By Kevin McCauley
Bahrain has hired Sorini Samet & Associats to fight a call by the AFL-CIO for the U.S. to withdraw from the five-year-old free trade pact between the two countries because of the Kingdom's crackdown of protest.
Sheik Khalid Bin Ahmed Bin Mohamed Al Khalifa heads Bahrain's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. |
In April, the AFL-CIO filed a complaint with the Office of Trade & Labor Affairs that called the "ongoing brutal repression of peaceful protest" a violation of the trade pact.
The union believes the U.S. "simply should not provide preferential trade treatment to a country that has and continues to engage in well-documented widespread and serious violations of human rights, including labor rights, of its citizens and residents."
Separately, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Robert urging him to speak out against the "armed crackdown on every civil society institution in Bahrain," which is descending "irreversibly into dictatorship. Bahrain is home to the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet.
SS&A is to advise Bahrain on crafting a response to the Labor Dept. complaint and engage Obama administration officials and Congress on its behalf.
The one-year contract also calls for lining up third-party support for Bahrain from relevant human rights groups, businesses, think tanks and scholars.
SS&A charges Bahrain's Ministry of Foreign Affairs fees ranging from $100 to $550 an hour.
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