Lawmakers, Advocates Urge Strong Labor Rules for TPP Participant Nations

The Obama administration must include robust labor protection provisions in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in order to safeguard U.S. workers and manufacturing, said several House lawmakers and union officials in a May 29 press call with reporters. The implementation legislation for a potential final agreement will fail to pass the House without those labor protections, said the lawmakers and officials. More than 150 House Democrats, led by those lawmakers on the press call, urged in a May 29 letter (here) to U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman for TPP mandates that require participant nation requirements with international core labor standards.

Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Mexico in particular should have to demonstrate labor reform prior to the conclusion of TPP negotiations, said the lawmakers and officials. But the USTR is reportedly aiming to forge a labor action plan that is separate from the TPP text, said those on the call. That approach has repeatedly failed to protect workers' rights in the past, they said. “For us, and for the workers in this country, this is a critical moment in the TPP negotiations,” said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif. “We’ve all seen this show before. You get down to what they believe is the end of these negotiations and then they put working people in this country and the rights of working people in other countries … in a side agreement.” USTR did not respond for comment.

The U.S. free trade agreement (FTA) with Colombia illustrates the ineffectiveness of tacking a separate labor pact on the side of an FTA, said the lawmakers and officials on the call. Senate Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and union officials recently said violence against labor advocates persists in the country despite the passage of three years since the plan’s implementation. The lawmakers and officials on the press call corroborated that criticism. “Since the action plan itself was signed, 73 trade unionists have been murdered. 2013 actually saw an increase in murders,” said Cathy Feingold, director of international affairs at the AFL-CIO. “The real problem with the labor enforcement plan is that it’s actually not incorporated into the trade agreement itself … Once that trade agreement was signed, there was really a decrease in political will to do anything meaningful around worker rights in Colombia.”

Poor labor conditions and violence against labor advocates are rampant in TPP participant countries, especially in Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Mexico, said those on the press call. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., called labor conditions in the bloc a critical economic influence on U.S. manufacturing and employment. “Cheap labor abroad leads to an influx of cheap, often unsafe imports at home that displace U.S. workers and threatens public health,” said DeLauro. The Obama administration is showing no signs of aiming to genuinely address labor rights in the agreement, and therefore labor advocates on Capitol Hill are not yet targeting specific language or adherence to international conventions in TPP, said Miller.

The Obama administration faces a number of impediments to garnering sufficient support for the agreement, including concerns over labor, said DeLauro. “At the moment, there’s a lot of focus on market access issues with Japan as the key to concluding the broader Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement,” said DeLauro. “Skepticism when it comes to the TPP is much broader and deeper.” -- Brian Dabbs