San Francisco—Demonstrators at the Federal Office building May 27 urged Congress to oppose the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), but President Bush signed the unfair trade pact the following day. The deal restructures trade relations between the U.S. and the countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica and Nicaragua.
Labor and environmentalists joined fair-trade advocates to denounce the trade deal that directly threatens at least 1,000 ILWU sugar jobs in Hawaii’s Local 142 and California’s Local 6 and possibly more at the C&H Refinery. It would allow foreign producers to dump sugar made by non-union—even children’s—labor onto the U.S. market. Local 142 pineapple and coffee workers also have reason to worry because Central America exports those crops as well.
In April the ILWU sent its International officers, legislative staff and 45 rank-and-filers to lobby Congress on CAFTA. The union activists argued that CAFTA’s lack of enforceable labor and environmental rights for developing countries will result in a NAFTA-like U.S. job flight. U.S. employers regularly use the threat of moving to the third world to scare their workers out of unionizing.
The ILWU is also concerned that CAFTA will become a stalking horse for FTAA, the extension of NAFTA into the entire Western Hemisphere, excluding Cuba. CAFTA has no provisions to protect jobs from unfair trade practices and no provisions for immigrant worker rights. It has no provisions to help Central American countries with debt relief and provides no means for workers or the public to have input into trade decisions.
The deal would also extend to Central American countries NAFTA’s notorious Chapter 11 allowing foreign corporations to sue a sovereign nation if its laws hurt profits.
Costa Rica, a CAFTA signatory, had refused to let the U.S. energy company Harken Costa Rica drill for oil in sensitive offshore areas. That country’s Constitutional Courts upheld its environmental laws and Harken went to the World Bank last September to get a $57 billion settlement for its loss of “future profits.” Under World Bank rules Costa Rica could, and did, refuse to respond. CAFTA, however, would give Harken a forum to sue in international trade courts where domestic law would be trumped by trade law. Bush’s former oil company, Harken Energy, has close ties to Harken Costa Rica.
In the reverse of normal practice, Congress must now vote the pact up or down.
In a statement read to the crowd, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) denounced the pact’s lack of enforceable labor standards and spoke of strong opposition to the agreement.
“This CAFTA is on a midnight train to nowhere—in an election year or any other year,” Pelosi said.
—Tom Price
