Sweatshops supply Wal-Mart, Target, others

A leading US labor coalition and an industry group have filed a complaint with the US Trade Representative asking that it formally sanction the government of Jordan for "gross workers' rights violations" under a controversial free trade agreement with the United States and Israel. Jordan, a small country of 5.7 million people that signed a free trade agreement with Washington in 2000, has not disputed the existence of widespread labor abuses, particularly against foreign workers in the country, but says it is taking steps to correct the situation. Washington says it is raising the issue with the Jordanians. The case by the AFL-CIO, the largest trade union confederation in the United States, and the National Textile Association (NTA) marks the first time a business association has formally joined in seeking a workers' rights complaint under a trade agreement. The two organisations say they want the Bush administration to activate dispute settlement proceedings under the US-Jordan Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that would halt the workers' rights violations occurring in Jordan. Karl Spilhaus, president of NTA, the oldest industrial trade association in the US, spoke of "egregious abuses reported in Jordan–100-hour workweeks, unsafe working conditions, and unpaid wages." "The main thing we're asking is for the administration to take a look at what's going on in Jordan in terms of workers rights' violations and then address those violations in a meaningful way–which they haven't done," said Steve Smith, a media officer with the AFL-CIO. "That's the crux of the complaint. Workers rights protections were built into this Jordan FTA and they are not being enforced." The groups say they are particularly irked by violations in the Qualified Industrial Zones (QIZs), which are part of the FTA. The QIZs program, launched by Washington in 1998 as an economic dividend for Jordan's peace agreement with Israel, gives products from the zones duty- and quota-free access to the US market as long as the Arab nation sources at least eight percent of their content from an Israeli manufacturer. In May, the New York-based National Labor Committee said that the FTA has descended into human trafficking and "involuntary servitude." It charged that major US companies, including Wal-Mart, Gloria Vanderbilt, Target, Kohl's, Victoria's Secret and L.L.. Bean, were buying apparel from sweatshops in Jordan under a three-way QIZs deal. Washington says such trade deals are one step towards integrating Israel into the Arab world and are essential for the envisaged Middle East Free Trade Area by 2013 to include all countries of the region, an undertaking that could open markets of almost 350 million people and with a $70 billion trading relationship with the United States for US corporations. The Bush and Clinton administrations' march to sign trade agreements with countries with low labor standards have sparked fears among trade unions in the United States which say such FTAs are a race to the bottom where US workers cannot compete with cheap labor and poor regulations. Despite widespread complaints by local workers in the Middle East, the United States now has five free trade agreements in the region–with Israel, Jordan, Morocco, Oman and Bahrain. "Without stronger protections for workers, free trade deals can end up being a sham and a betrayal. The worst employers are rewarded with market access and higher profits, while national development goals are neglected," said John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO. The joint AFL-CIO and NTA complaint charges that Jordan, whose regime is a key ally in Washington's "war on terror," has failed to meet its obligations under the Jordan FTA's labor chapter, both because its labor laws do not meet international standards and because the government has failed to effectively enforce its laws. These factors together, the complaint states, contributed to shocking abuses of workers' rights, especially in the QIZs, revealed in reports by the AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center.