Weigh in on CAFTA
I’m going to post this dispatch from Jobs with Justice, even though they just end up supporting the very party which defeats labor from the inside year after year. I’ll take them seriously when they don’t unquestioningly get out the vote for people who voted for NAFTA to begin with, but at least they’re on the right side of this issue:
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If we don’t stop CAFTA this week, we will be stuck with a job-killing trade deal just like NAFTA.
CAFTA—the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade
Agreement—would extend NAFTA’s disastrous job
loss, workers’ rights abuses and environmental damage
throughout Central America.
Your
U.S. representative needs to hear from you NOW. Urge him or her
to oppose CAFTA by calling this number toll-free:
1-800-718-1008
Tell your Representative:
“I strongly urge you to oppose
CAFTA. CAFTA is based on the failed NAFTA and will expand
NAFTA’s legacy of lost jobs, low wages and trampled
workers’ rights to six more countries.”
Just like NAFTA, CAFTA does not include meaningful
protections of workers’ rights—but it gives trade
breaks to countries that violate workers’ rights.
Highlight these points when you call your representative’s
office:
- CAFTA is based on the failed NAFTA, and it will expand
NAFTA’s legacy of lost jobs, low wages and trampled
workers’ rights to six more countries.
- Under NAFTA and other failed U.S. trade policies, the U.S.
trade deficit reached a record $600 billion last year as
American companies relocated to take advantage of lower wages,
weaker worker and environmental protections and improved access
to the U.S. market. Even companies that didn’t destroy
jobs used the threat of leaving the United States to break union
organizing drives and win concessions at the bargaining
table.
- The NAFTA-related trade deficit cost U.S. workers nearly
900,000 net jobs through 2002—and the trade deficit only
has grown since then, despite predictions by NAFTA
supporters in the 1990s that the agreement would generate
trade surpluses for another 15 years.
We can’t afford another NAFTA. Please call your
representative now and urge him or her to oppose CAFTA.
Your U.S. representative needs to hear from you NOW. Urge him or
her to oppose CAFTA by calling this toll-free number:
1-800-718-1008
Thank you for working to stop another job-killing trade deal.
In solidarity,
Jobs with Justice
July 25, 2005
