UAW: CAFTA betrays workers

With last night’s razor-thin vote in favor of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), “a slim majority in Congress has betrayed workers, farmers and ordinary citizens in the United States and Central America,” said UAW President Ron Gettelfinger.

CAFTA, like NAFTA before it, protects the profits of the pharmaceutical industry, agribusiness and other multinational companies,” said Gettelfinger. “But it offers no meaningful protection for working men and women, family farmers, consumers or the environment.

CAFTA did not win on the merits. The Republican House leadership had to hold the vote open and President Bush had to twist arms and load up the energy and transportation bills with pork-barrel projects to win the narrowest possible victory.”

Nonetheless, it is a positive development that so many fair-minded legislators from both parties were able to resist enormous pressure and cast a vote against CAFTA and in favor of their constituents, who need a fair playing field that will help raise living standards in all countries,” Gettelfinger added.

Our union will work closely with our allies in the coming months to build on this cooperative effort so we can stop any U.S.-Thailand trade deal that would destroy tens of thousands of good-paying American jobs by eliminating the existing tariff on pickup trucks imported from Thailand. We will continue to insist that trade agreements must protect American jobs and contain enforceable protections for worker rights abroad.”

Source: UAW