Former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk, speaking at the U.S. Conference on Mayors, about his belief in the value of trade, as reported by Reuters:

[Kirk] told the U.S. Conference of Mayors that he hoped to be confirmed by the Senate within the next two or three weeks, and joked that he’d been warned by his 19-year-old daughter he was taking an unpopular job.

“‘Dad, this is cool, except for everybody hates your office and everybody hates the WTO (World Trade Organization). Why would you do this?’” Kirk said, recounting her words in mostly light-hearted remarks to the mayor’s group.

“And in short, I told her because it’s too important. Our economy is too important. The challenges that face our communities are so big that we can’t afford to take anything out of our economic toolbox, including trade,” Kirk said.

On Friday, President Bush signed the proclamation putting the U.S.-Peru Trade Agreement into full effect. Ways & Means Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-NY), the AFL-CIO and various environmentalist groups objected to the signing, as BusinessWeek reports. The groups sent a news release Friday, and we call attention to the AFL-CIO’s argument:

“Peru’s labor laws still fall far short of meeting International Labor Organization standards, and we are deeply disappointed with the Bush administration’s decision to rush implementation without first securing compliance with the agreement’s provisions,” said Thea Lee, Policy Director at the AFL-CIO. “This represents a wasted opportunity and shows poor faith on the part of our own government.”

The AFL-CIO seems awfully intent on subjugating itself to international bodies and foreign organizations, as in its proud declaraton, “Global Unions Will Help Push Employee Free Choice.”

So change the name already: IFL-CIO.

The National Association of Manufacturers and BIPAC, the Business Industry Political Action Committee, held a joint news conference this morning to discuss the election results and what they mean for business with respect to an Obama Administration and new Congress.

Tom Hamburger of the Los Angeles Times asked a question about business’ strategy toward organized labor and its plans to aggressively push its agenda, especially the Employee Free Choice Act.

NAM President John Engler responded:

I think that private sector unionization is about seven-and-a-half percent of the workforce, and they’ve really maximized their role with that percentage of the workforce. There’s another 90 percent out there that we would hope we can talk to and link up with, too.

I think one of the risks for a new Obama Administration is early on get typecast anywhere, and get put in that box and to end up having, you know, the image that they’ve got seven-and-a-half percent of the workforce and they’re line of sight, but the rest of us will be dealt with later…

While they’ll want to go quickly, I think there’s a risk for the Administration, and therefore I think there will be some caution being urged on the members of Congress. I think also that some of the issues that they’re pushing are not going to be deemed to be helpful to the economy and to a recovery. They may be helpful to their treasury but not to the overall economy…

We think there are number of new members who are going to take a little broader view of things. They’re not going to be ready to get rid of all the Right to Work laws in this country and go to the International Labor Organization standards for labor, they’re not going to be willing to tip a lot of labor law on its head …

One thing is very clear on the polling on the secret ballot: 70 percent of Democrats believe that that ought to be retained, including a majority of union members that were surveyed. It’s not a way to win popular opinion early on.

In her comments, BIPAC’s Bernadette Budde made the point that organized labor was late to join the Barack Obama cause, first supporting John Edwards or some backing Senator Hillary Clinton or standing on the sidelines.

The whole exchange is below…