osed Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA.

The contractor hired by the department in 2002 to conduct the studies has become a major opponent of the administration's proposed Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA.

The government-paid studies concluded that countries proposed for free-trade status have poor working environments and fail to protect workers' rights. The department dismissed the conclusions as inaccurate and biased, according to government and contractor documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

The Senate Finance Committee, which approved the agreement by a voice vote Wednesday, sent it to the full Senate for consideration this week or after the Independence Day recess.

The contractor is the International Labor Rights Fund.

In a summary of its findings, the organization wrote, "In practice, labor laws on the books in Central America are not sufficient to deter employers from violations, as actual sanctions for violations of the law are weak or nonexistent."

The conclusions contrast with the administration's arguments that Central American countries have made enough progress on such issues to warrant the free-trade deal.

The administration and its congressional supporters say eliminating trade barriers for U.S. products would open new markets in Central American for U.S. farmers and manufacturers. Critics say the deal would allow serious labor violations to continue in the countries covered by the pact — Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic.

Hoping to lure enough Democratic votes to win passages, U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman (news, bio, voting record) this month promised to spend money and arrange an international conference to ensure "the best agreement ever negotiated by the United States on labor rights."

Behind the scenes, the Labor Department began as early as spring 2004 to block public release of the country-by-country reports.

The department instructed its contractor to remove the reports from its Web site, ordered it to retrieve paper copies before they became public, banned release of new information from the reports, and even told the contractor it could not discuss the studies with outsiders.

The department has now worked out a deal with the contractor to make the reports public, provided there is no mention of the federal agency or government funding.

At the same time, the administration began a pre-emptive campaign to undercut the study's conclusions.

Used as talking points by trade-pact supporters, a Labor Department document accuses the contractor of writing a report filled with "unsubstantiated" statements and "biased attacks, not the facts."

The contractor's deputy director, Bama Athreya, blamed U.S. Trade Representative officials for circulating the document and citing passages that won't be included in the final versions of the reports.

One lawmaker said he was shocked that a federal agency charged with protecting the rights of Americans workers would go to such lengths to block the public from seeing its own contractor's concerns before Congress votes on the agreement.

"You would think if any agency in our government would care about this, it would be the Labor Department," Sen. Byron Dorgan (news, bio, voting record), D-N.D., said.

Dirk Fillpot, spokesman for the Labor Department's Bureau of International Labor Affairs, said the agency and an independent evaluator concluded the contractor "failed to meet the academic rigor expected to fulfill its contract" and the relationship was terminated June 10.

The competitively bid contract totaled $937,000. Fillpot said $250,000 will be refunded to the Treasury.

Rep. Kevin Brady (news, bio, voting record), R-Texas, who supports the trade agreement, said he is familiar with drafts of the reports and believes they will be "widely dismissed as a fraud." He accused the contractor of producing "a propaganda piece" and concealing "its rabid anti-CAFTA bias."

Athreya, the contractor official, has testified in Congress against the agreement. The group's Internet site has a link to a coalition trying to defeat the pact.

Some of the studies came within a whisker of widespread release in March 2004, when the labor-rights group posted them briefly on its Internet site.

The Labor Department quickly and successfully demanded the reports be removed on grounds they were not approved by the agency. Officials also demanded the group retrieve a limited number of paper copies that were distributed at a hearing of a Latin American human rights body.

Shortly after that incident, Rep. Sander Levin (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich., began a yearlong effort to pry the studies from the department through a Freedom of Information Act request. The department rejected his request until two months ago, when Levin received — and released — early drafts of the reports.

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