The president of one of America's trade unions representing 13 million members has called for regulations to end corporate expatriations to Bermuda.

American Federation of Labour-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) head John J. Sweeney also launched a scathing attack on US President George Bush's handling of scandal hit corporate America.

In a statement on Tuesday, Mr. Sweeney spoke of the need for new rules to ensure corporate accountability. He included seven points which he felt were in need of "serious reform."

His last point was: "We must take away the tax incentives that encourage companies to dodge their tax responsibilities by reincorporating in places like Bermuda."

Efforts to contact Mr. Sweeney to explain the tax incentives that encouraged companies to "dodge their tax responsibilities" were unsuccessful yesterday as calls made to the AFL-CIO office in Washington were not returned.

Criticising Mr. Bush and Corporate America, Mr. Sweeney said: "From the President to members of Congress from both parties, elected leaders are using tough words this week to demand a new spirit of corporate responsibility. But rhetoric and calls for companies to police themselves are an inadequate response to the hundreds of thousands of working families who have lost jobs, pensions and health care because the companies they worked for lied to their employees, their investors and the public."

Mr. Sweeney added: "The measure now must be the actions the President and members of Congress are prepared to take to close the gaping loopholes in our laws that foster the hijacking of American business by insiders bent on self-enrichment. Better enforcement of existing laws and new penalties for "bad apples" are not a sufficient answer. The corporate wrongdoing being exposed daily is not the product of a few bad people.

"It is the result of markets that were once well regulated, but now allow short-term pressures to combine with conflicts of interest and unchecked greed to destroy companies, industries and lives."

Mr. Sweeney said responsible CEOs struggled to run a company that respects its employees, investors, customers and its community when its competitors take the low road, and that the crisis in corporate governance demanded rapid, fundamental legal reform.

He then praised proposed Senate bills including the Sarbanes bill on accounting and corporate governance reform, the Leahy-McCain bill on penalties for securities fraud and the Kennedy pension reform bill as important steps that deserve the support of every senator.

However, he said other proposed bills were shams, including the Oxley bill, supported by President Bush and passed by Republicans in the House, which Mr. Sweeney said "does nothing to prevent future Enrons or WorldComs and will actually weaken the nominal investor protections that exist today to hold boards of directors accountable."

Mr. Sweeney also said the proposals made by president Bush only scratch the surface of widespread problems afflicting corporate America. "They fall short of the new rules today's economy so desperately needs, and in suggesting that the problem is simply one of business "ethics and corporate responsibility," they miss the mark," he said.

As important as corporate responsibility was, corporate accountability - not only to shareholders but also to employees, customers and the communities in which they operate - was much more important, added Mr. Sweeney.

Mr. Sweeney then launched an all-out attack on Bush's government and said: "The challenge of credibility on the issue of corporate accountability for President Bush is steep. From his first days in office, he advanced legal and regulatory changes to loosen controls on big corporations. He repealed a Clinton rule that would have made it harder for chronic corporate lawbreakers to get lucrative federal contracts paid for with taxpayer dollars. He pushed to turn back ergonomics health and safety standards to protect workers from corporate negligence. His administration revoked efforts to shut down offshore tax havens and he appointed the chief lobbyist for the accounting industry head of the SEC to police big accounting firms like Arthur Andersen. In the wake of Enron and WorldCom, he's thrown up barriers to reform."

Mr. Sweeney also called for an investigation into vice president Dick Cheney's role in accounting irregularities while CEO of Halliburton and said: "To exert real leadership, the president will not only have to put the weight of his presidency behind serious reforms that go further, he must also insist on an investigation of the irregularities at Halliburton when vice president Cheney was CEO and fully disclose details of his own sale of Harken Energy stock."

Mr. Sweeney concluded his statement: "The challenge of corporate accountability can only be faced when our elected leaders understand that the problem of the crisis of confidence in American business stretches beyond "a few bad apples" to the need to change the rules that are rigged to entrench and enrich CEOs and other insiders at the expense of employees, shareholders, the companies themselves, and the national economy."