Townhall.com / Steve Chapman
The American labor movement thinks it's being unfairly depicted in the debate over normalizing trade relations with China. The AFL-CIO's opposition has led to the amazing charge that it is being selfishly protectionist, trying to preserve American jobs at the expense of workers abroad. That's the complete opposite of the truth, we now learn.
"Insisting that they have jettisoned their past protectionism, union officials say they oppose trade initiatives only because they fail to protect the rights of foreign workers," reports The New York Times. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says he has come to the conclusion that "we have to have core labor standards in our trade agreements if they're going to benefit workers in the United States as well as workers in the countries that are our trading partners."
These days, organized labor is talking not about the petty goal of saving American jobs but about the noble cause of eradicating foreign sweatshops and child labor. The message of its campaign is that we should be happy to open our markets -- but only when China and other poor nations raise wages, improve working conditions, allow strong unions, and respect human rights.
Well, you can certainly understand why unions would be offended by the idea of letting American consumers purchase products made by underpaid wretches toiling long hours in squalid firetraps. We have a moral duty, in labor's view, to use our trade leverage to improve working conditions in benighted climes.
That explains why the AFL-CIO opposes the China agreement, lobbied against the 1993 free trade deal with Mexico, and denounces World Bank efforts to promote exports from poor nations by getting rich countries to reduce tariffs and scrap import quotas. But if we were to forge a trade pact with a democratic nation whose workers enjoy high wages, good working conditions and strong unions, it would be a different story.
There is only one problem with this theory. Just a dozen years ago, the Reagan administration negotiated a free-trade agreement not with Mexico, China, Nigeria, Haiti, or Papua New Guinea, but with Canada. And organized labor opposed it.
That's right. Presented with an opportunity to facilitate commerce with the perfect trading partner, the AFL-CIO said exactly what it has said about every trade deal on record: No, hell, no.
What was the problem? Canada has first-world living standards, an expansive social welfare state, strong labor laws, and unions that are more powerful than those in the United States. Even stalwart anti-trade members of Congress like Missouri Democratic Rep. Richard Gephardt endorsed it.
But labor found all sorts of things to quibble about. The Canadian dollar was weak, putting U.S. companies at a disadvantage. Letting Canadians buy Alaskan oil would make us more dependent on foreign energy. Canadian companies would be allowed to bid on U.S. government contracts. There was no Goldilocks at the AFL-CIO: The soup was too hot or too cold, but never just right.
All of the unions' small gripes converged in one large fear: Somewhere, somehow, some American job might be lost to Canadian competition. Faced with that ghastly prospect, organized labor ran screaming from the room.
It was not unique in that reaction. In fact, at the same time that American unions were insisting that U.S. jobs would be exported to Canada, Canadian unions were insisting that Canadian jobs would be exported to the United States.
Those relying on mere common sense might assume that phasing out tariffs on goods moving from one country to the other would have to be good for someone. But in labor's view, the accord was worse than a zero-sum game. It makes you wonder why the AFL-CIO isn't trying to raise trade barriers between Minnesota and Wisconsin.
The experience with the U.S.-Canada free trade agreement confirms what John Sweeney would like to deny -- that his organization's first, second and only priority, now as ever, is to shield American workers from any sort of competition. Blocking trade with China may be depicted in idealistic terms, but it's no favor to poor Chinese workers to stop buying their products. All this approach can do is turn poor Chinese workers into poor, unemployed Chinese workers.
Trade restrictions may save some American jobs, but the price is astronomical. Scholars Gary Hufbauer and Erika Wada of the Institute for International Economics in Washington calculate that saving one steel worker's job through limits on foreign steel costs at least $800,000 -- far more than the job pays. People in the industry may gain, but only at the expense of everyone else.
Someday, I'm sure, the AFL-CIO will find a free trade agreement it can enthusiastically support. Just not in this millennium.
c2000 Creators Syndicate, Inc.:
