Panama Must Adjust Labor Laws, Trade
Lawmaker Says
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Panama Must Adjust Labor Laws, Trade
Lawmaker Says
By JIM ABRAMS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Panama needs to adjust its
labor laws to meet international standards
before Congress will consider a free trade
agreement with the Central American country,
a House lawmaker in charge of trade policy
said Wednesday.
Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., who chairs the
Ways and Means subcommittee on trade, said
certain Panamanian laws, such as one
determining that a workforce of less than 40
employees has no right to form a union, "are
clearly in violation of International Labor
Organization laws."
Levin, in remarks prepared for a speech to
the Washington International Trade
Association, said Panama had expressed a
willingness to address these issues. "They
should now follow through with necessary
changes before congressional consideration
of the free trade agreement."
He said discussions are now under way about
Panama's laws regarding tax havens, an issue
raised by labor and consumer groups that
have opposed past bilateral free trade
deals.
There are three free trade agreements — with
Panama, Colombia and South Korea —
negotiated by the Bush administration but
never taken up by the Democratic-controlled
Congress. President Barack Obama's nominee
to be U.S. trade representative, former
Dallas mayor Ron Kirk, said in confirmation
hearings Monday that Panama was the closest
to getting a congressional vote.
Levin appeared to concur in that assessment.
He said Colombia "poses an expanded
challenge" because of continued violence
against union workers and restrictions on
the right to organize. South Korea, he said,
has "a long history of erecting a series of
non-tariff barriers to severely limit U.S.
exports of automobiles and other key
industrial goods. It remains to be seen
whether Korea is willing to resolve these
issues."
Levin was also in step with Kirk in calling
for a "new day" in trade policy with an
emphasis on enforcing existing laws to
ensure that U.S. trading partners are
playing by the rules.
He noted that he and Ways and Means
Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y.,
were backing legislation that would identify
"priority foreign countries" that impose
technical barriers to trade and unfair
sanitary measures regarding products like
beef to restrict U.S. exports. |
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