a prominent Canadian teacher and author, does. And he did so long before even human rights organizations did.

In August Adams will pull up stakes from his home base at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and move 1,400 miles west to the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. There, at the College of Law, he will hold the Ariel F. Sallows chair of human rights -- a milestone in academic history, since he is apparently the first teacher of labor law to be appointed to teach human rights law.

“One more indication that labor rights are being acknowledged as human rights,” as Adams puts it.

Another sign of that trend is his book, “Labour Left Out: Canada’s failure to protect and promote collective bargaining as a human right,” published by the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives two years ago. A past president of the Canadian Industrial Relations Association, Adams has been a visiting professor or lecturer at universities and schools in 12 countries across the globe.

For more on Adams’ career as industrial relations teacher and human rights advocate, check his home page at http://www.business.mcmaster.ca/hrlr/profs/adamsr/.

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Shelve worker rights because of crisis? No!

“Right now everyone wants to maintain jobs, even if they are sweatshop jobs (China). I think it is exactly why many union people will tell you it is not the time to push on labor standards...The economic logic is against [your] perspective.”

That message was in an email criticizing something I wrote. The email reflects a tempting notion that may be spreading: forget the pro-worker agenda for the sake of the anti-recession agenda. But the temptation is based on a fallacy: that the two agendas are necessarily in conflict.

I started to write a strong rebuttal, but soon realized that there was no need to do so. Why should I, when much wiser heads have already rejected that position? They did so in a letter timed for President Barrack Obama’s official meeting on February 19 with Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Canada.

The letter, dated February 18 and addressed to the top leaders of the two countries, was signed by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and President Kenneth Georgetti of the Canadian Congress of Labor (CLC), who together represent 12,200,000 union members.

Their five-page letter detailed the ways in which Canada and the United States need to work together on the economic crisis and on advancing worker rights. They discussed those two major areas under two headings: “1. Coordinated Response to Current Economic Crisis” and “2. NAFTA Renegotiation.”

The renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) sparked by far the most interest. Media accounts suggested that Obama’s concerns center on moving the “side” (separate) agreements on labor and the environment into the main body of NAFTA. Whatever the administration’s closely held position may be, the AFL-CIO and CLC position is not limited to what the existing labor and environment agreements cover.

“Substantive amendments” are required in otherimportant areas, Sweeney and Georgetti state. For example, NAFTA’s investment section is flawed by, among other things providing investments “unwarranted and excessive protections.” Other “central concerns with NAFTA” cover its provisions on energy, trade in services, and agriculture.

All in all, “a very ambitious list,” as the two labor leaders conceded. But they certainly don’t believe that the economic crisis requires sacrificing the rights of workers, whether here at home or abroad.

UPDATE: Since writing the above, I learned that the office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR)has just released a long report on the President's trade policy, which I'll comment on as soon as I have a chance to read it and think about it. Meantime, check it out yourself at www.ustr.gov, and do by all means send me YOUR comments.


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Canadians urge NAFTA renegotiation

In an open letter to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, major Canadian organizations urged him to commit to a renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The letter was released just prior to U.S. President Barrack Obama’s February 19 visit to Ottawa.

“Canadaian public opinion is solidly behind the need to renegotiate NAFTA,” the letter pointed out, citing a September poll in which 61 percent of respondents favored that position.

The letter was signed by 26 Canadian organizations, including Oxfam Canada, Sierra Club of Canada, the Council of Canadians, Common Frontiers, Canadian Federation of Students, the Canadian Auto Workers, and a variety of other unions.

In releasing the letter, Rick Arnold of Common Frontiers said: “We were all promised a golden future under NAFTA, but the reality for the three signatory countries is that the gap between rich and poor has grown exponentially, and government’s ability to set public policy has been curtailed in favor of giving carte blanc to foreign investors.”

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