For Release: Friday, April 20, 2001

UAW Calls on President Bush to Reject NAFTA as Model for Free Trade Area of the Americas

UAW President Stephen P. Yokich today called on President Bush and the 33 other heads of state participating in the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City this weekend to reject NAFTA as the model for the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).

"The results from seven years of NAFTA are in, and it is clear that NAFTA has failed to deliver on its backers' promises that it would create good jobs, raise workers' living standards, and improve public health and the environment," Yokich said.

"Hundreds of thousands of American, Canadian, and Mexican workers have lost their jobs as a direct result of NAFTA, and U.S. employers routinely use the threat of moving jobs to Mexico to kill union organizing drives or force workers to take concessions on wages and benefits," Yokich continued.

"Employment in the maquiladora plants of northern Mexico has soared to over 1.3 million workers since NAFTA was adopted," Yokich noted. "But Mexican workers have seen their real wages drop, poverty and inequality in their country worsen, and many of their cities and villages turn into environmental nightmares.

"NAFTA's glaring failures have forced George W. Bush to try out a new sales pitch for the FTAA - that free trade strengthens democratic values and democratic institutions," Yokich said, referring to President Bush's recent address to the Organization of American States.

"But, while Bush won't admit it, the hard truth is that NAFTA has seriously weakened the ability of democratically-elected municipal, state, provincial, and national governments to protect the interests of their citizens," Yokich said, pointing to the investment section of NAFTA (Chapter 11), which gives corporations (but not citizens) the right to directly sue governments.

"Chapter 11 of NAFTA is an outrageous shift of power away from citizens and their governments to multinational corporations," he added.

"We can expect to hear a lot of lofty rhetoric from President Bush this weekend about how a Free Trade Area of the Americas is essential to strengthening democracy in the Western Hemisphere," Yokich commented. "But those words will ring hollow to the millions of workers, small farmers and businesspeople, students, environmentalists, human rights and religious activists, and other concerned citizens who have been denied a voice in the FTAA negotiations, as reflected in the complete absence of worker rights and environmental standards in the draft FTAA text.

"The highest priority of President Bush and the other heads of state at the Summit of the Americas must be to develop a path of sustainable economic development that improves living standards and our environment while reducing economic inequality and poverty. And that can only be done by putting the interests and rights of ordinary citizens first," Yokich said.