By Robby Stern
Kyung-Lan Kim, director of the External Relations & Outreach Department of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions recently paid a visit to Seattle, Ms. Kim discussed how the trade union movement in Korea is organizing to oppose the Korea/U.S. Free Trade Agreement otherwise known as KORUS FTA.
Four years ago, significant elements of South Korea’s civic society came to Seattle and led a week of demonstrations against KORUS FTA. Marching through Seattle’s streets were representatives of Korea’s labor movement, farmer organizations, students and other civic groups. On the last day of the protest, a delegation of Korean and U.S. activists submitted to nonviolent arrest to protest the negotiations that were proceeding behind closed doors. Among the U.S. protesters arrested were the newly elected President of the WA State Labor Council, Jeff Johnson, and myself.
I was fortunate to be placed in a cell with five Korean activists who spoke eloquently of the harm the KORUS FTA will do to workers and farmers in South Korea.
The Bush administration was never able to push the KORUS FTA through. And candidate Barack Obama stated his opposition to the KORUS FTA. What a difference an election makes! The stalled talks were restarted in December despite the militant opposition of huge numbers representing civic society in South Korea.
KORUS, now supported by the two heads of state, is expected to go before Congress for an up or down vote next month.
This is the largest free trade agreement to be negotiated since NAFTA. We now know that NAFTA never came close to achieving what its advocates promised, i.e. an expansion of economic growth in Mexico, which would in turn lead to the creation of more jobs in the U.S. as Mexicans would be able to afford more U.S. exports. In fact, just the opposite has occurred. Mexican farmers have been driven off their land, Mexican workers are poorer than ever and the Mexican economy is in deep crisis. U.S. job loss as a result of NAFTA is indisputable -- and yet the drum beat for free trade agreements continues with the newest and biggest being the KORUS FTA.
In 2008, 700,000 South Koreans were in the streets of Seoul opposing KORUS FTA. The reasons why are clear. KORUS will create lower wage jobs in Korea and more “non-contracted” positions – that is, positions without benefits and job protections. The treaty will lower environmental and food safety standards, allowing local protections to be superseded. The treaty stresses the protection of capital benefits and investor benefits, even as it lowers worker benefits in South Korea.
In the U.S., the Economic Policy Institute estimates that 159,000 jobs will be lost within seven years as a result of KORUS, and the same lowering of environmental and food safety standards will apply to the U.S., superseding local protections. The clear winners are U.S. investors and U.S. multinational corporations.
Ms. Kim of the Korean labor federation stressed that the majority of South Koreans oppose the KORUS FTA, and that the minority parties in South Korea have come together to oppose approval. The agreement will be bitterly debated when the South Korean Congress reconvenes in February. She stressed the need for an alliance between South Koreans and the treaty’s U.S. opponents.
In September, 2010, the AFL.CIO and the Korean Federation of Trade Unions (KCTU) issued a Joint Labor Declaration announcing their united opposition to the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement as negotiated. The declaration states that the agreement privileges the rights of corporations over the rights of workers, consumers and the general public. The declaration cites the concern in the U.S. about the likely impact on our industrial base and technological sector. In Korea, there is a similar concern about weakening the nation’s industrial base and the agricultural sector. The Joint Labor Declaration also cites concerns with provisions in KORUS that limit governments from prudently regulating their financial sectors to avoid another economic crisis.
The Joint Labor Declaration ends by calling upon the two governments to “thoroughly review and renegotiate the KORUS FTA to ensure that it supports the creation of good jobs in both countries and to undertake the additional reforms needed to ensure that workers in both countries are afforded their fundamental labor rights…”
The Agreement that will come before the U.S. Congress fails to meet the standards spelled out in the Joint Declaration. The KORUS FTA fails to protect workers, consumers and the public in both countries while it offers abundant protections to corporations, capital investment and the financial sector.
As a member organization in the Washington Fair Trade Coalition, PSARA will make our voices heard when the KORUS FTA comes before Congress. We will also ask our individual members to contact our elected federal representatives. They need to hear from all of us that we do not want another rotten trade agreement.
We are in a world of hurt. Not since the 1920s has there been so grotesque a disparity in the distribution of wealth and income in the United States.
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