By Mark Gruenberg
PAI Staff Writer

WASHINGTON (PAI) - Pursuing his determination to create free trade pacts without worker rights, President George W. Bush on Jan. 30 asked the Democratic-run 110th Congress to renew his "fast-track" Trade Promotion Authority (TPA). He got a cautious reaction from Congress and outspoken opposition from union leaders.

TPA, which expires June 30, would let Bush bargain trade pacts and then subject legislation implementing them to up-or-down votes in both houses of Congress, with no amendments. That lets Bush bar labor standards from the pacts and the legislation.

Fast track will be one of the major fights between Bush and Congress this year.

Bush and his predecessors used TPA to push through the job-losing trade treaty NAFTA, along with Chinese accession to the World Trade Organization and - most recently - CAFTA through Congress. He has sent proposed trade pacts with Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and South Korea to Congress. All lack labor rights.

Bush's fast track renewal demand drew a response from committee leaders who will handle fast track that is sure to disappoint organized labor. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) called fast track "vital to U.S. trade," then added that renewing it "is a legitimate opportunity to address Americans' legitimate concerns on trade."

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.). Rangel called fast track "a valuable tool" but warned "it requires a great deal of trust," which has been lacking between Congress and the White House. However, there were numerous other lawmakers elected to Congress last November who strongly question the benefits of free trade agreements.

AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney and Teamsters President James Hoffa blasted Bush. Hoffa said Bush's fast track proposals "showed workers everywhere that he remains out of touch with their reality."

"Bush highlighted Caterpillar" - the president made his demand at a Cat plant in Illinois - "as reaping the benefits of U.S. trade policies. But for a majority of Americans, jobs have been destroyed, wages and benefits are stagnant, and communities have been stressed and terribly impacted," Hoffa said. He called Bush "blind to this reality."

Sweeney said Bush's fast track proposal shows he "isn't listening to the real or serious concerns" of the country on trade, and ignoring the message of the November election.

"Extending fast track would hamstring Congress' ability to fix our broken trade policy at a time when working families are in dire need of a correction in course," Sweeney said. "Misguided trade policies exacerbated stagnant wages and growing insecurity. We have lost more than 3 million manufacturing jobs since 2001, many to offshore outsourcing, while an increasing number of white-collar service-sector jobs are also at risk," he stated.

Added Hoffa: "Fast track has proven to be nothing more than a mechanism to rush through a patchwork of bad, rubber-stamped free-trade agreements to fill the pockets of multinational companies with the profits made by taking advantage of cheap and exploitable labor."