Free-Trade Pact Is a Threat to U.S. Labor
In his column, “America’s Big Stake in Mexico’s Prosperity” (April 14), James Flanigan casually dismisses labor’s concerns over the proposed free-trade pact. Like other proponents, he urges support for a free-trade agreement as a leap towards prosperity for our impoverished southern neighbor.
Yet President Bush’s drive to “fast-track” free-trade relations with Mexico spells economic and ecological disaster for millions of working Americans--and little, if any, progress for Mexican laborers. The only beneficiaries will be big corporations that seek to avoid tougher U.S. standards on minimum wage, child labor, health and safety and environmental and consumer safeguards.
Los Angeles meatpacking employees who belong to my union could be the next victims. Unions representing food workers have had enough difficulty getting U.S. regulators to properly inspect meatpacking plants here. What will be the state of regulation in Mexico, where U.S.-style standards and inspections are nonexistent? How will American consumers be protected from meat products that are packed in Mexican factories and sold in local supermarkets?
A North American free-trade pact is appealing in this era of organized regional trading blocks. But the European Community is striving to establish uniform cross-border standards on wages, worker and environmental protection. Mexico says it won’t even discuss negotiating these issues. Will Mexican workers be better off with free trade? Workers in the border zone where foreign firms are allowed to own plants earn less than their counterparts in other parts of the country.
Organized labor in the United States wouldn’t object to a free-trade agreement with Mexico--if uniform wage, health and environmental standards were guaranteed. Unfortunately, the reason Bush and major corporations are pushing so hard for free trade with Mexico is to avoid those very protections.
RICARDO F. ICAZA
The writer is president of UFCW Local 770 and the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO.
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