Statement by AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney on Workers' Rights and the WTO October 28, 1999
The current system of global trade and investment rules has failed miserably on many counts. It has weakened the bargaining power of workers all over the world, has undermined legitimate national regulations designed to protect the environment and public health, and has exacerbated financial instability and growing inequality worldwide.
We need a rules-based global trading system that protects workers' and human rights, the environment, communities' priorities, public health, and consumers. The system that sets and enforces these rules must be open, transparent, and accountable to workers and other citizens, and it must reflect democratic principles. We need a trading system that works for working people.
That is why the AFL-CIO, along with union leaders from all over the world, and our allies in environmental, religious, and community organizations, is planning a mass mobilization in Seattle on November 30 during the World Trade Organization's first ministerial to be held in the United States.
Tens of thousands of workers, environmentalists, religious leaders, and community activists will come together in Seattle to tell the assembled ministers, the WTO, our own government, and the American public that it is time to put first things first - the rules need to be changed to see to it that globalization works for working people everywhere. Until these concerns are addressed, the WTO should cease the headlong rush toward ever greater trade liberalization.
Recently, the U.S. government indicated it will ask the WTO to establish a working group on trade and labor. We have long urged such a step and support the administration's proposal. We hope that other countries will support the U.S. proposal and are working with unions in other countries to urge them to do so. But the working group is only a small step in the right direction, and much more needs to be done.
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For a detailed description of the AFL-CIO's postion on the WTO see: <http://www.aflcio.org/convention99/res1_6.htm>