Colombia too far behind on labor and human rights: US union http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/interviews/8776-labor-laws-and-human-rights-condition-main-reasons-for-colombia-us-fta-holdup.html

According to Jeff Vogt, Global Economic Policy Specialist of the AFL-CIO, Colombia has yet to bring its labor code up to international standards in order to protect the rights of workers.In a conversation with Colombia Reports, Vogt explained that “the lack of respect for fundamental worker rights in Colombia is manifested in the amount of violence against trade unionists and impunity towards those that afflict the violence.”

What the Colombian labor code lacks, Vogt explained, are protections for workers to “freely associate, to strike, and to use cooperatives” to protect their fundamental human rights as workers.“Colombian laws are simply not aligned with international (labor) laws, and several international organizations have made similar complaints against the Colombian labor code.”Economically speaking, Vogt argued that the passage of the FTA would have little, if any, effect on GDP.

On the U.S. side, Vogt explained that each FTA must be accompanied by a study from the International Trade Commission, a federal agency that provides trade policy advice to the government, in order to analyze the impacts of a potential FTA agreement.Normally, Vogt noted, the Commission makes extremely inflated projections. “If you look at past projects and what they predicted, you will see that they usually never materialize.”In the Trade Commission’s study on the Colombian FTA, Vogt explained that they are “only predicting a 0.05% increase in US gross domestic product, and almost no job creation. 

“As far as having this being a silver bullet as to our job crisis, its obviously not.” On the other side, the FTA could be detrimental to a lot of industries in Colombia, Vogt argued. Flooding the Colombian market with duty-free US agricultural products could put a lot of rural Colombians out of work, as they would not be able to compete with the heavily subsidized and powerful American agricultural industry. “In some regions, this could force some people into the drug trade,” as it would be the only crop they would be able to grow for a profit.