Nando Times
April 14, 2000
By Les Blumenthal, Nando Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- An estimated 10,000 union members clogged the corridors of Congress on Wednesday in a massive lobbying effort against a landmark trade agreement with China that they fear would cost U.S. workers hundreds of thousands of jobs.

"We changed the debate over the rules for the world and its economy when we took to the streets in Seattle," said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, referring to protests against the World Trade Organization late last year. "Today, we are turning the debate in new directions as we take to the suites and streets here in Washington."

Carrying signs declaring "Don't Give China a Blank Check" and "Free Traders Are Traitors," and to the bellowing of air horns from a handful of Teamsters big rigs, the union members rallied on the steps of the Capitol before heading for the congressional offices in droves.

"If China wants to be a citizen of the world, they must act like a citizen of the world," Teamsters President James Hoffa said, echoing other labor leaders who attacked the Chinese record on human rights, labor conditions, religious rights, Tibet and the environment.

The lobbying campaign was just another sign the battle over granting China permanent normal trading relations with the United States was heating up as Congress prepares to vote on the issue in late May.

The rally came at the midpoint of a week during which activists angry over a global economy they believe is running out of control were to take to the streets of Washington, D.C., in an effort to disrupt the spring meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. While organized labor shares the activists' concerns about globalization, the unions have focused their efforts on defeating the China trade pact.

In an agreement that could clear the way for China to join the WTO, the Chinese agreed last year to drop their tariffs and open their markets to a wide range of U.S. goods, from agriculture to high tech to automobiles. In exchange, President Clinton wants lawmakers to approve permanent normal trade relations for China, a status currently reviewed annually by Congress.

The White House has launched its own intense lobbying campaign, bolstered by support from the business community.

"It's going to come down to the wire," Commerce Secretary William Daley said Wednesday of the vote in the House. "It's going to be a very close vote. We don't have 218 votes and the opposition doesn't have 218 votes. It's very fluid."

The vote could be decided by roughly 12 to 15 Democratic lawmakers who are uncommitted but under intense pressure from labor, a core Democratic constituency, and business. The Senate is expected to narrowly approve permanent normal trade status for China.

The issue of China has deeply split Democrats, between free traders and those who feel union support will be crucial in this re-election year.

"It isn't a question of left or right," House Democratic Whip David Bonior of Michigan said during the rally. "It's a question of right or wrong."

Bonior and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, are the leading opponents of the China trade pact in the House.

At the rally, Pelosi said it was time for the United States to stop "kowtowing" to the Chinese and pointed out that major parts of Boeing airplanes are built in China.

"The president of Boeing says when they deliver a plane to China, it's like it is going home," Pelosi said. "This deal is a bad deal for the American economy."

The issue has also split Republicans, with some GOP members supporting the China trade deal and others denouncing the communist country for a host of reasons, including Beijing's repressive regime and Chinese spying in the United States.

One former Republican, Pat Buchanan, who is seeking the Reform Party's presidential nomination, spoke at an earlier rally sponsored by the Teamsters.

"If I were in the White House, Jimmy Hoffa would be in Beijing - not (U.S. Trade Representative) Charlene Barshefsky," Buchanan said. "I would tell (the Chinese) you've sold your last pair of chopsticks in the U.S."

Dozens of unions were represented at the rally and involved in the lobbying effort, including Teamsters, auto workers, iron workers, steel workers, electricians, teachers, government employees and textile workers.

Daley said the administration has known all along it was going to be a tough fight.

"I was concerned about the impact labor would have even without 10,000 people walking around the Hill," he said.