(The IBT issued the following news release on June 1.)
WASHINGTON — The following is an official statement of Jim Hoffa, General President, of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters:
By signing the U.S.-Central American Free Trade Agreement Friday, May 28, the United States Trade Representative broadened the Bush Administration’s ongoing assault on working families. Despite this administration’s rhetoric, this pact will only exacerbate job losses here in the United States, while offering up for exploitation the workforces of five additional nations.
Rather than including meaningful, enforceable labor protections in the body of the agreement, this deal relies on the signing nations to protect the rights of their own workers. However, a simple look at the human rights records of most of these countries — both in the long and short term — reveals the folly of this policy. Human rights assessments by the Bush Administration’s own Department of State catalog a widespread disregard among the political leadership of these nations for rights of their working class citizenry.
The Teamsters will continue their struggle for trade policies that protect workers in the United States and around the world. We call on the U.S. Congress to reject this pact and implore the Bush Administration to go back to the negotiating table and include meaningful, enforceable labor protections in the body of the agreement, as mandated by Congress in the Trade Act of 2002.
In addition, the Teamsters will continue to work with the family of labor and other allied organizations to do whatever is necessary to ensure that a pro-worker agenda is once again the first order of business for those in the Oval Office.