aljazeera.com: Pacific trade opponents urge skepticism on labor promises

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/5/26/trade-opponents-urge-skepticism-on-labor-promises.html

Critics of the TPP say trade pacts have a poor record of improving working conditions around the world

May 26, 2015 5:00AM ET
by Naureen Khan @naureenindc

In August of last year, Edith Santos, a Colombian trade union leader in the petroleum industry, was working in her office in the municipality of Acacias, Meta state, when she was shot twice in the chest by gunmen on a motorbike, according to local news reports.

The union Santos led believes that she was assassinated because of her affiliation with a labor organization—an all too common occurrence in Colombia, according to Escuela Nacional Sindical, Colombia’s National Union School. In a report released this April, ENS estimates that since Colombia entered into a free trade agreement with the United States in 2012, including specific labor provisions intended to improve safety and conditions for workers, there have been 105 union activists assassinated as well as 1,933 acts of violence and 1,337 death threats against workers.

Critics of President Obama’s push for the Trans-Pacific Partnership said that the poor record of free trade agreements when it comes to effectively raising labor standards among the United States’ trading partners is another reason to be skeptical of the president’s latest assurances that the TPP will be the “most progressive trade deal in history.” And it’s the latest line of attack that opponents of the 12-country trade agreement have lobbed against Obama’s free trade agenda.

Democratic and Republican administrations pushing trade deals have long argued that free trade gives the United States leverage to improve conditions for workers around the world, which in turn helps American workers compete. Obama has made a similar claim in lobbying for the TPP.

FULL story at link.