Elizabeth Warren Fires Back at Obama with New Report On Failed Trade Enforcement

[kpete]

LABOR
Elizabeth Warren Fires Back at Obama with New Report On Failed Trade Enforcement
There's been a dismal record on enforcing labor standards.
By Zaid Jilani / AlterNet May 20, 2015



One way supporters of the Trans-Pacific Partnership have defended the agreement is to boast that it features supposedly strong labor and environmental standards. The White House has called it the “most progressive trade agreement in history.”

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) this week put out a new report pointing out that even in the trade agreements we currently have, the Obama administration and previous administrations have failed to enforce these labor standards. Here are two of the highlights:

* Failed Enforcement Of Child Labor Laws: Warren notes that Colombia, which we signed a free trade agreement with during the first Obama term, continues to produce at least eight products, such as coffee and sugarcane, with child or forced labor. The report shows that ten different countries we have free trade agreements with have been identified by the Department of Labor as continuing to utilizing child labor.

* Violence Against Labor Unions: One of the biggest complaints fair trade advocates have about our trade agreements is that they fail to protect the rights of workers to organize. The Warren report looks at violence against labor union organizers in several countries we currently have free trade agreements with. She notes that despite the fact that the United States put together a Labor Action Plan with Colombia alongside the trade agreement, 105 unionists in that country have been murdered there over the previous four years.

Read the full report here.http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/WarrenReport.pdf

[Wilms]

1. ^

[tridim]

2. Her goalposts move about a thousand miles every single day

So much so that her point gets completely lost.

Thanks for your concern Senator, but no thanks. It's nothing more than Obama bashing at this point. It's very disappointing.

The President is trying to solve the issues you point out, but you don't want him to even try.

[brentspeak]

3. Yeah, he's doing such a great job of "solving the issues"

by not actually enforcing the labor standards his office was tasked to enforce.

[Rex]

4. Rot ROH! nt

nt