ITUC Calls KORUS a Job Killer
While our politicians have heralded the recently approved Korea-U.S. free trade agreement (KORUS) as a job creator, outside observers have been skeptical. Most studies of the pact say KORUS’ impact will be negative, and another major group has recently come out against it. The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), which represents over 175 million workers around the world has called the trade deal a “job killer.”
ITUC is concerned that the deal will negatively impact workers while helping line the pockets of the big corporations who employ them.
“This agreement will have devastating consequences for thousands of families at a time when governments should be focused on creating jobs, not undermining decent work and driving living standards down. It does not provide adequate mechanisms to protect people’s rights at work, it will fuel even more financial speculation, and the dispute-settlement procedures which override national law are effectively anti-democratic,” said ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow.
The group believes that the numbers put together by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce about job creation from the deal are fictitious and misleading. They instead cite findings made by the independent Economic Policy Institute (EPI) that say the deal would cost the U.S. over 159,000 jobs, along with the fact that the U.S. International Trade commission failed to find a positive economic impact from the deal.
KORUS follows in the footsteps of NAFTA in that it is good for large corporations, but bad for workers. The U.S. has lost almost 700,000 jobs as a result of NAFTA according to an EPI study released earlier this year. Large corporations have been able to move their operations to Mexico in search of cheaper labor, leaving Americans scrambling for whatever jobs are left.
While KORUS is not expected to destroy as many jobs as NAFTA, it does have additional provisions that impede the ability of the United States to control sectors like banking. It is hard enough to get meaningful reforms passed through the partisan gridlock in Washington; it becomes even harder when those reforms are opposed by international business interests.
With the seemingly overwhelming opposition to KORUS from any group not affiliated with big business, the only possible explanation for why KORUS was passed is that our politicians work for big business. We need to hold those politicians accountable and demand that they work in the best interest of workers instead.
Source : http://economyincrisis.org
