Ruling on First CAFTA Labor Complaint Demonstrates Weakness

[Omaha Steve]

http://usleap.org/ruling-first-cafta-labor-complaint-demonstrates-weakness

January 25, 2009

Just days before George W. Bush left office, his Department of Labor ruled on the first worker rights complaint filed under the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). The ruling by the Department's Office of Trade and Labor Affairs (OTLA) provides further evidence of the ineffectiveness of CAFTA's worker rights protections.

On the one hand, the January 16, 2009 report is fairly critical of the Guatemalan government, finding that the Ministry of Labor lacks authority to sanction labor law violations, that the Ministry is unable to effectively carry out labor inspections, and that court orders are not complied with. It then states that the Guatemalan government has taken some "critical initial steps," but reports only that the Guatemalan government has cooperated with OTLA and has reconvened a committee on labor issues.

On the basis of these "steps," OTLA said it would not ask for formal consultations with the Guatemalan government, the next phase of escalation under the CAFTA process, but will review the matter again in six months.

The worker rights CAFTA complaint was filed by the AFL-CIO and six Guatemalan trade unions in April 2008. In June 2008, the complaint was accepted by OTLA, whose investigation included two trips to Guatemala.

The complaint focuses on five case studies of worker rights violations and highlights a sharp upsurge in violence against Guatemalan trade unionists, with at least nine trade union-related murders in the past two years. Arrests have been made in two cases, but in neither case is the intellectual author under custody and in one case it is not clear that the real shooter has been arrested.

In the pre-CAFTA era, when violence against trade unionists in Guatemala flared in 1999, the U.S. government threatened to suspend U.S. trade benefits. Now, under CAFTA, in the face of a rash of murders, the U.S. government lacks any effective sanction ability.

In response to the closely-watched first labor complaint under CAFTA, the Guatemalan government has failed to take any significant steps while the Bush Administration failed to call for consultations.

[FreakinDJ]

1. nine trade union-related murders in the past two years

sounds fair to Bush