IAM Petition on China
IAM Petition on China's Denial of Workers' Rights
The AFL-CIO and the 14 unions in the Industrial Union Council, including the IAM, filed a historic peittion with the U.S. Trade Representative March 16, 2004, documenting how China''s systematic repression of workers'' rights gives that country an unfair trade advantage and costs some 727,000 U.S. jobs. The petition called on the Bush administration to take immeidate action to impose trade remedies against China and negotiate a binding agreement to reduce the trade remedies if China enforces workers'' rights.
The petition was filed under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows the government to act against countries that engage in unfair trade practices against the United States. Although the regulation has been used extensively to protect corporate interests, this is the first time Section 301 has been invoked to protest a nation''s labor practices.
China prevents workers from joining unions and bargaining collectively, denies its citizens safe working conditions, provides no minimum wage and uses forced labor. As a result, Chinese workers'' wages are between 47 percent and 86 percent lower than they should be, which in turn reduces the price of Chinese manufactured goods by 11 percent to 44 percent. If China did not violate workers'' rights, the price of Chinese manufactured goods would increase by 12 percent to 77 percent, according to the petition.
This unfair advantage has created a U.S. trade deficit with China of more than $124 billion last year, the largest deficit with one country in U.S. history. The U.S. monthly trade deficit in March 2004 stood at a record $46 billion, one quarter of it -- $10.4 billion -- with China. The trade deficit affects the nation''s jobs: America''s workers lose jobs as companies move overseas and products that once were made in the United States are imported here. More than 2.7 million U.S. manufacturing jobs have been lost since George W. Bush took office in January 2001.
The Bush administration rejected the AFL-CIO''s petition April 28, 2004. The federation accepted an invitation May 12 from China''s Vice Premier Wu Yi to travel to China to investigate Chinese working conditions. In a letter to Wu, the AFL-CIO asked that the union delegation be given the same freedom to travel throughout the country as Chinese delegations are given in the United States.
More
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Read the full text of the AFL-CIO and IUC petition.
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Read the full text of the AFL-CIO and IUC petition in Spanish.
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Executive summary of the AFL-CIO Section 301 petition.
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Key elements of the AFL-CIO Section 301 petition.
