Again Getting Played on "Free" Trade

This Op-Ed column in last Saturday’s New York Times by Edward Schumacher-Matos argued in favor of a free trade agreement with Colombia, and I should tell you from the start that I oppose free trade agreements since they have never provided worker safeguards and I have yet to see such agreements generating reasonably well-paying jobs with respectable benefits in this country (if someone can make that case to me, feel free to try – I’m sorry, but with our economy in the tank, I’m not terribly concerned about generating jobs anywhere else in the world).

The author stakes his claim based on the following…

All sides agree that trade-union murders in Colombia, like all violence, have declined drastically in recent years. The Colombian unions’ own research center says killings dropped to 39 last year from a high of 275 in 1996.

Yet in a report being released next week, the research center says the killings remain “systematic” and should be treated by the courts as “genocide” designed to “exterminate” unionism in Colombia. Most human-rights groups cite the union numbers and conclude, as Human Rights Watch did this year, that “Colombia has the highest rate of violence against trade unionists in the world.”

Even if that is true, it was far safer to be in a union than to be an ordinary citizen in Colombia last year. The unions report that they have 1 million members. Thirty-nine killings in 2007 is a murder rate of 4 unionists per 100,000. There were 15,400 homicides in Colombia last year, not counting combat deaths, according to the national police. That is a murder rate of 34 citizens per 100,000.

Oh, and by the way, Iraq is safer than Philadelphia, just to let you know (God, am I sick of nonsensical statistics such as that…how about a rate 4 murders per 100,000 former Wall Street Journal columnists per year? Somehow I don’t think you’d be singing about that; I should note, though, that Schumacher-Matos is more sophisticated than your typical wingnut, and unlike many of them, he has actually served this country in the military with distinction).

Also…

(Colombia’s) two main guerrilla groups have an avowed strategy of infiltrating unions, which attracts violence. About a third of the identified murderers of union members are leftist guerrillas. Most of the rest are members of paramilitary groups — presumed to be behind two of the four trade unionist murders this month. The demobilization of most paramilitary groups, along with the prosecutions and government protection of union leaders, has contributed to the great drop in union murders.

Oh, so it’s the fault of the unions themselves that they face death in unacceptable numbers, is it?

This prior post tells you that the paramilitary groups working under the drug cartels “intimidate the workforce to the point where workers are scarce and wages are suppressed.”

And a comment to this AFL-CIO post tells you that, in addition to the fact that Colombia has squandered the money we sent them to fight the “drug war,” which is nothing but a slogan in this country particularly under Bushco (because those funds have padded the lifestyles of the rich and prosperous in that country)…

Colombia is a different world than the USA. It is difficult for reporters to even understand without living there. One must remember that 20% of the population has over 60% of the wealth. The 20% control the government and for them the FTA as written is excellent. However over 50% of the population lives below the poverty level. The disparity between rich and poor in the country remains one of the largest in the world, some reports have put it as high as 58 times. In order for there to be a market for American goods there needs to be people who can afford them.

Indeed the treatment of union members is important. Even more important is the need to eliminate fear in workers for exercising their right to organize. There are hundreds of thousands who work in terrible conditions and would like organize, but don’t for fear of death. It is bad enough that the government linked paramilitary is said to be responsible for the majority of murders of union members, but a U.S. State department report has even said Colombian military troops are responsible for some.

And the AFL-CIO post itself states the following…

All the Colombian union leaders told the (U.S.) delegation they oppose any free trade deal between the United States and Colombia until the government takes strong action to stop the violence against trade union members and ends the government’s assaults on union rights. They emphasized that the trade agreement in its current form will create more economic insecurity in their country and hurt workers more.

Gee, it sounds to me like the Colombian unionists care more about their livelihood and their lives than stimulating economic growth and jobs, contrary to what Schumacher-Matos tells us.

And Bushco and their acolytes have been trying to hand us the “Don’t worry about Colombia, everything’s fine” line for a little while, as Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez did last October, only to be properly slapped down by Sherrod Brown of Ohio.

And this tells us of the story of Chiquita Brands, which tried to do the right thing concerning the paramilitary organizations in Colombia and ended up getting rooked by Mike (“City of Louisiana”) Chertoff (who I guess will endure to the bitter end with this bunch, a moment that can’t come soon enough).