Free-Trade Agreement
I don’t get it. Here, Los Angeles is desperately attempting to find ways to generate employment for the good people of South-Central Los Angeles, an effort The Times laudably supports. Then the paper prints an editorial in favor of the Mexican free-trade treaty, which will have the effect of taking the few manufacturing jobs remaining in the city and removing them to Mexico.
Just who do you think the free-trade treaty is going to help? The working person in America? Hardly. Mexican workers are willing to be exploited for $10 dollars a day and do not require health insurance, workers’ compensation insurance or other benefits that are partially paid for by the employer. Manufacturers are salivating at the chance to remove their factories to Mexico to get at that cheap labor or to use the threat of moving to keep local wages low.
As I see it, the primary beneficiaries of the free-trade agreement will be the investment bankers who will invest their money in Mexico instead of the United States.
WESLEY J. SMITH, San Francisco
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