Another bad backroom deal

FREEDOM will find a way. Mission accomplished! No child left behind.

President Bush certainly has a way with political rhetoric: compelling, empty and misleading.

We've all been witness to the administration's half-truths. Now, it's the same old song and dance with the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS-FTA) talks that are taking place in Seattle this week. While the Bush administration boisterously makes claims about the wonders of free-trade agreements, the real story behind the rhetoric is: undemocratic, unfair and unconscionable.

The Bush administration is making another backroom trade deal, and bulldozing through the process. Workers, the environmental community and the public have been shut out of the dialogue. It's undemocratic and it's anti-freedom. This process is so undemocratic that notes from the meetings won't even be released until at least 2009.

In a rapidly changing world where manufacturing jobs move from one country to another and trade regulations increasingly favor business at everyone else's expense, it is time for us to question the undemocratic process by which the agreements are approved.

These trade agreements override existing law in the countries that agree to them. One example of the catastrophic repercussions of shutting out input from concerned groups is what could happen to South Korea's automobile policies if the KORUS-FTA is ratified.

South Korea currently has a policy of building smaller cars to improve fuel efficiency and air quality. By entering into a free-trade agreement with the U.S., South Korea has two options. It can either abolish this smaller-cars law or get sued. The agreement effectively overrides any input from local communities.

Since the WTO protests in 1999, business and government officials do everything they can to stifle dissent. That's why these meetings were not even announced until August.

However, despite the efforts to lock workers and the public out of the process, thousands of protesters are in Seattle to protest these backroom dealings.

The promise and beauty of democracy are that everyone comes to the table with their concerns, and solutions arise to address the needs of the common good. Instead, the KORUS-FTA talks in Seattle will be a dialogue focused solely on the interest of business.

The biggest effect for America is that free-trade agreements send our jobs overseas. Since 1998, the U.S. has exported more than 3 million manufacturing jobs overseas and average wages have not kept pace with inflation despite healthy productivity growth. Can you say "jobless recovery"?

And if we thought worker protections were weak in America before, consider the fact that labor laws are much weaker in South Korea. By shutting out the workers in these discussions, it is too easy for businesses to outsource jobs to countries with weaker labor laws. To remain competitive, we will lose the quality of our jobs here in the United States. The very nature of these agreements will make United States labor law look more like South Korean labor law.

Agreements based on such law put working families here and abroad in a race to the bottom. Gigantic multinational corporations and corporate CEOs are the big winners, enabling them to increase their own bonuses, pat themselves on the back and pay all workers less. Truly a shame!

President Bush, before declaring "mission accomplished" on KORUS-FTA, think about who needs help in this world. Is it the largest corporations making the largest profits the world has ever seen? Or is it our working families who have a harder time getting by each year?

Dave Freiboth is executive secretary treasurer of the King County Labor Council, AFL-CIO. Oh Young Peak is the leader of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions delegation to Seattle this week.