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WASHINGTON -- AFL-CIO President John Sweeney is traveling to China later this month to press companies operating there to uphold workers' rights, human rights and environmental protections.
Sweeney, who heads the federation of 60 unions representing 13 million workers, will lead a delegation of international unions to Beijing on Dec. 13 for a meeting with corporations and Chinese officials, organized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a coalition of 30 countries.
Sweeney said the talks could lead to changes that have "real monumental impact on the lives of workers and on the relationships of workers and employers" in China, a growing economic rival to the United States.
U.S. manufacturers have lost nearly 3 million jobs to China and other low-wage countries. China is of particular concern because the United States rang up a $124 billion trade deficit with it last year, the largest imbalance ever with a single country.
"To see corporations moving around the world for the cheapest possible deal and the lowest possible wages and the greatest exploitation of workers, that's a horror story as far as American workers are concerned," Sweeney said.
The United States has unsuccessfully urged China to make a number of changes aimed at narrowing the trade gap, including loosening China's currency controls, strengthening workers' rights and reducing government control of the economy. Commerce Secretary Donald Evans and Labor Secretary Elaine Chao traveled there in June.
Earlier this year, the AFL-CIO petitioned the Bush administration to launch an unfair trade practices investigation into China's alleged labor abuses, but was rejected. Officials said such issues were better dealt with through diplomacy rather than threats of trade sanctions.
Sweeney hopes that talks with multinational corporations with operations in China might help spark changes.
Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, recently said it would permit workers to join branches of the official Communist Party-controlled union in its Chinese stores if employees requested it.
The 123 million-member All China Federation of Trade Unions last month threatened to sue Wal-Mart and other companies based outside China if they don't set up union branches in their China operations.
The union branches typically are weak, management-controlled bodies that work mostly to prevent conflict. Wal-Mart operates 39 stores in China employing 20,000 people. It does business with suppliers there that employ millions more workers.
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http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/apbiz_story.asp?category=1310&slug=Labor%20China
and meeting schedule:
http://www.oecd.org/document/60/0,2340,en_2649_201185_33977020_1_1_1_1,00.html