I meant to write this up a couple of weeks ago when Elizabeth Warren released a report called, "Broken Promises: Decades of Failure to Enforce Labor Standards in Free Trade Agreements" but, well, stuff got in the way. But, here's a hint: there will always be a spineless Democrat who gives you a chance to come back to an important topic. And that topic is: trade enforcement never works, it's a scam and should not be allowed to be used as a reason to vote for fast track or any of these so-called "free trade" deals.
So, an ironic thank you to Rep. Ami Bera for giving the opportunity to revisit this. Bera is one of the Democrats who are ready to vote for fast track in the House. And, according to the AFL-CIO, he'll do anything to keep his job including shipping "your job overseas". Check on this example of the AFL-CIO's ad campaign:
I love the AFL-CIO's no-holds barred approach here, which has made some Democrats whine that, oh, heaven forbid, they are being held accountable for helping eviscerate good paying jobs.
But, my point today is about the argument Bera is using to justify his vote for fast track:
Mr. Bera responded to the A.F.L.-C.I.O. by saying that the new version of the bill had addressed his concerns on workers rights and environmental protections, among other things.
“I’m supporting this T.P.A.,” he said of the trade promotion authority, “because I believe allowing the president to negotiate an agreement could lead to a good deal for America that would create good-paying jobs in Sacramento County and grow our economy.”[emphasis added]
Putting aside the utter nonsense that any of these so-called "free trade" deals are going to create good-paying jobs, it's a mistake to let these Congresscritters quiet their consciences by arguing somehow that the president, either in fast track or the TPP, has solved workers and environmental protections.
Because that is impossible.
So-called "free trade" deals are NOT ABOUT WORKERS RIGHTS OR THE ENVIRONMENT.
All these addenda to the deals are a side show to the main goal of the deals: to protect capital and investment.
You cannot paste on phony "workers rights" provisions and pretend like enforcement is ever possible.
The "protections" are a legacy of Robert Reich (who was a leading champion of NAFTA--he never has conceded that he, in fact, is one of the godfathers of what we now are grappling with) and Bill Clinton's drive to ram NAFTA through--they had to come up with some phony way to buy votes (and Clinton made a whole other set of promises and deals). So, Reich and Clinton concocted "side agreements" to pretend like the lives of Mexican workers, in particular, would be protected because labor standards would be "enforced".
Utter bullshit.
In 2008, in a question posed to both candidates Clinton and Obama when they both claimed they would have a new policy on trade, I posed this analogy: In the U.S., we have accepted, under Democratic and Republican Administrations alike, that injury, illness and death in the workplace are a cost of living in the wonders of the "free market". We make a show of enforcement—-the same show proposed for NAFTA enforcement, and now fast track and TPP—-but the truth is that the system embraced, in a bipartisan way, does very little to ensure a safe workplace.
Here’s what the AFL-CIO found in its 2007 report [the emphasis is mine]:
At its current staffing and inspection levels, it would take federal OSHA 133 years to inspect each workplace under its jurisdiction just once. In seven states (Florida, Delaware, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, Maryland, and South Dakota), it would take more than 150 years for OSHA to pay a single visit to each workplace. In 18 states, it would take between 100 and 149 years to visit each workplace once. Inspection frequency is better in states with OSHA-approved plans, yet still far from satisfactory. In these states, it would now take the state OSHA’s a combined 62 years to inspect each worksite under state jurisdiction once.
The current level of federal and state OSHA inspectors provides one inspector for every 63,670 workers. This compares to a benchmark of one labor inspector for every 10,000 workers recommended by the International Labor Organization for industrialized countries. In the states of Arkansas, Florida, Delaware, Nebraska, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, the ratio of inspectors to employees is greater than 1/100,000 workers.
When the AFL-CIO issued its first report "Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect" in 1992, federal OSHA could inspect workplaces under its jurisdiction once every 84 years, compared to once every 133 years at the present time. Since the passage of the OSHAct, the number of workplaces and number of workers under OSHA’s jurisdiction has more than doubled, while at the same time the number of OSHA staff and OSHA inspectors has been reduced. In 1975, federal OSHA had a total of 2,405 staff (inspectors and all other OSHA staff) responsible for the safety and health of 67.8 million workers at more than 3.9 million establishments. In 2005, there were 2,208 federal OSHA staff responsible for the safety and health of more than 131.5 million workers at 8.5 million workplaces.
The OSHA budget proposed for 2008 was 490 million. Yes, that was a Bush budget. But, even in Democratic Administrations, OSHA was underfunded given the task described above. Today,
the OSHA budget is just $552 million--and federal enforcement is only $208 million
Today, it's no better:
At its current staffing and inspection levels, it would take federal OSHA, on average, 140 years to inspect each workplace under its jurisdiction just once. In 10 states (Arkansas, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Dakota, Texas and West Virginia), it would take 150 years or more for OSHA to pay a single visit to each workplace. In 28states, it would take between 100 and 149 years to visit each workplace once. Inspection frequency generally is better in states with OSHA-approved plans, yet still is far from satisfactory. In these states, it now would take the state OSHA plans a combined 91years to inspect each worksite under state jurisdiction once.[emphasis added]
Back to NAFTA enforcement: It was supposed to have been under the purview of the Commission for Labor Cooperation (CLC). The CLC was supposed to have been funded, partly by the U.S., via a $2 million-a year appropriation, which would have meant that, over the period between 1993 and 2005, the CLC would have had $22 million from the U.S.
But, as Public Citizen found:
In another example of the gap between promised authorizations and actual funds appropriated to such programs, the CLC has only been granted $7.2 million of the $22 million it was authorized to receive from the United States as of 2005, or less than a third of the promised amount.
The game was rigged from the beginning. For argument’s sake, let’s say the CLC got the full $22 million? Would that have been sufficient?
Of course not.
So, think about that for a moment: we have an entirely inadequate system in this country just to watch over safety and health in the workplace, funded at a miniscule level of several hundred million dollars—and, yet, we even more ludicrously proposed to oversee labor rights enforcement over three countries (the U.S., Mexico and Canada) at a laughingly pathetic and criminal level of a couple of million bucks?
And now Bera and his ilk want voters to believe, "oh, sure, we can enforce labor rights across a much larger so-called "free trade" deal".
The fact is enforcement is a farce. Which was my only criticism of Warren's report: it pretends like there is any set of enforcement provisions that can be put in place to make so-called "free trade" a "better" deal.
However, this does give me a chance to invoke one of my favorite lines: when you're pissing on my leg, don't tell me it's raining.
And you don't have to be so colorful. Just don't let any Congressperson get away with the lie that enforcement is going to work.