U.S. labor chief blasts IMF's deal for Asia
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - U.S. labor leader John Sweeney blasted the
International Monetary Fund's rescue plans Thursday for Asian economies,
likening its austerity demands to Medieval doctors prescribing leeches
to cure the plague.
``(The IMF) seeks to restore the confidence of investors and
speculators, to placate the fickle barons of finance, by bailing out
those whose loans are at risk,'' said Sweeney, head of the 13 million
member AFL-CIO labor union umbrella group.
``The bill for this treatment is then passed on to workers -- in
depressed wages, lost jobs, crushed hopes. The Fund is like the medieval
doctors at the time of the Black Plague who applied the only remedy they
knew -- bleeding their patients.''
The U.S. labor chief was addressing students at Mexico City's National
Autonomous University.
He drew comparisons between the woes of Indonesia, Thailand and others
and Mexico's disastrous peso devaluation in December 1994, which
provoked a massive flight of capital and a recession the country is only
now pulling out of.
Sweeney said the result in Mexico today of an IMF-backed rescue was
millions of unemployed, ``poverty and rising crime, social and political
upheaval,'' while those responsible for the economic collapse were
bailed out by international funds.
``In the new global casino economy, we are essentially telling the
biggest gamblers they can pocket their winnings and the house will cover
their losses. This is an invitation to greater folly, not greater
responsibility,'' he said.
IMF first Deputy Managing Director Stanley Fischer defended its Asian
rescue deals Thursday, saying the crisis would have been far deeper
without its help and describing the loans as investments instead of
costs.
In addition to lashing out at billion-dollar IMF loans, Sweeney also
criticized the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and
Washington's drive to win so-called ``fast-track' trade deal negotiating
authority from Congress.
``For us, NAFTA has been a failure,'' he said at a news conference after
holding talks with President Ernesto Zedillo.
President Clinton had wanted to get fast-track approval by the Santiago
summit in April of leaders from the Free Trade Area of the Americas
(FTAA) signatory countries.
Thirty-four nations in the hemisphere agreed at the 1994 Miami summit to
set up a free trade zone from Alaska to Patagonia by the year 2005.
But Clinton withdrew the bill from Congress after it became clear that
he had not mustered enough support.
Sweeney called on the Mexican labor movement to join with him in making
sure trade agreements included controversial social clauses setting
minimum working conditions.
``In our global neighborhood, companies must be held to international
standards of simple decency,'' he said.
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