Labor leader welcomes WTO meeting collapse

"No deal is better than a bad deal."

--- AFL-CIO CHIEF JOHN SWEENEY,

about the collapse of World Trade Organization talks

Administration says progress made

in Seattle.

By WILLIAM C. MANN

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON --- The head of the nation's largest labor federation welcomed the collapse of World Trade Organization talks in Seattle and the failure to agree on a new round of negotiations.

"No deal is better than a bad deal," AFL-CIO chief John Sweeney said Sunday.

President Clinton "would be of the same opinion," responded Commerce Secretary William Daley, adding the administration never would have signed a deal that didn't benefit the United States.

"We think that what was done in Seattle as far as some progress on issues was positive," Daley said, who followed Sweeney on CBS' "Face the Nation."

"But I would agree with (Sweeney) a hundred percent that we were not going to do a bad deal."

The four-day WTO session was to have begun development of an agenda for worldwide talks on trade relations, but it broke up early Saturday in disarray.

Raucous, sometimes violent, demonstrations and stern police reactions kept Seattle in turmoil during the conference. But the lack of success inside meeting rooms was attributed to squabbling among negotiators unwilling to compromise on tightly held positions.

Many delegates, especially those from poor countries, objected to suggestions by Clinton that the WTO should set labor and environmental conditions and punish countries that ignore them.

"We had 40,000 workers and their families gathered in Seattle peacefully protesting and trying to set a focus on worker rights, human rights, and environmental protection," Sweeney said.

"No deal is better than a bad deal. I look at it more optimistically in terms of how the focus has been set on issues that are important. We all support trade, and we all recognize globalization, but it's about time that the WTO took into consideration worker rights," he said.

Asked if labor should favor the United States' abandoning the organization, Sweeney said: "We're still going to continue to negotiate trade agreements with or without the WTO. I think that we have to really assess what is the best process for that."

Daley insisted the failure of the Seattle session doesn't end possibilities for eventual agreement.

"These negotiations have failed twice before in Montreal and also in Brussels, once before," he said. "In trade negotiations, every time there is an attempt to launch a round, it isn't always successful. But eventually they will be successful, and we will have the chance to sell more products."

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