Panama Jack
14th Apr 2005, 02:38
Opposition Grows Against Central America Trade Agreement
Commentary/Analysis, David Bacon,
Pacific News Service, Apr 13, 2005
Editor's Note: Workers in several Central American countries are staunchly resisting their governments' efforts to pass CAFTA, a free-trade agreement modeled on NAFTA. Growing opposition may block the Bush administration from passing the bill in Congress.
PUERTO CORTEZ, Honduras--When the Honduran Congress took up ratification of the Central American Free Trade Agreement last year, over a thousand angry demonstrators filled the streets of Tegucigalpa. Congress ratified CAFTA anyway, but the crowd was so upset that terrified deputies quickly fled.
"We chased them out, and then we went into the chambers ourselves," says Erasmo Flores, president of the Sindicato Nacional de Motoristas de Epuipo Pesado de Honduras (SINAMEQUIPH), the union for Honduras' port truckers. "Then we constituted ourselves as the congress of the true representatives of the Honduran people, and voted to scrap Congress' ratification."
Similar demonstrations have multiplied across Central America. Just weeks ago, police shot into a crowd of protestors in Guatemala, killing one. Meanwhile, the growing controversy has not helped the treaty's main supporter, U.S. President George Bush, to find the votes he needs to pass CAFTA in Washington
While admittedly an act of political theater, the Honduran protest showed how unpopular the agreement is in Central America among workers and farmers. This is quite a change from Mexico, where the promises of then-President Carlos Salinas de Gortari convinced large sections of Mexican society, especially its labor unions, to support the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1991 and '92. While U.S. workers might suffer job losses, Salinas cajoled, Mexican workers would benefit. The country would be come a "first world" economy with first-world living standards.
The truth was bitter. Currency devaluation cost the jobs of a million Mexicans in NAFTA's first year. While U.S. President Bill Clinton bailed out investors threatened by the crash, it came at the cost of Mexico's oil, which had to be used to guarantee the loans instead promoting economic development. Tying hundreds of thousands of low-wage maquiladora jobs to the U.S. economy also made them vulnerable to it. When consumers north of the border stopped buying goods during the 2000-2001 recession, 400,000 border workers were laid off. And export-industry wages, far from rising, remained flat, while prices of milk, tortillas, gasoline, bus fares and most working-class necessities skyrocketed.
But the most devastating effect on workers came from privatization, enforced by NAFTA's mandate to make Mexico more investor-friendly. As ports, railroads, airlines, mines, telephones and many other large national enterprises were sold off, sometimes for just a fraction of their worth, new private owners cut costs by slashing jobs and gutting union contracts. . . . .
Read complete article here (http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=093d44b1b5f7dfcc02792698dfd62a2 8)
Commentary/Analysis, David Bacon,
Pacific News Service, Apr 13, 2005
Editor's Note: Workers in several Central American countries are staunchly resisting their governments' efforts to pass CAFTA, a free-trade agreement modeled on NAFTA. Growing opposition may block the Bush administration from passing the bill in Congress.
PUERTO CORTEZ, Honduras--When the Honduran Congress took up ratification of the Central American Free Trade Agreement last year, over a thousand angry demonstrators filled the streets of Tegucigalpa. Congress ratified CAFTA anyway, but the crowd was so upset that terrified deputies quickly fled.
"We chased them out, and then we went into the chambers ourselves," says Erasmo Flores, president of the Sindicato Nacional de Motoristas de Epuipo Pesado de Honduras (SINAMEQUIPH), the union for Honduras' port truckers. "Then we constituted ourselves as the congress of the true representatives of the Honduran people, and voted to scrap Congress' ratification."
Similar demonstrations have multiplied across Central America. Just weeks ago, police shot into a crowd of protestors in Guatemala, killing one. Meanwhile, the growing controversy has not helped the treaty's main supporter, U.S. President George Bush, to find the votes he needs to pass CAFTA in Washington
While admittedly an act of political theater, the Honduran protest showed how unpopular the agreement is in Central America among workers and farmers. This is quite a change from Mexico, where the promises of then-President Carlos Salinas de Gortari convinced large sections of Mexican society, especially its labor unions, to support the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1991 and '92. While U.S. workers might suffer job losses, Salinas cajoled, Mexican workers would benefit. The country would be come a "first world" economy with first-world living standards.
The truth was bitter. Currency devaluation cost the jobs of a million Mexicans in NAFTA's first year. While U.S. President Bill Clinton bailed out investors threatened by the crash, it came at the cost of Mexico's oil, which had to be used to guarantee the loans instead promoting economic development. Tying hundreds of thousands of low-wage maquiladora jobs to the U.S. economy also made them vulnerable to it. When consumers north of the border stopped buying goods during the 2000-2001 recession, 400,000 border workers were laid off. And export-industry wages, far from rising, remained flat, while prices of milk, tortillas, gasoline, bus fares and most working-class necessities skyrocketed.
But the most devastating effect on workers came from privatization, enforced by NAFTA's mandate to make Mexico more investor-friendly. As ports, railroads, airlines, mines, telephones and many other large national enterprises were sold off, sometimes for just a fraction of their worth, new private owners cut costs by slashing jobs and gutting union contracts. . . . .
Read complete article here (http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=093d44b1b5f7dfcc02792698dfd62a2 8)