A Labor Voice Urges China Trade
By Steven Mufson Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, March 8, 2000; Page A29
Leonard Woodcock has earned his stripes in the American labor movement. A key lieutenant in the 1930s drive to unionize the U.S. auto industry, he later rose to president of the United Auto Workers and led a major strike against General Motors.
But at age 89, Woodcock has parted ways with American labor leaders and is urging Congress to grant China permanent normal trade relations and support China's entry to the World Trade Organization.
"I have been startled by organized labor's vociferous negative reaction to this agreement," said Woodcock. "I have spent much of my life in the labor movement and remain deeply loyal to its goals. But in this instance, I think our labor leaders have got it wrong."
Woodcock has an unusual perspective. As UAW president in the early 1970s, he faced the auto industry's first real threat from imports. He pressed for domestic content guidelines instead of quotas to deal with foreign auto company competition. Those guidelines were later credited with transplanting Japanese and Korean auto plants to the United States and preserving American jobs.
After serving as UAW president, Woodcock served as the U.S. envoy to Beijing. Later as ambassador in 1979, he signed the trade agreement that first gave most-favored-nation status to China.
Woodcock argues that the WTO agreement U.S. negotiators reached with China in November would strengthen protections against surges in imports from China and open Chinese markets to more U.S. exports. He said blocking the WTO deal for China or limiting Chinese access to the U.S. market would not help reduce the U.S. trade deficit. Instead, he said, it would only add to imports of cheap goods from other low-wage, developing nations.
Finally, Woodcock argues that increased access for foreign firms to the Chinese market eventually will improve conditions for Chinese workers.
"American labor has a tremendous interest in China's trading on fair terms with the United States," Woodcock said. "The agreement we signed with China this past November marks the largest single step ever taken toward achieving that goal."
That isn't the view of the AFL-CIO. The labor federation, led by John Sweeney, has been waging a campaign to defeat permanent normal trade relations (NTR). The measure is required for the United States to receive the benefits of the WTO deal with China.
"We're opposed to permanent NTR," said David Smith, an expert on trade policy at the AFL-CIO. "We think it is crazy to give up the leverage that annual review provides us with the world's largest lawbreaker and most significant oppressor of labor rights and human rights." Smith contended that China would not live up to its commitments in the WTO deal.
Organized labor is a potent force as the Clinton administration tries to rally support in Congress for the China trade deal.
In a speech today at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced and International Studies, President Clinton is expected to announce legislation on permanent trade status for China and ask Congress to act in the next couple of months. National security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger said yesterday the administration wants a vote on permanent NTR for China by May. Supporters of the NTR measure want to get the vote over with early so it doesn't get fatally entangled in election-year politics.
AFL-CIO opposition to China's admission to the WTO puts Vice President Gore in an awkward spot. He is counting on labor support in his bid for the presidency. Nonetheless, Gore's foreign policy adviser, Leon Fuerth, says the vice president is firmly behind the permanent NTR measure and believes Congress should pass it this year.
"This agreement is in the interests of the United States," Fuerth said. "It benefits industry. It benefits agriculture. And it has many benefits for labor."
Berger recently used China's commitment to lower auto tariffs as an example of the deal's benefits, but Woodcock said he didn't think the WTO deal would affect U.S. auto workers "one way or the other." He said if China imports cars, they "might come from American-owned entities but not from the United States."
Woodcock, who went to China as President Carter's envoy and became ambassador after the United States normalized relations with Beijing, also took issue with critics of China's undemocratic political system and human rights record.
"In my lifetime [in the United States], women were not allowed the vote and labor was not allowed to organize," said Woodcock. "In my lifetime, although law did not permit lynching, it was protected and carried out by legal officeholders. As time passed, we made progress, and I doubt if lectures or threats from foreigners would have moved things faster."