Hundreds Protest at U.S.-Mexico Border Over Trade Agreement

Nearly 500 people, including garment workers, and labor and environmental leaders, joined Thursday at the U.S.-Mexico border to protest the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement.

Chanting “$4 a day, no way!” the demonstration against the trade agreement was one of the largest thus far in San Diego County, which analysts say will feel the most immediate impact from the agreement.

The event, sponsored by the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union and the AFL-CIO, was largely orchestrated: American Fashion Inc. in Chula Vista closed for three hours so that about 475 of the clothing plant’s 500 workers could take 10 school buses to the rally.

Union leaders contend that approval of the trade agreement will lower American salaries in manufacturing to the minimum of about $4 a day that workers in Tijuana earn. The treaty has been initialed by President Bush and the leaders of Canada and Mexico, but has yet to be ratified.

Raul Marquez, leader of Mexico’s Authentic Labor Front, which he said is the only union not under government control in Mexico, said Mexican workers are already facing “miserable salaries with U.S. companies that have transferred to Mexico. The corporations have added to the destruction of our country and our health.”