FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
US/LEAP
June 1, 2001
Contact: Stephen Coats, 773-262-6502

Chicago - "In its first major test of applying worker rights conditions to international trade, the Bush Administration has fallen flat on its face and is misleading the public to boot," said Stephen Coats, executive director of the U.S./Labor Education in the Americas Project, an independent non-profit organization that has monitored the worker rights situation for over a decade.

In defending its decision to end Guatemala's GSP worker rights review, USTR issued a May 31, 2001 press release in which it cited the Guatemalan government's passage of a package of labor code reforms "aimed at bringing the law into compliance" with ILO conventions, the government's appeal of light sentences for criminals who were in March 2001 found guilty of violent intimidation of banana union leaders in October 1999, and the role of the government in facilitating a resolution of a labor dispute involving Del Monte banana workers.

USTR fails to report (1) that the labor code package as passed in fact did not bring Guatemalan law into ILO compliance, (2) that the appeal is in limbo and widely expected to go nowhere while the victims are in exile and the thugs are free, and (3) that the resolution of the Del Monte dispute was due not to the intervention of the Guatemalan government but to the intervention of the International Union of Foodworkers, according to US/LEAP.

FTAA Implications

"This bodes ill for the Bush Administration's promises to use a "tool box" of mechanisms as a substitute for including effective worker rights enforcement provisions in multilateral trade agreements like the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The first "tool" listed in USTR's box are the worker rights conditions of the GSP program. The decision on Guatemala shows that the tools in the box are being locked up tight by this Administration," said Coats.

"Today in Guatemala, workers feel abandoned by the U.S. government while those who violate worker rights and commit violence with impunity are no doubt slapping each other on the backs."

Last October, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative took the unprecedented step of initiating a GSP worker rights review when it placed Guatemala's GSP and CBTPA duty-free trade benefits on probation due to growing concerns regarding worker rights violations, especially with respect to impunity with respect to violence against workers. The GSP review helped ensure a trial and convictions in March 2001 for criminals who violently intimidated Del Monte banana union leaders in October 1999 but the sentences did not require jail time. The union leaders had to leave the country immediately after the verdict for fear of violent retribution for having testified at the trial.

Labor code reforms passed by the Guatemalan congress did not meet ILO standards in several key areas, including failing to ease restrictions on the right to strike by public employees and on the ability of workers to form industrial unions.