"Looking over the whole debate on Gene Sperling's book, what's striking is that advocates for trade deals accuse critics of being against "free trade"-- yet the deals they advocate are all about accepting child slavery and denial of freedom by workers to form unions as acceptable parts of the global economy."
 
Even if true for argument's sake, what does this have to do with trade?

  "It the critics of these deals -- who support trade but demand that basic standards of freedom for workers be incorporated into the trade regime -- who truly support "free trade."  It is actually Orwellian that advocates for unrestricted trade with China-- where workers are thrown in prison if they advocate unionization -- can appropriate the use of the term "freedom" for their position."


If anything orwellian is going on it's your reroute of the definition of free trade, which is about the free exchange of good, services, labor and capital without tariffs, quotas or subsidies for favored industries into something that by it's very nature, however admirable, is not about those things but about labor regulation.

"What exactly is wrong with demanding that if China wants to sell goods to the US, they must extend accepted ILO labor rights, such as the freedom to form a union, to their workers?"

For some, it is the belief that one unique soverign state dictating to another state how to govern to their specific preference in order to just conduct trade is beyond their scope of legitimacy. For others, it's the belief that one state can better influence the practices (in this case related to labor) of another state once an agreement has already been reached.


"A special 2002 Amnesty International report entitled Labour unrest and the suppression of the rights to freedom of association and expression laid out in detail many of the abuses that suppress wages for Chinese workers and means trade with that country supports anything but freedom:"

It supports the freedom of companies in that country to do business freely with any other country.


"The neoliberals sign on to a range of global policies that give freedom to financial capitalists to operate unhindered around the world, yet fiercely resist any demands that the freedom of workers be given equal consideration in the international trade regime."
 
That's because 'free trade' is something that occurs between states, issues of labor are relegated to individual soverign states.  

 
"Yes, we oppose legitimating child slavery and suppression of workers free speech under the Orwellian rubric of "free trade", but that doesn't mean we oppose greater trade under a better and, yes, freer system of world trade.  But "free" should include freedom for workers, not just of the owners of capital."

Then you need to address those issues with the individual states that are suppressing the rights of labor, or you need to assist the labor forces in these states in their organization.


 "Sperling will grant that labor rights in trade deals might be a nice thing, but says "many poor nations think such calls are heavy handed impositions on their sovereignty." Who are those despots speaking for, their regimes or the workers whose rights they oppress?"
 
Probably for their regimes.



"Labor federations throughout Central America opposed CAFTA, just as labor federations around the world oppose a global WTO deal without real labor standards as part of it -- yet folks like Sperling seem to favor worry about the sensitivities of despots over the concerns of workers and their advocates in those countries."
 
Even assuming for theatrical argument's sake that every executive of a central American country is a 'despot', Unfortunately private labor groups don't get to dictate how or whether or not private companies do business.

It's just "freedom" to impose intellectual property laws on developing nations, but it violates their sovereignty to require they respect the free speech of their workers as a condition for accessing our markets

Right ho. This is a contradiction. The answer, though, is not to say that since we feel like we can impose absurd intellectual property rules on other sovereign nations, we can therefore impose absurd rules on labor movement. That's compounding the felony.

The problem is that the OECD can't have it both ways. They can't make a principled claim about family farmers or drug patents without validating an equally principled claim about labor rights.

You're correct in identifying the contradiction. Your error lies in saying that the contradiction invalidates a free trade argument. The contradiction invalidates the claim that people who support imposition of intellectual property rights across borders can call themselves free traders.

That's a different matter. Getting China to respect intellectual property rights deals with getting soverign states to respect and recnognize certain alleged rights of private companies and independent agents in other soverign states. That differs fundamentally from most forms of labor regulation in Intrnl. trade as lobbied for by organized labor, which is primarily about one soverign state dictating to another soverign state how it deals with it's labor laws and it's regulations of it's domestic labor corps.

You say it's "different" but I don't see how.  How are respecting intellectual property rights different from respecting worker rights? It would seem to me to bemore rather than less compelling when you are talking about people's on-the-ground, how-often-do-you-get -a-bathroom-break rights than rates of royalty compensation on music played by rural radio stations.

"Independent consumers may out of conscience, choose not to purchase certain goods because they object to the labor practices of the foreign company which produces them as well as the soverign state they reside in."

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If independent consumers can find out which products were made in abusive conditions that is.

The Fair Trade NGO's are good, i dont' know how powerful they are other than with coffee and chocolate.

I reserved a domain name which would be for a fair trade organization that imposed by consumer organized power, "shariffs" which is my word for a consumer tariff that adds say 25 cents to a walmart T-Shirt and the 25 cents goes entirely to the seamstress.  Easier said then done - or enforced.  But the item can be labeled as having a shariff or being fair trade certified.  Which you can buy coffee and chocolate that is fair trade certified (organic is a separate labeling and they don't always have to be both but can be also both organic and fair trade.)

I would like the fair trade organizations to use the shariff idea.

http://www.transfairusa.org is one such organization that I think also does certification.  There are several.  I think there are 2 certification/labeling organizations.

... The issue is that these are private entities in respective states doing business with each other more specifically than 'China' trading with the 'U.S.'. I think the situation as it currently exists in China is awful, for more than just labor but specifically for them. However, it would beyond the pale for one state to prevent or pose barriers to one of it's private entities from freely doing business with a private entity in another state, ...

 Try forming a private business to manufacture very-high-vacumn laboratory pumps, then sell some to Iran (or China for that matter).  You will very quickly find out that nations-states do indeed restrict business between private entities, and you will have 30 years to contemplate the meaning of this discovery.  If you can stay alive for 30 years in Marion Federal Penitentiary.  So I would say that while your point is still arguable, your underlying position is a bit weak.

sPh 

Advocates of “free trade” are most often advocates of a completely unregulated free market economy.  They claim the right to pursue a profit without either government aid or interference.  In fact they claim it’s their obligation to pursue the maximization of profit.

 "So the question is, do corporate executives, provided they stay within the law, have responisbilities in their business activities other than to make as much profit for their stockholders as possible?  ane my answer to that is: no they do not."  Economist and Nobel Prize recipient Milton Friedman, 1974

The reality is that they fight government interference and welcome government aid in pursuing the maximization of profit at both home and abroad. 

For instance the “at-will employment” status of workers is considered standard fare in an unregulated market.  Unions (two or more employees combining to put a proposal to increase wages before their employer) were first outlawed in the US in 1806 by a judge in Philadelphia using not statutory law (because none existed at that time governing this aspect of the employer/employee relationship) but rather using imported English common law to make the combination of two or more employees putting a proposal to increase wages before employers a “criminal conspiracy!”

 
The same love of government aid is appreciated when trade agreements are made protecting real and intellectual property and the right to search the world in the quest for evermore cheap components of production. That protection is not seen as aid…it is taken for granted.  When others say that the protection of workers and the environment in which they live from exploitation that is considered an unfair burden on free enterprise.  

In the US, the unfettered market gave us chattel slavery, child labor, unequal pay for equal work, to name but a few.  It gave workers the freedom to starve.  Government intervention into the marketplace in the form of legislation that imposed some modicum of fairness and justice in the employer/employee relationship (NLRA, OSHA, ERISA, ADA, FMLA, etc.) is still bemoaned by advocates of an unfettered market.

Those of us who are concerned with the idea that the (yet unfulfilled) ideals on which our country was founded (inalienable rights for everyone anywhere in the world and a system of justice that applies equally to everyone) shouldn’t get caught up in the fight over what is FREE trade.  We should not be shy about talking about FAIR trade…after all it is closer to the ideals on which this country was founded.

But those of us who advocate "fair trade" should be much more aggressive in talking about freedom as well.

The freedom to form a union is not less important than the right to sell goods without tariffs-- in fact, they are connected, since artificially lowering the price of Chinese goods by the government throwing workers in jail who demand higher wages is an unfair and "unfree" form of competition.

There is a global debate over how direct financial subsidies distort the international trade system.  Use of the police to bust unions on behalf of private businesses is also a government subsidy, so why shouldn't it be on the table in trade negotiations?

For FREE AND FAIR TRADE.

I'm for ending the embargo-- and enacting trade rules that would exclude those goods from the US if Castro violates free labor rights of Cuban citizens.  

And I would encourage Europe to apply the same rules in their trade with Cuba (and every other country around the world).

There are definite advantages to lifting the embargo-- and the lure of those advantages would hopefully encourage Castro to improve labor rights more than a flatout open-ended embargo would.

One advantage of an internationally-agreed system of labor rights is that it would not be part of one nation's unilateral foreign policy, but based on internationally accepted and enforced rules.  

I'm all for as open trade and zero tariffs on every commodity with every nation willing to protect the right of free speech of workers and minimum environmental standards.  

Advocates of “free trade” are most often advocates of a completely unregulated free market economy.

That’s a complete myth. It’s true some very pro-corporate interests try and shape free trade to their maximum benefit, but it’s a mistake to think they’re the only people who are free trade, or that all the good guys are protectionists. That’s completely mistaken and the opposite is actually the fact.

All serious economists are free trade advocates because the protectionist alternative is far worse for everybody including labor in the long run. Paul Krugman for example is about as social services, pro-worker, pro-quality of life as it gets. He's pro-regulation, pro-social security, pro-universal health care, and on and on. And he's a free trader because he knows protectionism is suicide. So are all serious economist, left to right.

There are disagreements about how much can be done to soften the blow, transitional programs, etc. For example a Krugman is way more supportive of social nets than many of the conservative Chicago economists you’re thinking of. But nobody serious about macro economics is a protectionist because it would bring about a massive recession. 

The protectionists opposed to free trade are almost universally tied to organized labor. They think very short term and don't even know what they wish for. They’ve been dogmatically protectionist for decades, it’s like religion for them.

I support organized labor generally, but they're way too biased on this issue and it's far too complex for the second rate "economists" labor employs to shill for protectionism. They're hacks roughly equivalent to the "scientists" Big Oil pays to shill against global warming, and just like Big Oil, they’re blinded by their short term interests and would screw us all in the long term with their foolishness.

NNewman is a labor activist, he's not a macro economist. His bread is buttered with making union people happy in the very short term and he's blinded by that.

Yes, Thea Lee works for the AFL-CIO. And, most " serious economist" work for think tanks (special interests) or universities. University departments of economics have their own very special interests.  I went over to the American Prospect and watched the lectures by Friedman and           refered to in the original post.I also participated in this debate back at the time of NAFTA. AS was pointed out, it is fine to argue for free trade when it is not your job being outsourced.  Most established economists are not having their jobs outsourced. it reminds me of the old saying, a recession is when you get laid off, a depression is when I get laid off. I do not buy the domination of the economic professionals toward free trade.  The Economic Policy Institute on NAFTA is well done and thorough.  Free trade benefits some (business) interests and hurts some (labor) interests.    I have taught at a university for 35 years and read the "serious" economists.  They usually can not even describe real economic life.   Please tell me of some serious "economists" who are not working for a special interest.