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‘What’s Going to Happen to Our Communities if We Do Nothing About Unfair China Trade?’ |
Why is the AFL-CIO’s petition calling on the Bush administration to immediately take action to halt the exploitation of workers in China by the Chinese government and multinational corporations so important?
Because of people like George Bornes and Jing-hua Lu. The two workers told their stories at a June 8 press conference in Washington, D.C., as the AFL-CIO—with bipartisan congressional support—announced it has filed a petition with the U.S. Trade Representative calling for sanctions and other measures if the Chinese government continues its failure to protect workers’ rights.
Bornes, a 38-year-veteran at the Wheatland Tube Co. in Sharon, Pa., has watched as 300 of his 400 co-workers have been laid off in the past year because the plant cannot compete with the low-wage products from China. Wheatland Tube is one of the largest pipe and tube producers in the nation and its Sharon plant has some of the newest and most productive mill equipment in the world, an investment worth some $200 million. “The pipe we finish at Sharon is hydro tested with a $1 million investment to assure when our pipe transmits natural gas under pressure, it will do so safely,” Bornes says. “I can’t say that Chinese pipe meets these standards.”
Yet the Sharon plant has stood mostly idle since President Bush last year rejected a recommendation from the U.S. International Trade Commission to place a tariff on surging Chinese pipe imports. The plant in Sharon pays $700 a ton just for the raw materials—zinc and steel. But China is able to ship the completed pipe into the United States for $550 a ton.
The impact of the layoffs has devastated the town of Sharon and Mercer County, says Bornes, who also is president of USW International Union Local 1016. Wheatland Tube is the largest employer in the county. Wheatland workers and the company paid more than $1 million in taxes each year. “What’s going to happen to our public schools and community if we sit back and do nothing about unfair China trade?” he asks.
“We’re the most modernized plant and we can’t compete with China,” Bornes says. “Our only hope is for the government to get off its butt and do something. They’re cutting our throats and the government is sitting back doing nothing. I don’t understand it.”
The AFL-CIO petition says wages in China are up to 60 percent below that government’s own minimum wage standards and up to 85 percent below what workers would make if China honored the fundamental workers’ rights set forth in international trade law. Average Chinese workers are paid as little as 15-50 cents an hour. The low wages and exploitation of workers in China constitute an unfair trade practice because they reduce the cost of Chinese goods to the point that U.S. manufacturers cannot compete, the petition says.
The petition concludes that the brutal suppression of workers’ rights by the Chinese government and corporations in China is lowering global standards and has contributed to the loss of an estimated 930,000 manufacturing jobs and 1.2 million total jobs in the United States.
Jing-hua Lu, a former factory worker in China and a forceful advocate for international workers’ rights, says it’s imperative the U.S. government take action against China’s unfair trade practices now.
“The U.S. administration should take this petition seriously,” Lu says. “Chinese workers need to be able to exercise their right of freedom of association. It is a basic right and a basic answer to the dilemma of Chinese workers and the flight of jobs to China to exploit low wages.”
Lu, who fled China after being labeled one of the country’s most wanted criminals for her role in the protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989, says as companies move their operations to China chasing cheap labor costs and repression of basic rights, Chinese workers are paying a high price. They contend every day with ethical and environmental violations, depressed wages and the highest illness and injury rate in the world, she says.
Zhu Xia, a female worker in a garment factory near the Yangtze River who makes about $120 a month, provides an example, Lu says. Last April, Zhu Xia lost her hearing after she was severely beaten by her Japanese manager for leaving work a few minutes early.
GanHong Ying, 35, suddenly died May 30 after working 54 hours in four days. “Her dying words were ‘my hope is that I can sleep well for one night,’” Lu says.
The AFL-CIO petition demands that the president use his authority under U.S. law to impose temporary sanctions against Chinese imports until that government complies with internationally recognized workers’ rights protections, including the freedom to form a union and bargain collectively. At the same time, the petition says, the president must implement a system for verifying that the Chinese government and global corporations are improving their compliance with workers’ rights.
The petition was filed June 8 and co-signed by Reps. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.), ranking member of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade, and Christopher Smith (R-N.J.).
Take action: Urge Congress and President Bush to protect Chinese workers’ rights and U.S. jobs by clicking here.
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