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Labor dept concealed report on free trade labor { June 29 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/3246901http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/3246901
June 29, 2005, 10:19PM
Secrecy push took aim at trade reports
Studies criticized working conditions in Central America
By LARRY MARGASAK
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The Labor Department worked for more than a year to maintain secrecy for studies that were critical of working conditions in Central America, the region the Bush administration wants in a new trade pact.
The contractor hired by the department in 2002 to conduct the studies has become a major opponent of the administration's proposed Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA.
The government-paid studies concluded that countries proposed for free-trade status have poor working environments and fail to protect workers' rights. The department dismissed the conclusions as inaccurate and biased, according to government and contractor documents reviewed by the Associated Press.
The Senate Finance Committee approved the agreement Wednesday, sending it to the full Senate for consideration.
The contractor, the International Labor Rights Fund, wrote in a summary of its findings: "In practice, labor laws on the books in Central America are not sufficient to deter employers from violations, as actual sanctions for violations of the law are weak or nonexistent."
The conclusions contrast with the administration's arguments that Central American countries have made enough progress on such issues to warrant the free-trade deal.
The administration and its congressional supporters say eliminating trade barriers for U.S. products would open new markets in Central American for U.S. farmers and manufacturers. Critics say the deal would allow serious labor violations to continue in the countries covered by the pact — Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic.
Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands, who supports the trade agreement, said he is familiar with drafts of the reports and believes they will be "widely dismissed as a fraud." He accused the contractor of producing "a propaganda piece" and concealing "its rabid anti-CAFTA bias."
Hoping to lure enough U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman promised to arrange an international conference to ensure "the best agreement ever negotiated by the United States on labor rights."
Behind the scenes, the Labor Department began as early as spring 2004 to block public release of the country-by-country reports. The department told its contractor to remove the reports from its Web site, ordered it to retrieve paper copies before they became public, banned release of new information from the reports, and told the contractor it could not discuss the studies with outsiders.
The department has now worked out a deal with the contractor to make the reports public, provided there is no mention of the federal agency or government funding.
At the same time, the administration began a pre-emptive campaign to undercut the study's conclusions.
Used as talking points by trade-pact supporters, a Labor Department document accuses the contractor of writing a report filled with "unsubstantiated" statements and "biased attacks, not the facts."
Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said he was shocked that a federal agency charged with protecting the rights of Americans workers would go to such lengths to block the public from seeing its own contractor's concerns before a vote by Congress.
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