GOP May Have to Swallow Tough Labor Terms for Trade Deals

As the Bush administration this week pursues a breakthrough with Democratic leaders aimed at gaining congressional approval for new trade agreements, the fate of the deals appears to hinge on whether Republicans are willing to accept tough labor conditions that they assert could boost the power of unions in the United States.

The Bush administration needs congressional blessings for recent trade deals with Peru, Colombia and Panama, as well as another pact still being hammered out with South Korea. The administration is also seeking the extension of the president's fast-track authority -- the right to negotiate trade deals, then submit them to Congress for a simple up-or-down vote without amendments. That power expires at the end of June.

Democrats assert that recent pacts such as the Central American Free Trade Agreement have encouraged the shift of factory work to poor countries where labor is cheap because laborers are exploited. These agreements have mandated only that American Trade partners enforce their own laws, even if those laws are weak. House leaders have demanded that new deals include the core principles of the International Labor Organization, a U.N. body in Switzerland that seeks to improve the lot of workers.

The group's principles prohibit forced and child labor, while requiring that workers be allowed to form unions. Some Republicans and business groups have argued that unions could use the standards as a way to increase their power in the United States, wielding the force of international treaty to mandate changes in American law.

Several American states allow managers to replace striking workers, while right-to-work states bar the exclusion of workers who are not members of unions, both potential conflicts with the ILO principles, scholars say. Many American states also contract out prison labor, which could run afoul of the ILO's prohibition on forced labor, said Republican congressional aides.

Though the United States is a member of the ILO, it has ratified only two of the eight conventions aimed at furthering the organization's principles -- one on forced labor, the other on child labor. The United States has not signed off on a convention barring compulsory labor, because some American prisoners are compelled to work, nor has it signed those delineating worker rights to bargain collectively and organize unions.

Republicans who are worried about the ILO issue note that any treaty language ratified by Congress becomes binding American law. They fear other countries would bring trade complaints against the United States asserting that the nation, in its treatment of workers, is not living up to the terms of its trade deals.

Were ILO principles to be inserted into trade agreements, "there's a possibility that our own laws could get questioned," said Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), during a House Ways and Means Committee hearing in January.

With Democrats running Congress and growing public disenchantment with globalization, the Bush administration has sought a compromise, cognizant that it otherwise risks watching its trade deals go down in defeat.

Early this month, the U.S. trade representative offered to rewrite the pending trade deals to include the ILO standards, making them subject to the same enforcement rules that apply to commercial disputes, but with a crucial exception: The standards would expressly not apply to the United States.

"The goal has always been to get other countries up to our standards," said Sean M. Spicer, a spokesman for the U.S. trade representative. "Free-trade agreements should be used to promote trade, and not be used as a back door to address concerns in American labor law."

House Democrats, led by Sander M. Levin of Michigan, who chairs a trade subcommittee, have long insisted that the ILO standards be written into trade deals without exception.