Fritz Hollings

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up amendment No. 2485, relative to reciprocity.

Mr. HOLLINGS. From that article: Environmentalists persuasively argued that the Mexican government violated its own environmental laws when it assessed the potential impact of the pier, designed to accommodate more and larger cruise ships. ``We proved that the Mexican government violated the law,'' said Gustavo Alanis, president of the Mexican Environmental Law Center, one of the organizations that raised the issue. ``It is an enormous victory for international environmental rights.'' The emphasis, of course, is that there are those in the countries involved with labor rights and with the environment. They are not purely nomads. They have an environmental movement in Mexico and in Canada. We would help to extend environmental concerns and labor rights with this particular agreement if they adopt these two amendments. I ask for the yeas and nays on this amendment.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I yield the floor.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Will the distinguished Senator withhold? When he moves to table, that will terminate all debate, as I understand it. I want to offer one more amendment. But with respect to the environmental amendment, it is clear the distinguished chairman of Finance says: Look, this environmental side agreement we had in NAFTA would now discourage investment. It didn't discourage investment in Mexico and didn't discourage investment in Canada. It would not discourage investment. What we are saying is before you open up as compared to the CBI, you have to have clean air and clean water and the environmental protection statements. You have to have all of these particular requirements. But, by the way, if you want to get rid of them, then go down to the CBI. The message is clear. This is what you might call the Job Export Act of 1999. Amendment No. 2485 (Purpose: To require the negotiation of a reciprocal trade agreement lowering tariffs on imports of U.S. goods with a country before benefits are received under this Act by that country)

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I am sort of stunned in a way because the argument is made that this is going to forestall the jobs that are intended under the bill. Could it really be that we want to finance 13-year-olds and child labor? Could it be that they have to work 100 hours a week at 13 cents an hour? Could it be if they become pregnant and have to go home sick that they are fired? I could go down the list of things. That is what I just pointed out. I am confident my colleagues don't want to finance those kinds of atrocities. I am just stunned that someone would say this would hold it up because the agreement is yet to be had. The agreement is to be joined by the authorities and the Governments of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and the other countries down there in the Caribbean Basin. If they haven't agreed, obviously, they couldn't be in violation, or they couldn't be with the side agreement. That is why it is very innocent language suggesting that the benefits don't take effect until we have had a chance to sit down, both sides, and decide what will be agreed to and what will be done by the particular governments. So it would be violations of their own government policies. Amendment No. 2483 (Purpose: To require the negotiation, and submission to Congress, of side agreements concerning the environment before benefits are received)

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I am not trying to forestall. I am trying to comply with the requirements. I call up my amendment on the environmental side, and I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, the emphasis in this Amendment is similar to the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation. It is the very same thing we required in NAFTA with Mexico and Canada with respect to the Canadian side. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an article entitled ``Canadians Challenge California Pollution Rules Under NAFTA.''

Mr. HOLLINGS. Similarly, I have an article about the side deals to the trade agreement giving labor and environmental issues a new form of significance that I ask unanimous consent be printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I call up my amendment No. 2379 and ask the clerk to report it.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, the amendment has been read in its entirety. It is very brief and much to the point. It is similar to the North American agreement on labor. When we debated NAFTA at length, there was a great deal more participation and attention given. In these closing days, everyone is anxious to get out of town. Most of the attention has been given, of course, to the appropriations bills and the budget, and avoiding, as they say, spending Social Security after they have already spent at least $17 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. I ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I had a very interesting experience with respect to labor conditions in Mexico prior to the NAFTA agreement. I wanted to see with my own eyes exactly what was going on. I visited Tijuana, which is right across the line from southern California. I was being led around a valley. There were some 200,000 people living in the valley, with beautiful plants, mowed lawns, flags outside. But the 200,000 living in the valley were living in veritable hovels; the living conditions were miserable. I was in the middle of the tour when the mayor came up to me and asked if I would meet with 12 of the residents of that valley. I told him I would be glad to. He was very courteous and generous. I met with that group. In a few sentences, summing up what occurred, the Christmas before--actually around New Year's--they had a heavy rain in southern California and in the Tijuana area. With that rain, the hardened and crusted soil became mushy and muddy and boggy, and the little hovels made with garage doors and other such items started slipping and sliding. In those streets, there are no light poles and there are no water lines. There is nothing, just bare existence. They were all trying to hold on to their houses and put them back in order. These particular workers missed a day of work. Under the work rules in Mexico, if you miss a day of work, you are docked 3 days. So they lost 4 days' pay. Around February, one of the workers was making plastic coat hangers-- the industry had moved from San Angelo to Tijuana. They had no eye protection whatsoever. The machines were stamping out the plastic, and a flick of plastic went into the worker's eye. The workers asked for protection and could not get any. That really teed them off. It came to a crisis on May 1 when the favorite supervisor, a young woman who was expecting at the time, went to the front office. She said she was sick and would have to take off the rest of the day. They said: No, you are not taking off the rest of the day; you are working. Later that afternoon, she miscarried, and that exploded the movement of these 12 workers. They said: We are not going to stand for this anymore. We are going to get some consideration of working conditions and pay. The workers chipped in money and sent two of the folks up to Los Angeles to employ a lawyer. They discovered that when the plant moved from San Angelo to Mexico, they filled out papers showing how the plant was organized and that they had a union and swapped money each month, but no shop steward or union representatives ever met with them. They never knew anything about a union. Under the work rules of the country of Mexico, if one tries to organize a plant once one is already organized, then that person is subject to firing, and all 12 of them were fired. They lost their jobs, their livelihoods. That is what the mayor wanted me to know and understand. They were out of work. My colleagues talk about the immigration problem. If I had any recommendation for the 12, I would say: Sneak across the border--don't worry about it--and find work in California or South Carolina or some other place because they could not get a job any longer in the country of Mexico. That concerned me, and I have followed the work conditions. That is one of the reasons with NAFTA, while I opposed it, I wanted to be sure we had the side agreements. The side agreements were established. The work center is in Dallas. The Secretary of Labor meets with them. They are trying to work on this problem. I have references to some of the working conditions in El Salvador. On March 13, 1999, five workers from the Doall factory, where Liz Claiborne garments are sown, met with a team of graduate students from Columbia University who were in El Salvador conducting a study of wage rates in relation to basic survival needs. A few days later, all five workers were fired. Doall's chief of personnel simply told them: You are fired because you and your friends cried before the gringos, and the Koreans don't want unionists at this factory. So much for workers' rights in that Liz Claiborne plant. There are 225 maquila assembly factories in El Salvador, 68,000 workers sending 581 million garments a year to the United States worth $1.2 billion. Yet there is not one single union with a contract in any of these maquila factories because it is against the law; it is not allowed. This is Yolanda Vasquez de Bonilla: I was fired from the Doall Factory No. 3 together with 17 others on August 5, 1998. From the beginning, the unbearable working conditions in the factory impressed me a great deal, which included obligatory overtime hours every day of the week, including Saturdays and sometimes Sundays. On alternate days, we worked until 11 p.m., and some weeks we were obligated to work every day until 11 p.m. at night. We were mistreated, including being yelled at and having vulgar words used against us . . . humiliated for wanting to use the restrooms, and being denied permission to visit the Salvadoran Social Security Institute for medical consults. The highest wage I received, working 7 days a week and more than 100 hours, was 1,200 colones (U.S. $137). Nevertheless, I accepted all this that I have briefly narrated since I have two children who are in school and I must support them. They go on to tell similar stories time and again about different workers at that plant in El Salvador. With the limited time I have, I will reference the United States firm in Guatemala City of Phillips-Van Heusen. Van Heusen closed its Camisas Modernas plant in Guatemala City just before its 500 workers were to receive their legally mandated year-end bonuses and go on a three-week break. That is typical of what they do if they get any kind of benefits at all. Just at the end of the year, when they are supposed to get their bonuses, they go down and close the plant. Unionist and former Zacapa municipal worker Angel Pineda was ambushed and shot to death March 8 in the village of San Jorge, Zacapa. Pineda was a mayoral candidate nominated by the leftist New Guatemala Democratic Front. According to the Guatemalan Workers Central, Pineda had participated in a campaign to remove Zacapa Mayor Carlos Roberto Vargas on corruption charges. Another union leader and Vargas opponent was shot to death in January. Then again in Guatemala: A recent U.N. report said poverty encompasses 60 percent of the urban population and 80 percent of rural inhabitants. Figures from the Institute for Economic and Social Investigations of San Carlos University are even more devastating, reporting that 93 percent of the indigenous population lives in poverty and 81 percent cannot meet nutritional needs. Mr. President, again: Workers from more than a dozen different factories complain about everything from restricted bathroom visits and sore backs to illegal firings and abuse. Sewing machines hum and rock music blares as 13-year-old Maria furiously folds clothes inside a Guatemalan factory called Sam Lucas S.A. Maria is a 13-year-old. According to the Wall Street Journal, of course, that has nothing to do with any employee in the Caribbean Basin Initiative or Africa. The Grade 2 dropout folds 50 shirts an hour, or 2,700 shirts a week that will end up in North American stores. Sometimes Maria's boss extends her 10-hour day and asks her to stay until 10:30 p.m. or all night, assembling clothes for export in this tax-free plant called a maquila. . . . Forced overtime, union busting, no social security benefits and unpaid work are typical grievances of factory staff, who are mostly young, female, Indian, and poor. Mr. President, in Honduras: A two-week strike at the Korean-owned Kimi de Honduras maquiladora ended September 2 after they dropped criminal charges against the union and accepted a new pay scale. The strike began August 18 when 500 workers, mostly women, demanded compliance with a March union contract. [This particular plant] produces apparel for U.S. retailer J.C. Penney and is part of the eight-plant Continental Park, a free-trade zone in La Lima. Unionized Kimi workers closed down Continental [in] August with blockades, but anti-riot police arrived August 30. In solidarity, most workers from other factories refused to enter the zone, but were subsequently beaten and gassed by the police. Kimi union officials promptly distributed leaflets to workers of other factories, urging them to return to work and prevent more violence. Some 100,000 workers are employed in the country's 200 maquilas, which export $1.6 billion in goods to the United States each year. You have the Roca Suppliers Search maquiladora in El Salvador: The Roca Suppliers Search maquiladora in the town of Mejicanos was abruptly closed November 19, leaving 240 workers laid off. The workers say production was moved to another factory after a group of 22 workers met with representatives of the progressive union federation. [They really work and make] U.S. brands including Calvin Klein and L.L. Bean. The factory's owner said the shop closed due to a lack of raw materials. Labor activists noted that the termination came just before legally mandated Christmas bonuses. The bonuses average about $40. Then again, in El Salvador: They work from Monday through Friday, from 6:50 a.m. to 6:10 p.m., and on Saturday until 5:40 p.m., and occasional shifts to 9:40 p.m. It is common for the cutting and packing departments to work 20-hour shifts from 6:50 a.m. to 3 a.m. Anyone unable or refusing to work the overtime hours will be suspended and fined, and upon repeat ``offenses,'' they will be fired. There is no time clock. Records of an employee's overtime hours are written in a log by the supervisor. Workers report that it is not uncommon to be short changed two hours of overtime if the supervisor is angry with them. There is a one 40-minute break in the day for lunch from noon to 12:40 p.m. All new workers must undergo and pay for a pregnancy test. If they test positive, they are immediately fired. The test costs two days' wages. I ask unanimous consent that this particular group of conditions in El Salvador be printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, again quoting: In September, Jiovanni Fuentes, a union organizer assisting the workers at Caribbean Apparel, received a death threat from the company. He was told that he and his friends should leave work, or they would be killed. He was told that he was dealing with the Mafia, and in El Salvador, it costs less than $15 to have someone killed. I could go on and on. Obviously, these working conditions are not to the attention of this particular body. They could care less. Labor conditions are very important. The standard of living in the United States of America is an issue. When you open up a manufacturing plant, it is required that you have clean air, clean water, minimum wage, safe working machinery, safe working conditions, plant closing notice, parental leave, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and unemployment compensation. All of these particulars are needed. These elevate to the high standard of American living. And it deserves protection. At least it deserves a negotiation--which we included in the NAFTA agreement--in this particular CBI and sub-Saharan agreement. I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the Chair.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, this amendment is nothing more than the previous amendment on side agreements on labor. This one would require the side agreements with respect to the environment. The distinguished Presiding Officer knows I know the feeling of strength out on the west coast for the environment. I have traveled up there, for example, in Puget Sound and have had the hearings with Dixie Lee Ray when she was the oceanographer, John Linberg, and all the rest. I come back to the statement by my distinguished ranking member quoted in the Wall Street Journal this morning----

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, by this vote we will determine whether we are for foreign aid or foreign trade. The truth is that the Marshall Plan in foreign aid is really a wonderful thing. We have defeated communism with capitalism. It has worked. But now after 50 years, with running deficits in excess of $100 billion for some 20 years, we are just infusing more money into the economy than we are willing to take in. There was the deficit of $127 billion here just at the end of September for the year 1999; otherwise, running a deficit in the balance of trade of $300 billion; then with our current account deficit totaling $726 billion in the last 7 years and our net external assets really in the liabilities over the last 7 years from $71 billion to $831 billion. We are going out of business. It would be a wonderful thing. But let's have some reciprocity. All we are saying is, when we make an agreement, we take some of these particular regulations affecting, for example, textiles--there is a whole book of them here--and if we lower ours, let them lower theirs. Cordell Hull, 65 years ago, with the reciprocal trade agreements of 1934, is what got the country going again industrially, and that is what will get it going again if we obey the reciprocity that we included in NAFTA. All I am trying to do, if we are going to extend NAFTA, let's have the same reciprocity we had in NAFTA in these particular CBI agreements.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. It says: How things have changed. According to the Centre for Responsive Politics, a Washington watchdog group, by the end of June this year, contributions from the computer industry were already three times those given to Bill Clinton and Bob Dole combined during the 1996 campaign. Of the $843,000 in direct industry contributions, over one-third went to George W. Bush, the Republican front-runner, with the two Democrats--Vice President Al Gore and Bill Bradley--both netting about half of the Texas Governor's total. These figures tell only part of the story, however. They do not include contributions from telecommunications and biotech companies, nor the millions of dollars the candidates have received in fundraisers organised by computer executives and venture capitalists: entrepreneurs who helped fuel the high- tech boom, and are now helping pave the way to the White House. And on and on. If they can see it in downtown London and on Main Street America with the headline, ``The Buyer's Guide To Congress,'' and list in this particular bill the Caribbean tariff relief bill, we Senators don't have any pride. Is there no shame? Can't we understand what is going on and that NAFTA doesn't help the workers in South Carolina? We lost all the jobs. What few remain, they are saying the high-tech revolution has passed by, and it says the info revolution escapes them. If I could get Gates to South Carolina tomorrow morning, I would bring him in. He is a wonderful industry and everything else. At least give President Reagan credit; we subsidized the semiconductor industry by putting in a voluntary restraint agreement and Sematech. That is why we would have Intel and otherwise gone. Yes; we have moments of sobriety in this particular body. But it is election 2000. It is all financing, and the buying of the Congress. They ought to be ashamed to bring this bill. But I will make the Senator from Delaware a deal. If he will accept a side agreement on labor similar to what we have on NAFTA, and a side agreement that we have on NAFTA with respect to the environment and reciprocity, we would not even have to. Those amendments ought to be accepted. They were on the NAFTA agreement. If he will accept those, I will sit down, and we can go ahead and vote on this particular bill. I make that proposal to the distinguished Senator from Delaware. After he has had a chance to study it, I hope to hear from him because it would save all of us a lot of time. I have had relevant amendments, instead of the ``Hollings filibuster'' all last week. The majority leader filibustered. He knew how to do what he wanted to do. He filled the tree where you couldn't put up those amendments. You couldn't put up any kind of amendment with respect to child labor. You couldn't put up in any amendments with respect to trade. He filled the tree. He forced fast track. It was a bill with his amendments, take it or leave it. I yield the floor.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. Daschle is right. Mr. Lott had not allowed a wish list of protectionist amendments. You see, Mr. Lott had given fast track to this particular bill, until this morning, he said yesterday afternoon, but that was without notice. I went back to get some amendments. When I was getting those amendments at 5:30, they closed this Senate Chamber down. They didn't want amendments. Now he says you can get amendments. Here is what the Wall Street Journal thinks: Pennsylvania's steel front-man Rick Santorum on ``antidumping negotiations,'' Iowa protectionist Tom Harkin on child labor, Michigan's Carl Levin (a wholly owned subsidiary of the United Auto Workers) on ``worker rights,'' among others. None of this has anything to do with Africa trade. It doesn't? Child labor doesn't have anything to do with Africa trade, with Caribbean Basin Initiative trade? It doesn't? Wait until the Senator from Iowa comes out here and presents his amendment. That is how arrogant they have gotten. They splash a bunch of things people would not understand. It has everything to do with it. In fact, those are the principal amendments the Senator from South Carolina has. If the Senator from Delaware would agree to them, we could move on with this bill. Specifically, in NAFTA we had the labor side agreements. They are not included in the CBI/sub-Sahara. In NAFTA, we had the environmental side agreements. Not in CBI/sub-Sahara. In the Mexican NAFTA, we had reciprocity. Not in CBI, not in sub-Sahara. In fact, when the Senator from New York jumped back 65 years, to 1934, I didn't hear him enunciate clearly reciprocal trade agreements of Cordell Hull, reciprocity. They had hard, good businessmen. Trade was trade, not a moral thing of foreign aid. That is our problem today. Too many in the political world think about trade as aid, another Marshall Plan. And the Marshall Plan has worked. But there is a limit to what you can give away. I have time and again said that two-thirds of the clothing I am looking at is imported. One-third of all consumption in the United States is imported right now. If this train continues, it will be over half within the next 5 years. That is the hollowing out. If we are going to follow the London economists and the Brits who went from the production of goods to the providing of services--a service economy--we are going to have minimal growth. They got a British Army, but it is not as big as our Marine Corps. But we are going to lose influence in the World Trade Organization, in GATT, treaties in the Mideast and everywhere else, because money talks. We don't have those things going. Now, Mr. President, reciprocal trade. I have an amendment on reciprocity, one on labor rights, and I have one with respect to the matter of the environment. It was all included. Let me just note, this is with tremendous interest to this particular Senator because I have just picked up this week's Time magazine. What we really have, in essence, is the campaign finance bill of 1999. They say they are not going to pass it, but this is the campaign finance bill of 1999. In the middle, on pages 38 and 39, is an open-page Buyers Guide To Congress. Down here listed is the Caribbean tariff relief, a bill to let the Caribbean and Central American countries export apparel to the United States duty and quota free. Then you can go down to the contributions. The clothing firms want access to cheap-tax-advantage offshore production both Clinton and Republicans favor as a free trade measure. They have in here--yes, the manufacturing and retail side is Sara Lee Corporation, Gap, the ATMI, and everything on the one side, and the AFL-CIO anti-sweat-shop groups. We have seen where that sort of split is. They are going along now with service labor leader John Sweeney and not with the manufacturing jobs in America. Then we go to last week's edition, and we have the fruit of its labor. We see that, in addition to Sara Lee, we have Bill Farley and the Fruit of the Loom group. It is just embarrassing to me when you take Farley, who already moves 17,000 jobs out of Kentucky and some 7,000 from Louisiana, and then he gets a $50 million bonus when this bill passes. They are talking about how we are going to help working Americans. Then, all we have to do is go back to this week's London Economist again, in the very first part of the magazine section. We can put that in the Record. I ask unanimous consent that the article entitled ``Politics and Silicon Valley'' be printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, ``Mr. Sweeney's decision to back the Clinton trade agenda rankled the more militant unions, such as the Teamsters, and the United Steelworkers of America.'' Those are the manufacturing jobs. Just as the fabric boys divorced themselves from apparel and now can toot for this kind of legislation, the head of the service economy, John Sweeney, has forgotten about manufacturing jobs, and he is going along. That is why we got this overwhelmingly bipartisan majority. But back to the point, this is what disturbs this particular Senator, that we are hollowing out the manufacturing strength, the industrial backbone of the United States of America. The so-called service economy or information technology, or information society, strikingly--why don't they read the November 5, 1999, edition of the London Economist that has just come out? On page 87, there is an article entitled ``The New Economy, E-Exaggeration: The Digital Economy is Much Smaller Than You Think.'' I ask unanimous consent to have that article printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I quote from the article: . . . they estimate the computing and communications- technology sector at a more modest 5% of the GDP --up from 2.8% in 1990. . . . The value added of Internet sales--i.e., its contribution to the gross domestic product--would be much less, probably little more than 1% of the gross domestic product. Mr. President, another popularly quoted figure is that business spending on information technology has risen from 10 percent of a firm's total capital, equipment and investment in 1980 to 60 percent today. Again, this is based on constant dollar figures. And it hugely exaggerates the true increase. In terms of current dollars . . . Goldman Sachs calculate that business investments in computers accounts for 35% of total capital spending, not 60%. And even this exaggerates the importance of [information technology] because much of the money goes to replace equipment which becomes obsolete ever more quickly. The share of [information technology] in additional ``net'' investment is much smaller. Computers still account for only 2% of America's total net capital stock. I want to dwell on this for a moment, for the main and simple reason that this really is what is at issue and why the Senator from South Carolina takes the floor. It is just not textiles. Textiles is on its way out. And by another headline I saw in the New York Times, on the right- hand upper column of the front page this morning, President Clinton is getting together with the People's Republic of China to admit them to the World Trade Organization. You can pass the CBI, the sub-Sahara, the NAFTA there, there, and there yonder, and pull it all around, but once that is done, once China gets into the World Trade Organization and starts with its transshipments and its appeals, it controls the general assembly. We had a resolution about 4 years ago to have hearings on human rights within the People's Republic of China. That crowd went back down into Africa and Australia and around and changed the vote, and they never had the hearing. So I am telling you, we really are going to be a minority in the World Trade Organization. They can change around your environmental protections, your labor protections, your high standard of living, and everything else. And the CBI and sub-Sahara, and everything else that we think we are doing something to help, we are going to China, I can tell you that right now with the front page article about President Clinton. So we know where we are headed with respect to that. But my friend, Eamonn Fingleton, has written a book, ``In Praise of Hard Industries.'' Obviously, I can't include the book in the Record at this particular time. But I refer to its comparisons where the Wall Street Journal time and time again has come out again and again with certain misstatements. In 1996, when everyone from the Wall Street Journal to the Christian Science Monitor was dismissing the Japanese economy as sluggish or stagnant or even mired in a deep slump, in fact Japan's growth rate that year of 3.9 percent was the best of any major economy and was significantly superior to the rate of 2.8 percent recorded in the booming United States. . . . Although experts like the Economist's editor in chief . . . predicted a decade ago that Japan's savings rate would plunge in the 1990s, the truth is that at last count Japan was producing $708 billion of new savings a year--or nearly 60 percent more than America's total of $443 billion . . . Japan has now decisively surpassed the United States as the world's main source of capital . . . Japan's net external assets jumped from $294 billion to $891 billion in the first seven years of the 1990s. By contrast, America's net external liabilities ballooned from $71 billion to $831 billion. With these things going on, you begin to worry where you are headed with the particular trade bill. Again, instead of doubling the volume of steel imports since 1983, the United States remains by far the largest importer. So we are importing the steel. We are not having a savings rate. According to the Financial Times article that was printed in the Record the other day: Fears of a slide in the U.S. dollar has haunted global currency markets for several months now. The dollar was granted a reprieve last week following better than expected August trade figures. But many observers believe it is only a matter of time before the dollar succumbs to mounting trade imbalances. Quoting from the book I previously mentioned: In the 1960s---- Since the distinguished Senator from New York went back 65 years-- In the 1960s President John F. Kennedy felt so strongly about this that he ranked dollar devaluation alongside a nuclear war as the two things he feared most. There you go. Here we have it. We have a whole book written on it. Why, yes, it provides jobs. The information technology society or globalization, as they want to call it, the engine of our great economic recovery in the United States, our wonderful world leadership, it provides jobs for the best, the top 5 percent of the population. You have to be highly intelligent and everything else; like I have mentioned the 22,000 employees at Microsoft. All 22,000 are millionaires. More power to them. But that does not give you any exports, that does not give you any growth. That does not give you any strength of manufacturing in the industrial economy. That is where we are hollowing it out. That is why we cannot afford it. I would love to help the Caribbean Basin. I would love to help the sub-Sahara. But time and again, we have given over and over and over again with respect to--I remember back in the Philippines we had given there. We had other particular initiatives whereby we always sacrificed at the textile desk. I do not have it with me right now, but I have it down where we have given to Turkey. We gave to Egypt in Desert Storm. We have just eliminated, in the Multifiber Arrangement, over a 10-year period--now we are in the 5th year--all textile tariffs and everything else of that kind. So we do not have any protectionism about which to really talk. We have important jobs. The textile jobs, compared to those retail jobs--the average textile wage is $11 an hour. With benefits, it increases that. Those are good jobs that we are trying to hold onto-- the jobs of middle America, which is the strength of the democratic society. Let me go right back to the particular editorial. This is how silly they can get. I will quote from the editorial. This editorial is from the Wall Street Journal. So I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the editorial of this morning from the Wall Street Journal. The title of the editorial is ``The Old Isolationists.''

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, the distinguished managers of the bill offered the $8 billion figure in sales and some 121,000 jobs. The truth is, we know from the Labor Department statistics that we have lost 420,000 textile jobs nationwide and some 31,200 textile jobs in South Carolina alone. They said NAFTA was going to create 200,000 jobs. They claim today it is 121,000. In Mexico itself, it was going to create 200,000 jobs. We know textiles alone lost 420,000, and it is undisputed that 31,200 jobs were lost in the State of South Carolina. I ask unanimous consent to print two articles with respect to the economy and how it has worked in Mexico, one from the Wall Street Journal and the other from the American Chamber of Commerce in Mexico.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, the reason I included these articles is because my distinguished mentor, the senior Senator from New York, voted with me on NAFTA and that is against NAFTA. We had misgivings. Of course, the proof is in the Wall Street Journal and the American Chamber of Commerce articles about how they are making less down there 4 to 5 years since the enactment of NAFTA. We were told it was going to create a positive balance of trade. We had a $5 billion-plus balance of trade at the time of enactment. Now we have a $17 billion deficit in the balance of trade with Mexico since NAFTA. We were told it was going to solve the immigration problem. It has worsened. We were told it was going to solve the drug problem. It has worsened. As I said before, there is no education in the second kick of a mule. We have been through this exercise about how we are all going to put our arms together and hug and love and help our neighbors. Fine with me if it really would work that way. It has not worked that way and is not about to work that way in sub-Sahara and the Caribbean. I will get into those items in just a few minutes. With respect to the morning article--I try to get into the Wall Street Journal because a lot of my crowd in South Carolina reads it. They have me as the old isolationist: Hollings: ``Info revolution escapes him.'' Really? I know a good bit more about the information revolution than the Wall Street Journal does. I helped bring a good bit of it to South Carolina, in fact, with my technical training for skills. I was in Dublin, Ireland, and walked into the most modern microprocessing plants of Intel outside of Dublin. My friend, Frank McKay, was there. He said: Governor, I want to show you your technical training program. We sent two teams to Midlands Tech in Columbia, SC, and we reproduced what was there, and that is how I got it up and going and operating and in the black. I told this to Andy Grove when he came by, and he thanked me again. I know a little bit about the information revolution. I am all for it. My problem is, on the one hand, it does not create the jobs they all advertise. The Wall Street Journal ran an article about Wal-Mart and General Motors. Wal-Mart exceeded the number of employees of General Motors for the first time. I ask unanimous consent this article be printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I want the Wall Street Journal to read its own articles. The leading line: For decades, the U.S. has been evolving from a manufacturing economy to a service economy. But Labor Day 1997 marks a milestone: Earlier this year, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., the discount retailer, passed General Motors Corporation as the nation's largest private employer. General Motors' average hourly wage is about $19 an hour; including benefits, it is $44 an hour. Whereas at Wal-Mart stores, the average hourly wage is $7.50; including benefits, $10. In manufacturing, the salary is four times that in the service economy. That is why they are all talking about this wonderful economic boom that has to do with the service economy, so much so that the labor unions I see have buddied up with the American Chamber of Commerce. The American Chamber of Commerce has gone international. They are not representing Main Street America. On yesterday, Monday, November 1, ``Corporate, Labor Leaders Both Trumpet Backing for Clinton's Trade-Talk Plan.'' I ask unanimous consent this article be printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, it gives me great pleasure today to recognize my friend Dr. Jim Edwards, who recently retired as president of the Medical University of South Carolina after a distinguished 17-year tenure. Thanks to his hard work and dedication, MUSC is now consistently ranked as one of the top 100 research universities in the country and has established itself as a leader in teaching and patient care. Since Dr. Edwards took the helm at MUSC, the university has graduated more than 10,000 health care professionals who are serving throughout the state and nation. The university also experienced remarkable physical growth under his leadership with the construction of several valuable facilities including the Children's Hospital, the Hollings Cancer Center, the Gazes Institute for Cardiac Research and the Strom Thurmond Biomedical Research Center. The Charleston area is fortunate to have MUSC in its midst. The area's largest employer, MUSC has an impressive economic impact of $1.3 billion annually. Dr. Edwards' vision and drive that helped place MUSC in the medical forefront are talents he developed during the previous two decades as a public servant. He became a politician for all the right reasons. He was the archetypal man fed up with America's ills, but with the uncommon belief that it was his duty to correct them. A successful oral surgeon, Jim served for two years in the South Carolina Senate before resigning to run for governor in 1974. Although the underdog in the race, he emerged the victor, becoming the first Republican governor of South Carolina since Reconstruction. As governor, he passed the Education Finance Act, which helped modernize our state's education system. He also established a reserve fund, created a motor vehicle management office, streamlined the state budgeting process, developed welfare reform procedures, established the Energy Research Institute and launched state government reorganization efforts. His nonpartisan approach to state government was commendable. ``I sincerely believe that during a campaign you ought to be partisan as you can be,'' he told The State newspaper recently, ``and talk about the differences of the two parties. There's plenty there to talk about. . . . But when elected, all this partisan stuff should stop. You ought to work together with whomever the people elected to work with you in government.'' Democrats far outnumbered Republicans in the South Carolina legislature when Jim was governor, yet representatives from both parties have compliments to bestow upon him to this day. He left the Governor's Mansion with an approval rating of nearly 80 percent. A year after Dr. Edwards returned to his dental practice, President Reagan asked him to serve as the nation's energy secretary. True to his commitment to public service, Jim answered the call, moving to Washington to tackle an important national issue. During his tenure, the DOE decontrolled oil, stepped up the pace for filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, obtained federal aid for three synthetic fuel projects and shepherded a nuclear waste measure through Congress. In 1982, he moved back to South Carolina and assumed the presidency at MUSC. Dr. Jim Edwards' retirement marks an end to the career of one of South Carolina's finest. His impact will be felt for many years to come. My wife, Peatsy, joins me in wishing Jim and his wonderful wife, Ann, a happy retirement.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I object.