Labor Day? Let's be real. The last thing on our minds this weekend is labor rights. Whether we're fortunate enough to have a job or worrying about how to get one in today's economy, we'll focus more on this summer's last hurrah than on the Tuesday- morning-after travails.
The U.S. House of Representatives will likely vote before the end of this week on the U.S.-Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA). The House should reject the accord for falling short on workers' human rights because it does not require countries to protect women workers from discrimination or to have laws that meet international labor standards.
A presidential election is being held tomorrow in which one of the leading candidates stands accused of genocide. Efrain Rios Montt, a retired general, is seeking the presidency of Guatemala. In the early 1980s he headed a military regime that carried out hundreds of massacres of unarmed civilians and -- according to a U.N.-sponsored truth commission -- "acts of genocide."
This week the United States and Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua have been conducting the sixth of nine negotiating rounds for a U.S.-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). The United States has already proposed labor rights provisions for CAFTA similar to those in the U.S free trade agreements with Chile and Singapore. But those are the wrong models.
The Bush administration is quietly carrying on a major new trade negotiation with Central America that could show -- contrary to the notion that globalization hurts workers -- how international trade deals can increase respect for labor rights. But the Bush team must get the right formula into its briefing books.
President Clinton stunned Latin America recently by apologizing to the people of Guatemala for U.S. support for repressive military forces there during the Cold War. His forthright statement ended Washington's denial of U.S. complicity in Guatemalan atrocities.
Labor Day? Let's be real. The last thing on our minds this weekend is labor rights. Whether we're fortunate enough to have a job or worrying about how to get one in today's economy, we'll focus more on this summer's last hurrah than on the Tuesday- morning-after travails.
The U.S. House of Representatives will likely vote before the end of this week on the U.S.-Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA). The House should reject the accord for falling short on workers' human rights because it does not require countries to protect women workers from discrimination or to have laws that meet international labor standards.
A presidential election is being held tomorrow in which one of the leading candidates stands accused of genocide. Efrain Rios Montt, a retired general, is seeking the presidency of Guatemala. In the early 1980s he headed a military regime that carried out hundreds of massacres of unarmed civilians and -- according to a U.N.-sponsored truth commission -- "acts of genocide."
This week the United States and Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua have been conducting the sixth of nine negotiating rounds for a U.S.-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). The United States has already proposed labor rights provisions for CAFTA similar to those in the U.S free trade agreements with Chile and Singapore. But those are the wrong models.
The Bush administration is quietly carrying on a major new trade negotiation with Central America that could show -- contrary to the notion that globalization hurts workers -- how international trade deals can increase respect for labor rights. But the Bush team must get the right formula into its briefing books.
President Clinton stunned Latin America recently by apologizing to the people of Guatemala for U.S. support for repressive military forces there during the Cold War. His forthright statement ended Washington's denial of U.S. complicity in Guatemalan atrocities.