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Colorado Coalition
UAW, Environmentalists, Farmers Oppose NAFTA Expansion
In the past month, Colorado UAW leadership, Rocky Mountain Farmers Union,
Sierra Club and other members of the Front Range Fair Trade Coalition
met with Colorado Democratic Reps. Diana DeGette and Mark Udall to discuss
trade issues.
Although the participants came from different constituencies, they spoke
with one voice. They agreed that NAFTA expansion, without a thorough examination
of its consequences, is a bad idea, and that fast track (renamed Presidential
Trade Promotion Authority) as a method for reaching trade agreements is
thoroughly undemocratic.
UAW members involved in the meetings were Earl Larsen, president of the
UAW Colorado CAP Council; Dennis DeMaio, vice president of Local 1981;
Gerry Cox, chair at Local 766; Mike McCallister and Tom Moore, Local 1981.
The Bush administration will be pushing hard in the next few months to
get fast track authority to complete the Free Trade Area of the Americas
agreement. For the past four years, the FTAA has been negotiated in secret.
Government officials and executives from multinational corporations are
the only ones on the inside. Although details remain secret, FTAA will
be a NAFTA expansion, which will include more special privileges for business
and investors and less basic rights for workers and less regard for the
environment.
This labor-community coalition is opposed to expanding NAFTA to the entire
Western Hemisphere because NAFTA has failed in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
Instead of expanding NAFTA, we should study it and determine what has
worked and what has failed.
For example, NAFTA has cost the United States 766,000 jobs, according
to an Economic Policy Institute study, and has turned a trade surplus
with Mexico into a huge deficit. Because of the implicit threats of moving
jobs to Mexico, U.S. workers are inhibited from joining unions and from
seeking wage increases and benefit improvements.
With the ease of moving facilities south, jobs have become less stable.
See www.epinet.org for more details.
Since NAFTA was enacted, the plight of the Mexican people has gotten worse,
not better. In addition, our food safety is threatened by the increase
in imports.
Finally, instead of being cleaned up, the environment along the U.S.-Mexico
border has been further devastated. Rep. DeGette has agreed to oppose
fast track while Rep. Udall is still thinking. Both remain tentative as
to what their positions are on FTAA.
If you need more information, contact Mike McCallister at 303-554-7533
or Tom Moore at tmoore@igc.org
Tom Moore
Local 1981
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