hese
resolutions passed the International Executive Board of the ILWU.
ILWU Statement of Policy on the Free Trade Area
of the Americas
The free trade policies of NAFTA and the WTO have already wreaked
their damage-exporting well-paying union industrial jobs from the
First World and turning the Third World into one big maquiladora.
The globalizing policies of the International Monetary Fund and
the World Bank have already extended the harm of the free market
to some of the farthest corners of the world. But instead of
satisfying international capital's greed, it has only whetted its
appetite for more.
On April 18-22, 2001 representatives from all 34 countries in
North America, South America, Central America and the
Caribbean-excluding Cuba-will meet in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
to begin formally establishing new free trade policies among their
nations, devising the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
Their current plan is to use NAFTA as a template in rewriting
trade rules for the Western Hemisphere. In so doing they will be
extending those disastrous economic policies to Central and South
America, and exacerbating them in North America.
Like NAFTA the FTAA will go beyond legitimate trade issues. It
will regulate and override the democratically decided
environmental, public health and food safety laws of sovereign
nations. The process itself is so undemocratic that just months
before the Quebec meeting the draft agreement the trade
representatives will be ratifying is still secret.
Six years of NAFTA has shown it to be an unmitigated disaster.
Nearly 400,000 U.S. jobs have been lost since NAFTA as companies
relocated to Mexico. While Mexico has enjoyed dramatic industrial
growth, average workers have seen a decline in their standard of
living. While the border areas have seen intensified industrial
activity, Mexican workers there often make less than the minimum
wage of $3.40 per day. Under the FTAA exploited workers in Mexico
could be leveraged against even more desperate workers in Haiti,
Guatemala or Brazil by companies seeking tariff-free access back
into U.S. markets.
NAFTA's labor and environmental side agreements have proven
unenforceable. Because of NAFTA's failure and the widespread
public opposition to the WTO, the ILWU calls on the trade
officials in Quebec City to abandon these so-called free trade
policies and instead turn to implementing fair trade policies that
promote local economic development with livable wages and fair
conditions for workers, environmentally sustainable production and
intercultural understanding and peace among trade partners. The
ILWU also supports the efforts to organize protests against the
FTAA in Quebec next April and encourages its members who can
attend to do so.
International Longshore and Warehouse Union
International Executive Board
San Francisco, California
December 12-13, 2000
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