The FTAA Round Back in Colombia

Carlos Rodríguez Díaz
President of the Central Union of Workers

The Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA), in our opinion, is more than just a single trade agreement, since it incorporates a range of mechanisms that, as a whole, take away rights from governments and give them to foreign companies in the areas of investments, non-discrimination, intellectual property rights, market access, public biddings, and flexibility of services.

In this sense, the FTAA guarantees the transformation of privileges into rights for the transnational companies, which would be guaranteed on the part of legislative instruments. This turns the FTAA into the law of the Republic, giving it a greater legal hierarchy than all secondary legislation of the Andean countries.

If we use what has happened in other countries as a reference point for bilateral agreements, the enormous negative impacts on agriculture and the environment generated by these treaties become evident, bringing disjointed production and the deterioration of labor conditions.

The FTAA negotiates without any real participation by society and responds to a cross-sectional logic that privileges profit over human rights and sustainability. It constitutes an instrument proven in its capacity to facilitate the accumulation of capital.

We advocated for a block negotiation. The Andean Community of Nations must define itself based on an oriented integration extending the internal market and promoting industrialization, which implies fortifying the Andean pact and initiating a negotiation with MERCOSUR as soon as possible, for a more continental approach.

On the subject of labor, one chapter is there, which could be called an agreement of good intentions, since it resorts to will and greater efforts for fulfilling legislation that is already internationally flexible and of a labor disposition. The obligatory declaration of the United States does not meet this fulfillment.

The focus of the agreement is more on enforcing cooperation and capacity between the countries in order to support and maintain laws than it is on providing labor standards for each of the countries.

In another section, sanctions for labor violations are not even mentioned, but instead an extremely convoluted mechanism is introduced for dealing with conflicts.

The document repeatedly refers to the reclamations or consultations made by 'the parties', without indicating who these parties actually are. But what is clearly evident is that the reclamations are not in response to violations raised by union organizations, but for violations that are against the tenets of free trade, artificially separating the actions of trade from labor relations.

The reality is that the FTAA wants national legislation to be completely dismantled, or at least in the process of being dismantled, and whereby the rights of workers are no longer protected in a bid for finding the most profitable conditions for the investments of megacorporations.

Given this, we urgently call for an evaluation of the impact of the FTAA, for the sake of anticipating the possible winners and losers, and then fully compensating the sectors negatively affected by the FTAA.

The social effects should be quantified, to the extent that the issues of most concern for Colombians are considered: such as, the right to health in relation to intellectual property rights and patents as opposed to generic medicines and access to the health system. The agricultural sector, the subsidies and food security, deserve a judicious analysis, just as do the right to education, public services and the financial effects of the FTAA by virtue of the loss of income from the State in favor of lowering tariffs.

For these reasons we invite the workers and the whole of Colombian society to participate in a national mobilization on February 10th against the effects of the FTAA, in a fight that will focus on Cartagena and Bogotá.