Time to Choose: Good Jobs and Strong Communities or NAFTA Times Ten? Workers and the Free Trade Area of the Americas. 1.

Transcription

1 Time to Choose: Good Jobs and Strong Communities or NAFTA Times Ten? Workers and the Free Trade Area of the Americas 1. Introduction In the early 1990s, the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the United States, Canada and Mexico was a subject of heated debate. Supporters claimed the agreement would increase U.S. exports, create more jobs for American workers and help spur economic development in Mexico. Now, nearly 10 years after NAFTA took effect, few of the promised gains for workers have materialized. Instead, the U.S. trade deficit with Canada and Mexico is almost 10 times bigger than it was before NAFTA, American workers have lost hundreds of thousands of jobs and real wages in Mexico have fallen, while poverty is up. Despite NAFTA s failure, the Bush administration is working with governments from around the hemisphere to expand NAFTA to 34 countries instead of just three. The new agreement is called the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), and negotiations involve every country in the Western Hemisphere except Cuba. The FTAA with 800 million people and $13 trillion in combined GDP would be the world s largest free trade zone in 2005, when it is scheduled to be implemented. It would grant extensive new rights to multinational corporations but provide no comparable guarantees for workers rights, public health and safety or the environment. The FTAA will impact workers and communities throughout the Americas, and yet there has been little public debate over it. Workers have had little meaningful input into the negotiations. While unions and other civil society groups have submitted numerous substantive proposals to FTAA negotiators, none of these proposals is reflected in the draft text of the FTAA. Big Business, on the other hand, has had privileged access to negotiators to demand their own wish list be included in the FTAA. As a result, the draft agreement looks almost exactly like NAFTA. When the FTAA comes to Congress in 2005, Congress will have to vote the whole agreement up or down under Fast Track rules, which prohibit amendments and cut short the time for debate. The future of our hemisphere is too important to leave to a small group of trade negotiators who have not learned any lessons from the failures of current trade policies. Workers and their allies are mobilizing across the hemisphere to defeat the FTAA and to promote our own vision of trade that creates jobs and protects workers rights and the environment. This paper discusses some of the major threats that the FTAA poses to workers and their families and introduces the AFL-CIO s two-year campaign to defeat the FTAA. II. Executive Summary Why Workers Should Care About the FTAA The FTAA as currently written would destroy jobs, encourage privatization, increase corporate control and worsen inequality throughout the hemisphere. The FTAA will not benefit workers, small farmers and the unemployed it will AFL-CIO th St., N.W. Washington, DC

2 benefit the large companies that want to ship more work out of the United States and further undermine the ability of governments in the hemisphere to regulate in the public interest. There are many good reasons for workers to oppose the FTAA: More outsourcing and factory closures would destroy good jobs. The United States has lost more than three quarters of a million actual and potential jobs under NAFTA. Employers have used the threat of moving jobs under NAFTA to keep unions out and hold down wages. The FTAA will lead to more job loss and more employer threats. Workers rights could be violated with impunity. The FTAA will pit workers in the hemisphere against one another in a desperate contest for jobs based on low wages, poor working conditions and weak workers rights. When U.S. companies moved to Mexico under NAFTA, they were free to pay poverty wages and fire workers who tried to form independent unions, dragging down standards for all workers. So far, trade negotiators have refused to even discuss protecting workers rights in the FTAA. Corporations could challenge U.S. laws in secret tribunals. Companies have used NAFTA s rules to challenge laws protecting the environment, health and safety and consumers, sometimes winning millions of dollars from governments. The FTAA would expand these rules to even more investors, putting a variety of important laws at risk. Public services could be undermined. Companies are using trade and investment rules to push for privatized services. Under the FTAA, these rules could cover such public services in the United States as health care, education and utilities. Government purchasing policies could not be used to protect workers rights and union jobs. NAFTA barred the inclusion of social, environmental or labor criteria in federal government contracts. If these rules are extended to state and local governments under the FTAA, project labor agreements and living wage laws could be challenged. Migrant rights would remain unprotected and more guest workers would be vulnerable to employer abuse. NAFTA drove many Mexicans off their family farms to search for work in the United States, where employers violate their rights frequently. The FTAA would make our current immigration system even more unfair by giving employers more freedom to exploit guest workers and doing nothing to protect immigrant workers rights. Economic development would remain out of reach for poor countries. NAFTA failed to create a healthy economy in Mexico. The FTAA would do very little to help other Latin American countries achieve sustainable and equitable growth. There Is a Better Way to Trade Increased trade and investment among the countries of the Western Hemisphere could benefit workers, but not if it is based on NAFTA. Trade agreements must be reoriented radically to create jobs and protect rights. To do this, trade agreements must guarantee: Respect for core workers rights, the environment and human rights; Protection for industries hit by sudden import surges and unfair trade practices; Regulation of Big Business to protect consumers, workers and the environment; Protection from privatization and support for such key public services as health care, education and utilities; A fair system of immigration rules that protects the rights of all immigrant workers; Sound financial regulation, debt relief and development assistance for poor countries so they can invest in human needs and grow; and Meaningful access and input to trade negotiations and dispute settlement processes for workers and the public not just for trade lawyers and Big Business. The AFL-CIO has been working with the Inter- American Regional Organization of Workers (ORIT) and with the Hemispheric Social Alliance, a broad coalition of union, environmental, development, religious, indigenous, women s and family farm organizations from all over the Americas, to articulate this alternative vision for just economic integration that stimulates broadly shared growth and protects fundamental rights. 2 AFL-CIO th St., N.W. Washington, DC 20006

3 The AFL-CIO s Stop FTAA Campaign On Feb. 27, 2003, the Executive Council of the AFL-CIO launched a two-year campaign to defeat the FTAA. The campaign will focus on two key opportunities: a meeting of FTAA trade ministers from around the hemisphere Nov , 2003, in Miami and the 2004 elections. During the Stop FTAA campaign, the AFL-CIO and its affiliates will: Develop and disseminate popular materials on the FTAA and coordinate with allies to educate union members on the FTAA; Ask American union members to join the millions of others in the hemisphere expressing their opposition to the FTAA by signing hundreds of thousands of ballots against the FTAA to be delivered at the trade ministerial in Miami; Work with our global allies and community groups in Miami to highlight international solidarity and opposition to the FTAA at the November ministerial and demonstrate our shared vision for a more just alternative; Focus public scrutiny on the big corporations pushing the FTAA and expose their attacks on worker, environmental and consumer protections through free trade rules; and Work with members of Congress, state and local officials and political candidates to build broad-based political support for an alternative to the FTAA and to democratize the debate on trade leading up to the 2004 elections. What You Can Do Join the AFL-CIO s Stop FTAA campaign today! Educate your co-workers and local union members about the FTAA. A brochure and other educational resources are available at Participate in the ballot campaign. Cast your vote against the FTAA and help collect thousands more votes in your community. We will deliver your ballots to trade ministers in Miami. Download a worksite flier on the FTAA from the AFL-CIO s working families toolkit website at toolkit.com. You can customize fliers to your issues and distribute them at your worksite to promote the Stop FTAA campaign. Join us in Miami in November 2003 to deliver ballots to trade ministers. We will show our opposition to the FTAA and our support for a fairer alternative for workers in the Americas. Urge your elected officials and local candidates to learn about the FTAA and ask them to support a different model of trade that creates jobs and protects workers rights. III. Why Workers Should Care About the FTAA The FTAA as currently written would destroy jobs, encourage privatization, increase corporate control and worsen inequality throughout the hemisphere. The FTAA will not benefit workers, small farmers and the unemployed it will benefit the large companies that want to ship more work out of the United States and weaken the ability of governments to regulate their behavior all over the hemisphere: The FTAA s combination of unregulated trade and more freedom for companies puts high-quality manufacturing jobs which form the backbone of our economy at risk. The FTAA threatens jobs outside of manufacturing as well, creating insecurity for teachers, nurses, engineers, janitors, construction workers and government workers. The FTAA will pit workers in the hemisphere against one another in a desperate contest for jobs based on low wages, poor working conditions and weak workers rights. The FTAA will increase the power of Big Business to push for privatization of public services and to challenge laws that are important to workers and their families. Below are seven reasons for workers to oppose the FTAA. 1. More outsourcing and factory closures would destroy good jobs. When we buy more than we sell internationally, our trade deficit grows and we lose jobs. Trade agreements have increased imports, worsened our trade deficit and destroyed jobs. Under NAFTA, our trade deficit AFL-CIO th St., N.W. Washington, DC

4 with Canada and Mexico exploded from just $9 billion in 1993 to $87 billion in This booming NAFTA trade deficit means lost jobs for American workers: The U.S. Department of Labor has certified more than a half-million workers who have lost their jobs because of NAFTA. The very same companies that promoted NAFTA as an engine for job growth laid off many workers. Using a different methodology, the Economic Policy Institute estimates the growth in the trade deficit with our NAFTA partners has resulted in a net loss of 766,030 actual and potential U.S. jobs. The Economic Policy Institute found job loss in all 50 states, with the losses concentrated in the manufacturing sector, in which pay and benefits tend to be higher than in services occupations. Not all workers have been impacted equally by NAFTA job loss. The U.S. General Accounting Office found that, of the workers qualifying for NAFTA trade adjustment assistance in 1999, 47 percent were Latino and 66 percent were women. The FTAA only would encourage more outsourcing and job shifts, thus increasing our trade deficit and destroying more good jobs. Trade agreements like NAFTA not only have increased our trade deficit, they also have required the United States to weaken its domestic trade laws. These domestic trade laws are the last line of defense for workers hit by imports, and allow the government to take action to protect jobs from import surges and unfair trade practices. The draft text of the FTAA contains drastic proposals that could eviscerate U.S. trade laws and make it much more difficult to use those laws to protect American industries, workers and farmers from unfair trade practices. Even when employers are not shutting down factories, they use the threat of moving to squelch union organizing drives and erode wages and bargaining power. These threats became more common under NAFTA. A Cornell University study showed that workers trying to organize unions won union elections only 24 percent of the time when employers made threats to close the plant and move to another country, compared with a win rate of 51 percent in plants without threats. The FTAA will lead to more of the same threats, giving employers a new tool for busting unions and keeping down pay and benefits. Box A. Who Lost Jobs Under NAFTA? Top states and manufacturing industries ranked by net actual and potential jobs lost to NAFTA, Source: Economic Policy Institute. State Jobs Lost Industry Jobs Lost California 82,354 Electronics 108,773 Michigan 46,817 Transport (autos, parts, 97,128 New York 46,210 aerospace, etc.) Texas 41,067 Misc. manufacturing 95,606 Ohio 37,694 Apparel 66,838 Illinois 37,422 Lumber 48,306 Pennsylvania 35,262 Fabricated metal 28,942 North Carolina 31,909 Furniture 24,195 Indiana 31,110 Textiles 16,420 Florida 27,631 Metals (steel, etc.) 16,107 Tennessee 25,419 Optics and instruments 10,920 Total Jobs Lost: 766,030 4 AFL-CIO th St., N.W. Washington, DC 20006

5 Manufacturing workers are not the only ones likely to lose jobs under the FTAA. Companies that provide data processing, software development and call center services increasingly are sourcing their work from other countries, leading to job cuts in the United States. State and local governments facing budget constraints also are contracting out this kind of work to countries in which wages are lower and protections for workers rights are weaker. The FTAA would make it easier to ship these jobs overseas, with no safeguards for workers rights. 2. Workers rights could be violated with impunity. NAFTA failed to guarantee that workers fundamental human rights would be respected in the three North American countries. Companies in Mexico have continued to suppress independent trade unions, denying workers in Mexico their fair share of the benefits of increased trade. Negotiators added a weak side agreement on labor to NAFTA to gain political support, but this side agreement has been a disappointment for workers in Canada, Mexico and the United States. Of all the cases brought under the side agreement, few have led to any concrete improvements in countries labor laws or practices. One important case brought under the NAFTA labor side agreement dealt with violations of workers right to form an independent union at a Sony plant in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. The company intimidated and fired workers attempting to organize a union; management conspired with local authorities to ensure that companyfriendly union leaders were elected; a peaceful demonstration by workers was violently broken up by police; and workers trying to organize an independent union were improperly denied union registration by the Mexican government. The officials hearing the NAFTA case agreed there were serious questions about workers ability to exercise their right to form a union, and that there were weaknesses and inconsistencies in Mexico s enforcement of its own labor laws. But the only remedy was a consultation between labor ministers and a series of public seminars no penalties were imposed on the Mexican government or on Sony. The workers never were rehired and no union was formed. Box B. Workers Rights in the Western Hemisphere Sources: U.S. State Department, Human Rights Watch and the Worker Rights Consortium. Country Colombia Ecuador El Salvador Guatemala United States Workers Rights Violations Colombia leads the world in assassinations of trade unionists a trade unionist is killed nearly every other day for his or her union activities, and 1,875 have been killed since Many other trade unionists are threatened, kidnapped or disappeared for trying to organize unions. A 2000 UNICEF report estimated that almost half of the children between the ages of 10 and 17 work. Human Rights Watch found children working long hours on banana plantations without the proper safety equipment to protect them from pesticides. Employers routinely use harassment and intimidation to keep unions out. Union organizers are fired and blacklisted in export processing zones. A recent Worker Rights Consortium report found use of such blacklists at a factory manufacturing for the American company Lands' End Inc. In export processing zones, employers require women to reveal whether they are pregnant as a condition of employment, either through questions on job applications, in interviews or through physical examinations. Women also face sexual harassment in the zones. Employers intimidate and harass union organizers and can delay union recognition for years by abusing ineffective labor laws. Undocumented workers especially are vulnerable to abuse and cannot receive back pay or reinstatement if they are fired illegally for union activities. AFL-CIO th St., N.W. Washington, DC

6 The FTAA would allow such violations of workers rights to continue in the rest of the hemisphere, speeding up the race to the bottom and dragging down standards for workers everywhere. The big winners from the FTAA would be the multinational companies that can squeeze more profits out of workers, pay poverty wages and abuse workers rights with impunity. Even weak rules on workers rights, such as those in the NAFTA side agreement, are not on the table in the FTAA in fact, FTAA negotiators refuse to discuss workers rights at all. 3. Corporations could challenge U.S. laws in secret tribunals. Companies have used NAFTA to challenge laws protecting the environment, public health and consumers, arguing that these laws hurt their profits. When a Mexican state did not allow the Metalclad Corp. to build a waste recycling plant on a local ecological preserve, Metalclad used NAFTA to successfully demand $16 million in compensation from the Mexican government. In another case, a company called Methanex Corp. is demanding almost $1 billion from the United States because California passed a law banning a harmful fuel additive that Methanex produces. These cases often are decided in secret, and local communities and workers cannot appear before tribunals to argue their side of the case. Under NAFTA rules, governments must weigh the potential costs of compensating foreign companies against their need to protect public health and safety, preserve the environment, prevent fraud and safeguard workers rights. The FTAA would extend these rules to even more investors, putting more public interest laws at risk. Governments also have used trade rules to challenge other countries regulatory standards. Under NAFTA, even though the United States cannot ensure all Mexican trucks meet U.S. safety standards, it still must open its borders to truck traffic. At the World Trade Organization, governments agreed not to create any standards for the accounting profession that were more burdensome than necessary. This allows trade tribunals to decide whether government regulations are too burdensome on foreign businesses. Like NAFTA s investment tribunals, most of these cases are decided behind closed doors, with no access for unions and other interested members of the public. Under FTAA rules, professional standards that present obstacles to foreign companies or workers could be challenged, even if the standards apply equally to U.S. companies and professionals. These rules could be used to erode professional standards in accounting, engineering, teaching, health care, building trades and any number of other professions. 4. Public services could be undermined. Multinational companies already are using trade and investment rules to challenge important Box C. Selected NAFTA Investment Cases Source: Case Ethyl v. Canada Metalclad v. Mexico Loewen v. USA S.D. Myers v. Canada Methanex v. USA UPS v. Canada Baird v. USA Thunderbird v. Mexico Issue Environmental regulation bans the use of MMT, a gasoline additive Town refuses to grant construction permit for a toxic waste dump Mississippi jury decides that Loewen funeral homes are guilty of fraud Canada bans the export of PCBs under an environmental agreement California environmental law phases out the use of MTBE, a fuel additive Subsidies to the Canadian public postal service U.S. rules do not allow the underwater disposal of toxic and nuclear waste Regulation and closing of gambling facilities in Mexico Outcome Canada ends ban, pays Ethyl Co. $13 million Metalclad Corp. wins $16 million from Mexico Pending Loewen is asking for $725 million S.D. Myers Inc. wins $20 million from Canada Pending Methanex Corp. is asking for $970 million Pending UPS is asking for $160 million Pending Baird is asking for $13 billion Pending Thunderbird is asking for $100 million 6 AFL-CIO th St., N.W. Washington, DC 20006

7 protections for our public services and to push privatization. When Enron Corp. took over the public water system in Buenos Aires, Argentina, rates went through the roof, dirty water came from the taps and the water was shut off. When the government took the water system back into public hands, Enron turned to international investment rules to sue for compensation. The United States already has used World Trade Organization rules to lock in the privatization of telecommunications services in many developing countries. If a country decides to reverse a failed privatization, these trade rules require it to provide compensation to other countries. Community activists in Atlanta recently won a huge victory when they convinced the city to revoke a deal allowing a private foreign company, Suez, to run the local water system. For now, the company cannot use trade rules to challenge the city s decision. The FTAA could change all of that. The next community trying to protect its services from privatization could see its efforts overturned by a company using FTAA rules. The FTAA s rules on privatization could cover important public services in the United States, allowing private companies to challenge public support and protection for our utilities, public transit, postal services, sanitation, health care and education. Another threat to our public services comes from the loss of manufacturing jobs under the FTAA. When factories move away and jobs disappear, state and local governments lose an important source of tax revenue. A 2001 U.S. General Accounting Office study of six communities impacted by plant closures because of NAFTA found that: All the communities experienced shortterm increases in their unemployment rates (some by more than 100 percent), with the number of job losses overwhelming local services in one community; In all cases, local economies lost wage income, business tax revenues and sales by firms that supplied or subcontracted to the closed plants ; and Many of the laid-off workers able to find work received lower pay in their new jobs, keeping the tax base below its previous level. State and local governments already are in the midst of their worst fiscal crisis since World War II. FTAA job loss only will cause more budget shortfalls and increase pressure to cut public programs and slash pay and benefits for government workers. Box D. Procurement Laws at Risk Under the FTAA Each of the following government procurement rules could be challenged under the FTAA: Project labor agreements; Davis-Bacon rules and other prevailing wage rules; Living wage laws for janitors, home health care workers and others; Rules barring procurement from countries that repress human rights, like the anti-apartheid procurement codes of the 1980s; Laws that favor in-house bids from current employees and their unions; Requirements that private bidders not lower wages or benefits to win a contract; Rules that prohibit contractors that have violated environmental, labor or other laws from winning public contracts; Laws that prohibit the contracting out of a service where the likely outcome would be the creation of a private monopoly; and Regulations that favor the procurement of goods that contain a certain percentage of recycled material or have other environmental value. AFL-CIO th St., N.W. Washington, DC

8 5. Government purchasing policies could not be used to protect workers rights and union jobs. NAFTA rules only allow governments to consider cost and quality not social, labor or environmental criteria in their purchasing and contracting decisions. When President Clinton ordered the federal government to stop using taxpayer dollars to buy goods made with the worst forms of child labor in 1999, he had to exclude Mexico and Canada from the order because these kinds of protections are not allowed under NAFTA. The European Union used similar rules at the World Trade Organization to challenge Massachusetts decision not to do business with companies operating in Burma, where a military government uses forced labor in public works projects. The FTAA could expand these rules to more state governments, undermining a broad array of purchasing policies designed to protect jobs, prevent poorly planned privatization schemes and safeguard workers rights, human rights and the environment. 6. Migrant rights would remain unprotected and more guest workers would be vulnerable to employer abuse. NAFTA protected the rights of companies to move freely across borders, but did nothing to protect the rights of immigrant workers. NAFTA s failure to create stable, shared development in Mexico forced many workers in Mexico to leave their homes and their families in search of a way to make a living in the United States. In the United States, employers exploit migrants undocumented status to pay poverty wages, ignore dangerous working conditions and threaten workers with deportation if they try to form a union. This unfair system drags down working conditions for all workers, migrant and native born alike. The FTAA, like NAFTA, will do nothing to ensure the creation of quality jobs in workers home countries and contains no protections for immigrant workers rights. At the same time that NAFTA turned a blind eye to the needs of immigrant workers, it gave employers more ability to abuse temporary guest workers: American employers already take advantage of weak immigration and employment laws to hire temporary workers from overseas to avoid raising pay and benefits or investing in training for all workers. NAFTA went beyond U.S. existing laws to allow hospitals to hire nurses on temporary visas with few protections for the nurses rights, undercutting working conditions for all nurses. A new free trade agreement with Chile expands this temporary visa program to cover any job that requires a bachelor s degree and even some that do not. If these rules are included in the FTAA, new temporary visas could be available for a wide range of occupations in which there is no domestic labor shortage. Rules governing employer abuse of these visas could be significantly weakened, and guest workers themselves could be the ones responsible for ensuring their rights will be respected. 7. Economic development would remain out of reach for poor countries. The United States cannot trade on an equal footing with other countries when those countries are not able to grow and prosper. Workers in the United States cannot hope to export products when workers in other countries cannot buy them because they are mired in poverty and must get by on subsistence wages. NAFTA hurt workers on both sides of the border by failing to create stable and shared economic development in Mexico. NAFTA neither helped alleviate Mexico s large external debts nor enabled the Mexican government to control financial speculation. The 1995 peso crisis hit ordinary working Mexicans hard, and Mexico suffered a severe economic crisis. Real wages in Mexico now are lower than they were before NAFTA came into effect, and poverty levels are higher. NAFTA s rules made the situation even worse in the countryside, where family farmers could not compete with cheap, subsidized farm exports flooding in from U.S. agribusiness. Many workers from rural areas have migrated to work in the sweatshops along the border or in the United States, places where their rights are not protected fully. Pollution levels in Mexico are up and the border region poses severe environmental risks. The FTAA would lead to more of the same in the rest of the hemisphere. FTAA rules would allow debt burdens to continue to soar, encourage more privatization of essential services and more financial speculation and create no safety nets for workers, farmers or the poor. The FTAA contains no specific measures to stimulate broadbased development, thus increasing risks of poverty, dislocation and instability for all workers in the region. 8 AFL-CIO th St., N.W. Washington, DC 20006

9 IV. There Is a Better Way to Trade Increased trade and investment among the countries of the Western Hemisphere could benefit workers, but not if it is based on NAFTA. Trade agreements must be reoriented radically to create jobs and protect rights. To do this, trade agreements must incorporate the elements outlined below: Respect for core workers rights, the environment and human rights. Trade agreements must incorporate enforceable guarantees for fundamental workers rights freedom of association and the right to organize and bargain collectively, elimination of child labor, a ban on forced labor and a prohibition on discrimination in employment in their core. Strong protections for the environment and human rights also must be included. Protection for industries hit by sudden import surges and unfair trade practices. Trade agreements must not undermine countries ability to use their own trade remedy laws to protect workers, industries and farmers. Trade agreements must include equitable and transparent market access rules that allow for effective protection against import surges and unfair trade practices. Trade agreements must put an end to the massive and unfair trade distorting subsidies we grant to agribusiness at the expense of family farmers. Regulation of Big Business to protect consumers, workers and the environment. Corporations should not be allowed to challenge our laws in secret. Trade rules should contain broad exclusions allowing governments the leeway they need to regulate corporate behavior to protect the public interest and promote economic development. Protection from privatization and support for such key public services as health care, education and utilities. Measures designed to protect our public services should be exempt from challenge under trade rules. Trade agreements also should allow governments to use their purchasing policies to protect jobs, prevent poorly planned privatization schemes and safeguard workers rights, human rights and the environment. A fair system of immigration rules that protects the rights of all immigrant workers. Trade agreements should not contain any commitments on temporary guest worker visas these visa programs must be reformed fundamentally to protect workers rights and preserve sound working conditions. Trade agreements must include enforceable protections for the rights of both immigrant and nonimmigrant workers. Workers who are undocumented and who have ties to their jobs and communities should be allowed to adjust their legal status. Measures to ensure that poor countries can invest in human needs and grow. Trade agreements must allow governments to regulate financial speculation and must contain measures to address the possibility of massive currency devaluations. Trade agreements should include debt relief and development assistance measures to allow countries to invest in health, education, infrastructure and social safety nets for their people. Transparency and civil society participation. Workers and the public not just trade lawyers and Big Business must have meaningful access and input to trade negotiations and dispute settlement processes. Negotiating texts should be made public at regular intervals and Congress should not have to vote on trade agreements under Fast Track rules. The AFL-CIO has been working with ORIT and with the Hemispheric Social Alliance, a broad coalition of union, environmental, development, religious, indigenous, women s and family farm organizations from all over the Americas, to articulate this alternative vision for just economic integration that stimulates broadly shared growth and protects fundamental rights. Though these policy recommendations have been forwarded to FTAA negotiators on a number of occasions, none of them is reflected in the draft FTAA text. The AFL-CIO is committed not only to defeating an FTAA based on the failed NAFTA model, but also to working with our allies from around the hemisphere to demand international economic policies that embody our shared principles. AFL-CIO th St., N.W. Washington, DC

10 V. The AFL-CIO s Stop FTAA Campaign Big Business is lobbying hard for the FTAA, but workers groups and allies throughout the Americas are coming together to counter corporate power and to stop the FTAA. On Feb. 27, 2003, the AFL-CIO Executive Council launched a two-year campaign to defeat the FTAA. The campaign will focus on two key opportunities. Firstly, on Nov , 2003, trade ministers of the hemisphere are to meet in Miami to launch the final round of FTAA negotiations. The AFL- CIO will be there with community groups from Miami and allies from throughout the hemisphere to make sure Big Business is not the only voice trade ministers hear. Secondly, in 2004, U.S. voters again will elect a president and Congress, who will decide whether to approve the FTAA in Leading up to the ministerial and the 2004 elections, the AFL-CIO and its affiliates will be educating union members about the FTAA through a ballot campaign. This campaign is just one part of the Hemispheric Social Alliance s larger popular consultation campaign on the FTAA going on all over the Americas 10 million people already have voted against the FTAA in Brazil and thousands of votes against the FTAA are being collected in Mexico. All of these ballots will be delivered to trade ministers in Miami in November Ballots are being collected at a variety of educational events including speaking tours and town hall meetings throughout the United States. The AFL-CIO also is creating targeted educational materials for our members and launching a Stop FTAA website at Throughout the campaign the federation will focus attention on the role of corporations in the push for the FTAA and will highlight the views of workers and other social movements throughout the hemisphere opposing the FTAA. Finally, through the AFL-CIO issues mobilization structure, we will work with Congress, state and local officials and political candidates to build broad-based political support for an alternative to the FTAA and to democratize the debate on trade in the 2004 elections. VI. What You Can Do Join the AFL-CIO s Stop FTAA campaign today: Educate your co-workers and local union members about the FTAA. A popular brochure and other educational resources are available at Participate in the ballot campaign. Cast your vote against the FTAA and help collect thousands more votes in your community. We will deliver your ballots to trade ministers in Miami in November Download a worksite flier on the FTAA from the AFL-CIO s working families toolkit website at You can customize fliers to your issues and distribute them at your worksite to promote the Stop FTAA campaign. Join us in Miami from Nov to deliver our ballots to trade ministers. We will show our opposition to the FTAA and our support for a fairer alternative for workers in the Americas. Urge your elected officials and local candidates to learn about the FTAA and ask them to support a different model of trade that creates jobs and protects workers rights. 10 AFL-CIO th St., N.W. Washington, DC 20006