CAFTA: A Lose-Lose Proposition

CAFTA: A LOSE-LOSE PROPOSITION -- (House of Representatives - June 13, 2005)

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gene Green) is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight during the 5-minute time in opposition to the flawed free trade agreement the administration signed with the Dominican Republic and Central American countries. My colleague from Ohio (Mr. Brown) has an hour later, but I wanted to do a 5-minute on the Central American Free Trade Agreement and the Dominican Republic.

Over the past year we have continued to learn about this agreement. During this time the opposition to CAFTA, as it is called, has only grown stronger. The more we learn, the more we realize that CAFTA is a lose-lose proposition. It is no secret that CAFTA is modeled after the NAFTA agreement that was supposed to create new markets for U.S. products and lift up the low-income people in Mexico. The unfortunate result of NAFTA was the loss of 50,000 jobs and a widening of the income gap in Mexico.

Make no mistake, wealth in Mexico has increased since NAFTA, but it has not been evenly distributed. Since NAFTA, an additional 19 million Mexicans are impoverished, and President Vicente Fox has stated that 54 million Mexicans are too poor to meet their basic needs. With 10 percent of the Mexican population controlling half of the nation's wealth, it is easy to see that the average Mexican worker has not benefited from NAFTA. One would think our country would learn from the many failures of NAFTA instead of applying the nearly identical trade provisions to the Central American and Dominican Republic.

I have long opposed free trade agreements with countries with substantially lower standards of living than we have here in the United States. I am proud to represent the third most blue-collar district in our country. The workers in our district benefit from the labor laws on the books of our country. While our labor laws could certainly be strengthened, they ensure that our blue-collar workers receive a living wage and make up a thriving middle class in our country, although a shrinking middle class in our country, might I add.

I have no doubts whatsoever about the skills and productivity of our American workers, but they cannot compete against similar workers in Nicaragua, for example, where wages average about $200 a month. This salary differential puts the American worker and American products at a disadvantage, one that this country should not allow to be exploited through a free trade agreement.

The labor laws of the CAFTA countries do not come close to meeting international standards. Each of the DR-CAFTA countries has been cited by the International Labor Organization for policies which provide inadequate protection against antiunion discrimination. Four of the five countries have laws on the books that significantly impede workers' ability to strike, and each of the countries has laws that restrict union formation or union leadership.

Mr. Speaker, free enterprise includes not only me as a businessperson, but also me as a person to be able to collectively bargain for my wages and my working conditions. What is worse, the CAFTA agreement has no real enforcement mechanism to force a change in these labor laws. True, the agreement

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technically requires the enforcement of all labor laws, and as a penalty for failing to enforce its labor laws, a CAFTA country must pay a fine to improve the labor conditions. However, the agreement contains no guarantee that the fine will be used for that purpose. In fact, as a party to the CAFTA agreement, the U.S. has the ability to withdraw trade benefits only based on whether that fine is paid, not on how that money is used.

This provision violates the spirit of the fast track negotiating authority under which Congress will consider CAFTA. Under fast track, all parts of an agreement must be subject to equal remedies. Yet under CAFTA, the penalties for labor violations are much weaker than those involved in commercial disputes, whether it be copyright or some other commercial dispute.

Make no mistake about it, this agreement is not in the interest of the Central American worker or the American worker. This agreement would just open the door for American multinational corporations or other countries' multinational corporations to shift their operations overseas for cheap Central American labor. In the interest of both American workers and the Central American workers, I encourage my colleagues to join me, and a majority of this House, in opposition to DR-CAFTA.

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