Say "No, to CAFTA and get out of NAFTA!" Vote expected this week!
A Sneak Preview of Mobility of Labor in the Global Economy
by Alan Wasdahl

San Diego - Most of the construction industry nationwide is in a slump, but the local economy in San Diego has somehow resisted this downturn.
Because of the strength of our local economy, numerous Canadian building contractors have been coming to San Diego and bidding and getting construction contracts.
Foreign owned companies contracting work in the U.S. and using local workers is not a new thing. But what is new and newsworthy is that these contractors are now bringing much of their workforce with them, down from Canada. As yet, no news of this, or its implications, has made it to the mainstream media.
Canadian companies - along with their Canadian workforce - are currently performing work here in the U.S. This is done as a result of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a three-way trade agreement involving the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Most noteworthy, is that the provisions in NAFTA that entitle Canada to do this must, logically, also entitle Mexico to do the same thing. In free-trade language, the term that applies to these new migrant workers in the global economy is "Mobility of Labor."
While there are no indications, thus far, of construction companies from Mexico performing work in the U.S. with Mexican workers-- the plan for this has been in the works for quite some time. Not nearly as closed-door about his intentions as is our own government in this matter, President Fox of Mexico has vigorously been pushing to have an open borders policy with the U.S. However, Fox is not nearly as enthusiastic when it comes to opening Mexico's border to the south.
President Fox may, for the moment, be holding back as a courtesy to Bush, as the U.S. House is expected to vote on the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA)--an expansion of NAFTA to six additional nations. This would include: Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and to be combined with a proposed U.S.-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement.
President Fox could later force the issue of allowing Mexican companies and their workers access to the United States by making an appeal to the world trade court of the World Trade Organization (WTO), by arguing that Mexico is entitled to the same treatment as Canada.
While it could be argued that Canadian wages are much on an even par with U.S. wages (and, therefore, not much of a threat) -- certainly this is not the case with Mexico.
What provisions exist in the NAFTA or CAFTA agreements to control what contractors from these third world countries would have to pay their workers while performing work in the U.S.? Would they be required to pay in dollars and observe the U.S. minimum wage laws -- or would they be exempt? Could they even be paid in pesos? In the future this may become a moot point, as many free-traders have bandied about the idea of a new currency for all of the Americas- from the Yukon to the Yucatan, right down to the tip of South America. In time, this currency will replace the currency of individual nations as is currently being done in Europe with the Euro.
The bottom line is that neither NAFTA or CAFTA is designed to strengthen our own national and local economies, or the fiber of our local communities. In fact, it explicitly does otherwise. Trade agreements such as these expressly forbids the making of any local labor standards, environment, human rights, or issues of social justice, as binding conditions for its trade policies.
Despite the already dismal record of failed free trade policies and the wide spread exportation of jobs and entire industries, the Administration in Washington now intends to expand NAFTA, first with CAFTA, to ultimately include some thirty-five countries throughout Central and South America.
The Administration in Washington intends to deliver us headlong into the New World Order economy of open borders, where those countries whose workers are the most economically disadvantaged will be most likely to underbid local contractors and displace the local workforce. The end result will be to pit one group of workers against another, on a worldwide basis -- with little or no possible benefit of tax dollars returning to benefit local communities.
I believe that most Americans -whether they are from Canada, the U.S., Mexico or even further South- are not quite prepared to embrace a borderless society for the entire hemisphere -- one whose design is motivated, solely, by global corporate greed and the interests of the World Trade Organization.
Instead, all of these diverse people, from many lands and cultures, must learn to recognize those qualities that are fundamental in building self-sufficient, self-sustaining economies that best serve it's citizens and communities. Opposition to trade policies motivated by greed, and more recently the WTO, has united many individuals and groups throughout the world towards questioning these policies that benefit only the global elite.

Alan Wasdahl, is a working carpenter from San Diego and is a member of Carpenters Union Local 547. E-mail at: awasdahl (at) k-online.com
Permission to reprint all or part of this article is freely given, so long as the author is properly acknowledged.
NOTE: A CAFTA vote by the House is expected to take place by the end of July, 2005. Please help to get the word out! Contact your representative and say "No, to CAFTA and get out of NAFTA!"