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MIKE PAPANTONIO: Welcome back to Ring of Fire. I'm Mike Papantonio. Labor Unions have been
excluded from every major trade agreement, and the lack of strong labor protection is
becoming more and more apparent. I have Attorneys Howard Nations and Mike Burg with me now to
talk about how labor unions could have prevented worker death and other atrocities all over
this globe. Howard, labor enforcement really does matter. We see it time and time again
with places like Bangladesh or China or Saipan. Tell us the Bangladesh story and then let's
explain how we are being made into a Bangladesh right here in the United States.
HOWARD NATIONS: Mike, the Bangladesh story is just outrageous. On April 24th of this
year in a Rana Plaza garment factory, there was a collapse of the eight-story building.
The interesting part of that and the outrageous part of that, is the day before the inspectors
had been in and the police had ordered the building to be closed because cracks were
showing in the building. The garment workers came back to work by – because they were
ordered to do so. They were there 1,129 were killed when the
building collapsed the following day, and 1,500 were injured. These were mostly young
women who were being paid $37.00 per month. It's the worst disaster in the history of
global e-commerce industry. It's a reminder, Mike, of what happened in the Triangle Shirtwaist
fire in March of 1911 in New York City. There were 146 deaths and 71 injuries there. As
a result of that, all sorts of legislation came out. And it's never happened again in
the last 102 years in this country. But the refusal to take any action to stop it in Bangladesh,
this is the third such incident in the last year. And this Rana Plaza is making garments
for more than one-dozen fashion brands, including Benetton, JC Penny and Wal-Mart.
PAPANTONIO: Yeah, Michael, let me go to you on this.You remember you and I did a story
a few years ago. I think it was a radio story where we talked about Tom DeLay going to Saipan.
He gets to Saipan. He sees that people are working for $1.00 a day; he sees they're working
18 hours a day; he sees they have no leave time; they have no health care. Tom DeLay,
senator from Texas, along with a whole handful of other Republican senators they come back
to the United States and they say, "This is the model that works, and this is the model
we want in the United States." Do you remember that playing itself out right here on our
cameras in the United States? MICHAEL BURG: I do, Mike. And you know what's
so horrible about it is they have actually put the plan in place. They're getting rid
of the labor unions who, quite frankly, protect our workers by making sure that they're safe.
They make sure the hours are done right. They make sure there's no child labor, making sure
they're enforcing it. They’ve also dismantled OSHA. The plan is is to have Taipei or Bangladesh
here in the United States, and having workers working for pennies, making sure that they're
working long hours and there is no protection. They want to impose that here, and we're gonna
have tragedies like this again in the United States, if Congress and the people of the
United States don't do something about it. PAPANTONIO: Well, you know Michael, we see
people hear stories like this, and they say, "Well, that's Bangladesh, that's China. The
stories that Howard were just what he was just telling, those are in other places."
And we don't seem to grasp that the people who have been outsourcing all these years
have figured out, "Why don't we just do that here?" And so it begins, obviously, with undermining
the public unions and then taking away the piece from the national unions. Howard, how
do we enforce how did the United States ever get to the point to where we enforce any type
of global labor rights when we almost just ignore the Wagner Act here in the United States?
It's almost as if we have lost sight of how the American unions built America's middle
class. We don't put much value in that. How do we ever enforce internationally?
NATIONS: Well, you're absolutely right. For example, after the Bangladesh incident, our
international enforcement was to reward Bangladesh and make them the second largest garment manufacturing
country in the world; 160 million people, 4 million of them are in the garment business.
And they have 40 building inspectors over there. They have no rights, virtual slave
labor. Now, in order to try to do something about
it, there is a movement for corporate accountability. There are four different aspects of it. After
the Rana Plaza collapse, there was a great outcry. So there was the things that will
bring about change are the Global Labor movements. The domestic labor movement is in trouble,
big trouble, because it's under attack by the Republican Party. But there's a global
labor movement; there's Anti-Sweatshop activists and there is a labor-affiliated advocacy group
called Workers' Rights Consortium. Now, they passed an earlier this year, they passed an
accord on building in five places in Bangladesh. And in that accord it's a legal contract the
big retailers and the producers are responsible for a factory's safety. And they’ve agreed
to invest millions of dollars in safety and to give long-term contracts to the owners
of the garment factories. It's backed up by independent safety inspections, and those
safety inspections are made public. There's binding arbitration, and they terminate business
of a factory if it's found to be unsafe. PAPANTONIO: Yeah, Michael, let me go to you
on this. The truth is you can have all the volunteers you want, but unless you have a
government to government dialog, a narrative government to government, and the government
says, "Listen, we're giving you some favored nations' carrot. We're telling you, Bangladesh
–" as Howard was just talking about – "We're telling you that we're gonna put you on a
list of favored nations that we're gonna deal with.
"We're gonna have corporations basically outsourcing, taking American jobs away from America and
sending them to Bangladesh. And we're also gonna give you tariff breaks in the process."
Now, without labor, without organized labor there to control wages, to control hours,
to control safety, to control wages, where does that really go?
BURG: It doesn't go anywhere. We have the Fair Labor Association. They're trying to
do it on a voluntary basis. It's not working. And it's not only Republicans. Clinton with
NAFTA over the objections of the Democrats, they got NAFTA through, and this is where
it all began. It began when the Clinton administration and which they were trying to figure out how
we're going to have lower costs for our products. And by going overseas and creating these sweatshops,
we do have lower costs at the Wal-Marts, at the JC Penny. But at what cost?
PAPANTONIO: Yes. BURG: The cost of lives.
PAPANTONIO: Michael, right on your topic there, you know you see we came away from the Clinton
years thinking, "Oh, what a hero this man is for the working man. And we missed the
whole a lot of people missed it. The media intentionally missed it. You had mainstream
media intentionally miss the fact that what Clinton knew he was being told directly, "If
you do this, if you open these trade agreements on NAFTA and CAFTA without any type of labor
responsibility on the other end, the United States can never compete with this outsourcing."
And we're going to have exactly these things that labor was telling us was gonna happen
in places like Bangladesh, in China, India, all parts of the world where you have these
huge clothing manufacturers that really don't give a damn. They have their PR machine saying,
"Oh, yes, we really care about how workers are treated." The history doesn't show that,
does it, Michael? BURG: It does not. In fact, in 2012, there
was a fine in a garment factor in Pakistan. Three hundred people were killed. Again, no
one even talked about it. And the problem we have is people say, "We want to compete
with the world labor market," and here in the United States, we're starting to see again
these kinds of problems, because the unions are not there, the people are not unionized
and OSHA has been basically stripped of any power. And, right now, we have problems here
in the United States exactly the same. And we're gonna have tragedies like occurred in
Bangladesh right here. PAPANTONIO: Howard, let me go to you on this.
You know, again, somebody watching this broadcast may say, "You know what, this doesn't really
affect me because it's over in Pakistan, it's over you know, Bangladesh. It's only these
bleeding-heart liberals that care that 1,500 women burned to death because there's no labor
standards there. It doesn't really affect me. And I get to buy my sheets for less money;
I get to buy my T-shirts for less money." But what they miss, Howard, and I'd like you
to talk about it just a little bit. Don't they miss that fact that in NAFTA and CAFTA,
by definition they defined health, safety and welfare in labor issues as obstacles to
free trade, and now, we see that same language coming over here across the ocean to the United
States, where we're seeing that same language as the health, safety and welfare of the workers
is simply an obstacle? Aren't we seeing that more and more in the United States?
NATIONS: You're seeing that here. And the lessons from Bangladesh and China are the
lessons that we should be applying to Wisconsin. Because as the labor movement in these United
States is under direct assault, and it's under assault and not getting the support from the
Democrats, under assault from the Republicans, it's in real jeopardy. And what is happening
in Bangladesh can happen here if you do not have politicians who are willing to back labor,
politicians who are willing to take substantial risk of their own in backing labor unions
and in shoring up labor unions. We have to have the labor unions, and the assault on
labor unions in this country is going to have absolutely devastating effects in our factories
and across the board, even in our schools with our teachers. It's absolutely outrageous
what's happening to the labor unions in this country. And it's gonna take brave politicians
and it's gonna take a movement from the American public to back labor.
PAPANTONIO: Right. Michael, let me go to you really quickly in about a minute. I remember
a few years ago you talking to me about how pleased you were about the college movement
in the United States actually doing more than our government where it comes to enforcing
labor laws. Tell us really quickly what they did with the Worker Right Consortium, where
they said, "You can't come on our campus unless you comply?"
BURG: Absolutely. It's been an amazing and we need that kinda ground swell, which is
basically, "We're not gonna allow those products into the university. You can't come on campus.
You can't interview, unless you enforce safety laws and make sure the people are getting
fair wages. We need that kinda ground swell from the American people. If we don't get
it, labor unions are in trouble. And we're gonna have our grandchildren working for pennies
on the dollar and in unsafe work conditions. PAPANTONIO: Yeah, in the situation, I remember
you recalled that you talked about one time was Russell thought that they could elbow
their way through and ignore labor law. And college campuses said, "Well, you can do that
if you want, but you will not sell your damn products on our campus." And Russell backed
down. Guys, this is another important story. Y'all covered it very well. Thank you for
joining me. We'll continue talking about it because this year it'll become more and more
important. NATIONS: Thank you, Mike.
BURG: Thank you.