Ten years ago this week, the United States launched the invasion of Iraq. The nation remains divided on the wisdom, strategy and outcome of the war that claimed the lives of 4,488 U.S. service members and left more than 32,000 wounded.  

But there is one certainty—the men and women who honorably fought and served in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade have come home to an economy that works even less for them than it does others. Job loss, stagnant wages and a widening gap between working families and the wealthy and Wall Street are some of these problems.  

Last week, the United States and Iraq announced a bilateral United States-Iraq Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA), signed in 2005, would likely to enter into force later this year. TIFAs provide a formal bilateral mechanism for countries to discuss trade- and investment-related issues.

On Tuesday, Oct. 2, the United States Trade Representative convened hearings on labor rights in Fiji and Iraq in response to petitions the AFL-CIO filed.

As developing countries, both Fiji and Iraq receive tariff benefits under the Generalized System of Preferences. In order to keep the benefits, countries have to comply with a number of conditions, including the requirement to take steps to ensure their workers can exercise internationally recognized worker rights, including freedom of association, collective bargaining and freedoms from forced labor.

One of the first positive results from the war in Iraq was the re-emergence of a trade union movement—literally one month after the United States and allies went into that country in March 2003, five trade unions formed, representing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi workers. Since then, union members, especially those in unions representing oil workers, have been at the forefront of the push for a democratic society in the face of foreign strong-arming, said international Iraqi oil policy expert Greg Muttitt.

The AFL-CIO applauds the acceptance of the U.S. Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) cases concerning Iraq and Fiji.  We believe that putting the labor laws and labor enforcement record under review in both countries will help workers in their efforts to exercise their fundamental rights—including the right to organize and collectively bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions. GSP is a program designed to promote economic growth in the developing world by providing preferential duty-free entry for up to 5,000 products when imported from one of 128 designated beneficiary countries and territories.

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks a decade ago, some 2.3 million military members have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thousands more continue to deploy leaving their families at home while they serve our country overseas.

The AFL-CIO Executive Council today praised the role workers and independent trade unions are playing in the popular mobilizations against corrupt, oppressive regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain and throughout the Middle East and North Africa.