SUMMIT CAR PARTS : ``They chased me and I lost control of my car when they rammed into me. Ithought I was finished.'' Canadian church leaders went to Mexico to see howNAFTA is working. They expected to find misery, but were shocked to see how badit is -- and dismayed by evidence it's getting worse. Today, Lopez has come halfway across northern Mexico to Ciudad Juarez to meet aCanadian church delegation, here to examine the effects of the 1994 NorthAmerican Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. He tells them that, seven years intoNAFTA and its promise of better labour conditions, workers still lack legalprotection to fight the big government-controlled unions that wield suchenormous power. ``I am afraid, yes,'' says Lopez, who knows activists whooppose powerful interests get themselves killed in Mexico. `Maybe they'll get me next time. But I believe that if we don't take risks, wewill never have anything and that's another way of killing us slowly.'' Thesechurch leaders from across Canada wanted to see Mexico for themselves inadvance of this week's Summit of the Americas in Quebec city, with its aim ofexpanding the trade pact among Canada, the U.S. and Mexico to the entirehemisphere.
SUMMIT CAR PARTS : Free-trade supporters say NAFTA is a success, that it has brought jobs toMexico. Sure, serious social problems remain, they say, but they will ease withtime. They point to last year's election of opposition President Vicente Fox,and his promise of sweeping change, as proof old oligarchies are crumbling.[snip]Nothing, they say, prepared them for the heartbreak of Hilda Salinas, who worksin a modern free-trade assembly plant and lives in a plywood shack, barely ableto feed her five children; or for the pain of listening to barrio priest FatherDavid talk about young factory workers who have been raped and killed, andwhose murders have not been solved in a city where population growth is out ofcontrol and police are overwhelmed. Nothing prepared them for the children. [snip]NAFTA did nothing to stem the desperate tide of illegals throwing themselves atthe wall from Matamoros on the Gulf Coast to Tijuana on the Pacific. Bodies ofMexicans who didn't make it are found floating in the muddy Rio Grande everyweek, or turn up in the desert, sometimes shot by ``coyotes'' who take theirmoney to get them across, then betray them with a bullet to the head.Anglican Archbishop Thomas Morgan, from Saskatoon, fights back tears. ``Thismorning, when we drove into those terrible slums, I was not prepared . . . Itwas a visceral experience for me. This is violence. [snip]Rev. Robert Smith, former moderator of the United Church of Canada, fromVancouver, urges the federal government to reconsider its support for a largerFree Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) modelled on NAFTA. ``Free trade is hereto stay, and it may even be a good thing,'' he says, ``but not in the absenceof programs to help those dispossessed by free trade.'' Keith Christie,Canadian ambassador to Mexico, argues ``the strength of the trade deal is thatit has helped in Mexico's economic recovery.'' [snip]What happened, they ask, to NAFTA promises of social justice? Mexico's borderarea is exploding with foreign-owned assembly plants, called maquiladoras,which employ 1.3 million workers and make up the only booming segment of theMexican economy. These plants are increasing because NAFTA locks in favourableinvestment rules that ensure no surprises, such as a sudden government decisionto slap import tariffs on car parts. These plants assemble goods - from engineblocks to brassieres - using materials imported duty-free under NAFTA, thenship the finished products back over the border, again duty-free.
SUMMIT CAR PARTS : They pay little or no tax in Mexico, which is why Ciudad Juarez is unable toprovide even minimal services to a population now officially at 2 million, andgrowing daily as Mexicans flood in from all over the republic. Many newarrivals are farmers, forced off their land by NAFTA rules which endedagricultural subsidies. These free-trade policies coincide with moves to cutfarm credit and open up Mexican markets to cheap food imports from the U.S.,including corn, which once was the mainstay of Mexican agriculture and remainsthe key dietary staple. Nobody says farming is easy, but people say they weren't living in squalor theway they are in Ciudad Juarez. ``We have heard stories of repression by thearmy, of death squads that force people from their homes and of fear andsuffering,'' says Priscilla Solomon, from the Sisters of St. Joseph in NorthBay, and a member of the Anishnabe nation. ``We could see the pain and griefand, in all cases, the common denominator is the disempowerment ofpeople.'' [snip]
SUMMIT CAR PARTS : Since Canada's first free-trade deal with the U.S. in 1989, Canadian churcheshave joined labour, environmental and human rights groups to criticizeagreements they believe place corporate values over human values. They say freetrade is about cheap labour, and everything else is window-dressing. They seeit as a ``race to the bottom,'' in which Canadian and Mexican workers arereduced to Mexican standards, not the reverse. ``The problem with free trade,''says Catholic Bishop Jean Gagnon, from Quebec city, ``is that it doesn't sharethe wealth. `So my car costs less because it is assembled in Mexico but people have to livethe way they do here. I can't accept that.'' After listening to union organizerLopez, United Church minister Smith says he's angry the Canadian governmentsigned a NAFTA labour side agreement which does nothing to protect Mexicanworkers fighting for independent unions. Lopez was involved in a year-longdrive to bring an independent union to the Duro Bag manufacturing plant in RioBravo.
SUMMIT CAR PARTS : It failed when, on March 2, workers voted 498-4 for the officially sanctionedgovernment union, CROC, against its upstart rival. According to testimony frominternational labour delegations, workers at the U.S.-owned plant werethreatened with firings, harassed with guns, locked up overnight in the planton the eve of the vote and forced to vote in front of thugs from the officialunion. In Mexico, unions have traditionally been controlled by the government.Newly elected President Fox says he abhors the situation and wants to introducelabour legislation to change it. But critics call Duro a test case, and say Foxfailed to uphold a pledge to promote collective bargaining rights, includingsecret ballots. ``The new government promised us many things, but only the colours of the partyhave changed,'' says union organizer Lopez. ``It's true there are more jobsunder NAFTA, but is it worth it to live like this? I don't think so.'' Thecompany says workers weren't threatened with losing their jobs. `[snip]
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