Global Policy Forum

The Lawyers Committee for Human Rights urged U.S. officials to ensure that basic workers rights protection were included in a soon-to-be-negotiated Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) at a hearing today in the office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

Negotiators from the United States, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua are scheduled to begin formal negotiations in early 2003 on a new agreement which is intended to lower trade barriers on goods and services.

In testimony delivered at the hearing, the Lawyers Committee pointed out that there was ample evidence of labor rights abuses suffered by workers in all of the Central American countries expected to be included in CAFTA. LCHR urged the U.S. Trade Representative to consider how CAFTA – depending on how it is drafted – might encourage, or discourage, this pattern of abuse.

"For workers in Central America CAFTA is like a sharp two-edged sword," said Maddi Azpiroz, a spokesperson with the Lawyers Committee, who testified at the hearing. "Negotiators could use it as a powerful weapon to combat the sort of rights abuses that are all too common in Central America. But if in drafting the agreement labor rights are shunted off into a side agreement – or forgotten entirely – CAFTA will almost certainly worsen what is already a desperate situation for many."

The Lawyers Committee called on the U.S Trade Representative to conduct a country by country assessment of labor rights in each country that is expected to be included in the agreement. In El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua – especially in the Maquilas – there are severe restrictions on freedom of association, and abuses are commonplace including child labor, unpaid and excessive overtime work, wages below the minimum legal requirements and woefully inadequate safety standards. In Costa Rica, there is a persistent problem with child labor on banana plantations.

But Azpiroz said at the hearing that the Lawyers Committee was "particularly concerned" about the labor rights situation in Guatemala where workers seeking to organize have been repeatedly attacked. "These negotiations present a clear opportunity for the administration to put its rhetoric about supporting international labor rights standards and human rights into practice," she added.

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