The New York Times / By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
WASHINGTON, May 13 -- The American labor movement is mounting its biggest lobbying campaign ever on trade matters in seeking to defeat the Clinton administration's drive to normalize commerce with China. Unions are holding dozens of meetings on Capitol Hill, putting intense pressure on individual legislators back in their districts, staging rallies and writing huge numbers of letters across the nation.
With the House scheduled to vote on the China trade bill the week after next, organized labor is struggling to counter the intense lobbying of the administration and business groups, with some labor leaders believing that their efforts will succeed in defeating the measure.
The members of a single union -- the Steelworkers -- have written more than 200,000 letters urging House members to oppose the bill, which would grant China permanent normal trade relations and pave its way into the World Trade Organization.
Acknowledging that the House vote is too close to call, John J. Sweeney, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s president, has cleared much of his schedule to hold one-on-one meetings with House members as well as sessions with moderate Republicans, the Congressional Black Caucus and the New York Congressional delegation.
"We're telling them that our members take this issue very seriously," Mr. Sweeney said. "We tell them that there is absolutely no good reason for them to support permanent normalized trade relations with China. There is no information showing that China is improving its human rights situation or workers rights situation."
The A.F.L.-C.I.O. has dispatched full-time coordinators to 32 Congressional districts that are represented by undecided House members. These coordinators are organizing demonstrations and candlelight vigils, arranging meetings with lawmakers and taking cell phones to factories so union members can inundate House offices with phone calls.
Labor's lobbying is often done in conjunction with religious leaders, environmentalists and exiled Chinese dissidents. On April 12, thousands of union members crowded the halls of Congress to lobby.
Last Thursday night, 60 union members demonstrated at a Wal-Mart in Tewksbury, Mass, which stocks many items made in China, to pressure Representative Martin T. Meehan, a Democrat, to vote against the bill. This Monday, union members plan to set up a tent outside the Alabama district office of Representative Robert E. Cramer, a Democrat, to urge him around the clock to oppose the bill.
Labor leaders oppose the bill because it does not protect worker rights and because of China's poor human rights record.
Many acknowledge that defeating the bill remains an uphill battle. President Clinton and Congressional leaders, they say, will make any deals necessary to obtain the 218 votes needed in the House.
"It's still neck and neck," said Peggy Taylor, lobbyist for the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, which represents 13 million union members. "We're not only holding our own, we're challenging them very strongly. We can win this vote." Administration officials and Congressional leaders say the bill will pass easily in the Senate.
"Right now neither side has 218 votes," said Commerce Secretary William Daley, who is coordinating administration efforts to win passage. "Labor's been very active. The fact of the matter is we've seen a whole host of House members struggling with this issue. One of the main reasons they've struggled is their friends in organized labor feel so strongly about it." Mr. Daley said the House would pass the bill.
Administration officials and business executives assert that the bill will help the American economy and workers by increasing exports to China. In the bill, Congress would approve the administration's agreement with China calling on it to lower tariffs and many trade barriers.
"This is a very good deal," said William Morley, trade lobbyist for the United States Chamber of Commerce. "What can be wrong about accepting a deal that will slash tariffs on American exports?"
Union leaders assert that the deal will not bring about increased exports but an exodus of American factories to China using low-wage Chinese labor to produce for the American market.
Much of the union members' opposition stems from a widespread conviction that the North American Free Trade Agreement encouraged an exodus of American industry -- and jobs -- to Mexico.
In 1993, labor fought that agreement in vain. Union leaders say the campaign against the China trade bill is bigger, involving more members and a wider swath of unions.
In one unusual move, hundreds of members of the United Steelworkers of America at a Rubbermaid factory in Wooster, Ohio, upset that much of the plant's operations were being transferred to Mexico, recently wrote on the back of a bathmat and sent it to Representative Ralph Regula, an Ohio Republican.
"Dear Ralph Regula," they wrote, "We are losing 180 plus jobs to Mexico. These products will no longer be made in the U.S.A. Since Nafta, the biggest export has been our jobs. Don't make the same mistake. Vote No on P.N.T.R. for China."
George Becker, president of the Steelworkers, said: "This deal is for multinationals, not for workers. It's for multinational companies to build plants in China and bring products back to the United States. It's the same as the Mexican trade deal."
Representative Bob Clement, a Tennessee Democrat, acknowledged that labor's lobbying helped sway him to oppose the bill. Noting that he was upset by China's religious repression, he said he believed that the current annual trade review of China helps to pressure it on human rights.
But John J. LaFalce, a Buffalo Democrat, who has met with many labor leaders, said he was leaning toward supporting the bill. He said he favored inserting labor rights into trade accords, but he said that because most of America's trading partners refuse to accept such provisions that should not block all future labor agreements.
Mr. Sweeney insisted that in his meetings with members of Congress he never threatens retribution against people who vote for the China bill. Acknowledging that the bill might make it harder for Democrats to regain control of the House, he said union members would certainly weigh each lawmaker's stance on China in deciding whom to endorse.:
