OK'ing trade agreement
would be disaster for jobs, workers' rights
July 26, 2005
BY RON GETTELFINGER
The Central American Free Trade Agreement is supposed
to be a terrific deal for people like Juan Lopez.
Lopez was a community activist from the village of Xemal,
Guatemala. And the corporate-friendly investment rules mandated by CAFTA
will create a surge of prosperity in Guatemala and throughout Central
America, according to President George W. Bush and other CAFTA  proponents.
Even if this scenario comes to pass, it will not do Juan
Lopez any good. He was shot to death by the Guatemalan army on March 15,
when soldiers fired into a crowd of teachers, workers and farmers who
were protesting against CAFTA.
The demonstration during which Lopez lost his life was
part of a wave of protests throughout Guatemala, El Salvador and Costa
Rica in recent months. Here in the United State, union members, environmentalists
and human rights activists have joined with our colleagues in Central
America to oppose this badly flawed trade agreement.
CAFTA is patterned closely on NAFTA -- the North American
Free Trade Agreement between Mexico, Canada and the United States -- which
took effect 11 years ago. Just as with CAFTA, we were promised increased
jobs, prosperity and economic growth throughout the continent.
It didn't turn out that way.
Under NAFTA, the U.S. trade deficit with Canada and Mexico
has exploded from $9 billion in 1993 to more than $111 billion in 2004.
Hundreds of thousands of U.S. manufacturing jobs have been lost, and there
is fierce pressure to lower the wages and benefits for those jobs that
remain.
Time and again, employers tell members of our union that unless we accept
pay and benefit cuts, they will move work to Mexico.
Did Mexican workers benefit by winning the jobs lost by
U.S. workers? Hardly.
Since NAFTA took effect, real wages in Mexico have fallen
and poverty has increased. Small-scale farmers, swamped by imports from
U.S. agribusiness, have been forced off their land and into Mexico's cities
and industrial zones. But there aren't enough jobs to go around -- and
those that are available don't pay very well.
With poverty and economic dislocation on the rise, many
Mexicans feel they have no choice but to make the desperate, illegal journey
north to the United States in search of work. The flow of illegal immigration
to the U.S. from Mexico has doubled since 1994.
Having seen the disastrous results in Mexico, citizens
in Central America are understandably skeptical about claims that CAFTA
will improve their lives.
If the agreement does take effect, companies that have
already transferred work from the United States to Mexico will be under
more pressure to move to Central American countries. But Central American
workers won't have a fair chance to enjoy the fruits of economic growth,
because wages in the region are uniformly low, and protections for workers'
rights can be almost nonexistent.
If jobs in Mexico are moved to Central America, Mexico,
in turn, will compete for even more jobs now located in the United States.
The end result is that workers throughout the hemisphere will be pushed
into a merciless competition to see who can perform the most productive
labor for the lowest possible wage.
In our global economy, the problems of poverty, low wages
and lack of respect for workers' rights cannot be isolated in any one
country. Not long ago, for example, workers in a nonunion U.S. auto parts
plant told us that they had been forced to work seven days a week, 12
hours a day, for three straight months.
Ninety days of 12-hour days without a single day off!
This is the true face of NAFTA and CAFTA-style globalization:
Not only are U.S. jobs being siphoned away into sweatshops overseas, but
we are now faced with sweatshop conditions here at home.
President Bush is still short of the majority needed to
approve CAFTA in the U.S. House of Representatives. Rep. Bill Thomas of
California, head of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, recently told
a closed-door meeting of the House Republican caucus that the federal
highway bill
will not be voted on until after CAFTA -- meaning that lawmakers who want
to see roads, highways and bridges in their districts will be forced to
support the administration's misguided trade agenda.
Similar bare-knuckled tactics have been used to ratify
previous unpopular trade pacts. But U.S. Reps. Dave Camp, Peter Hoekstra
and Joe Schwarz, all Republicans of Michigan, have not yet given into
such pressure. They are among the few members of Congress still undecided
on
CAFTA and are to be commended for taking the time to seriously evaluate
this critical issue.
As they decide their vote on CAFTA in the coming days,
I hope these elected officials will remember what Juan Lopez was fighting
for on the day he died: fairness for workers and farmers. Protection for
the environment. And cooperation across borders so we can raise living
standards, not lower them.
|
