<html> <head> <meta HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=windows-1252"> <meta NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Microsoft FrontPage 3.0"> <title>NAFTA Lawsuit George Becker Statement</title> <meta NAME="Template" CONTENT="C:\PROGRAM FILES\MICROSOFT OFFICE\OFFICE\html.dot"> </head> <body LINK="#0000ff" VLINK="#800080" BGCOLOR="#ffffff"> PRESS STATEMENT: JULY 13, 1998 DELIVERED AT NATIONAL PRESS CLUB WASHINGTON, D.C. GEORGE BECKER, PRESIDENT UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA <h2>USWA LEADS FEDERAL LAWSUIT CHALLENGING NAFTA</h2> <hr> Earlier this morning, the United Steelworkers of America, joined by the Made in the USA Foundation, filed a lawsuit in a federal court attacking the North American Free Trade Agreement as unconstitutional. Our position is simple, but it rests on the foundation and bedrock of our republic the Constitution of the United States of America. The Constitution provides, in Article II, Section 2, a specific procedure for the making of treaties a procedure that was designed by the Constitutions framers to make sure that any treaty entered into by our government would be in the best interests of the people of the United States. That procedure requires that "two thirds of the Senators present [must] concur" with any treaty negotiated by the executive branch of our government. Had NAFTA been considered by our founding fathers, there is no doubt in my mind that they would have considered it a treaty. It would be difficult to imagine how any international economic agreement could be a treaty, in the Constitutional sense, if NAFTA were not one. It binds its three signatory North American nations Canada, the United States and Mexico into the economic equivalent of a military alliance. In fact, similar measures taken by the nations of the European Union not long ago were seen as the beginnings of a political union. But, contrary to the procedure specified by our Constitution, NAFTA did not receive the required approval by two-thirds of the Senate, and for very good reason because NAFTA is, quite simply, not in the best interests of the vast majority of the American people. We believe, therefore, that NAFTA is unconstitutional, and our lawsuit asks the court to declare it null and void. Although the focus of our lawsuit is this Constitutional issue, the United Steelworkers of America has other, equally compelling reasons for taking up this fight. The fact is that NAFTA has been an unmitigated disaster, not just for our members, but for working people throughout North America in Canada and Mexico as well as in the United States. Thats because, from the standpoint of working people, the logic of NAFTA is fundamentally flawed. The so-called "free trade" system that NAFTA established across North America has given predatory corporations a license to hunt for the cheapest labor and the lowest environmental and safety standards on the continent and thats where they move their operations. So when a job is "exported" and it doesnt matter whether its from Canada, Mexico or the United States the job that "lands" in one of the other countries is, by and large, a worse job. These corporate moves have accelerated a long-term shift in the U.S. economy away from high-wage manufacturing jobs to low paying service jobs. A recent survey by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projected that 95 percent of all job growth in the next 10 years will take place in services, while manufacturing industries are expected to lose another 350,000 non-supervisory jobs. Meanwhile, since NAFTA was implemented, wages for Mexican workers fell at least 27 percent between 1993 and 1996. And, of Mexicos 33 million workers, 19 percent worked for less than the minimum wage, 66 percent lacked any benefits and 30 percent worked fewer than 30 hours per week. The same trends hold true in Canada, where wage rates are stagnating, and more and more working people are forced to get by with less. And in all three countries, when working people attempt to organize and stand up for their rights, they are told the same thing: "Be satisfied with less, or you wont have a job at all." As a result, the ideal workplace in the NAFTA world is not some pristine, high-tech computer assembly plant in the Silicon Valley, where workers are valued for their contribution to the enterprise, the environment is protected, and peoples health and safety is a major concern. It is, instead, a maquiladora plant on the Mexican border, where workers are paid five dollars a day, their families are forced to live in squalor and degradation, and occupational illness and injury are seen as simply the byproducts of an efficient economic system. No working person U.S., Canadian or Mexican should be forced to compete in a race to the bottom, should be forced to barter hard-earned economic, environmental and occupational security for the opportunity to work harder and longer for less. But thats whats happening. We opposed NAFTA from the beginning because we didnt believe its supporters in business and government who said it would vastly increase U.S. exports and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs. Our opposition has intensified as weve seen the results of NAFTA since it passed the Senate by less than a two-thirds vote in 1993. As a direct result of NAFTA, more than 2,000 U.S. companies employing over 420,000 workers have moved their operations to Mexico. They are familiar and prominent corporate names: RCA, the last American manufacturer of television sets now made in Mexico. Oshkosh jeans and overalls now made in Mexico. American Standard toilets and plumbing fixtures now made in Mexico. TrueTemper hardware products, Fruit of the Loom t-shirts, Farah pants, Woolrich coats, Smith Corona typewriters, Goodyear tires, even the Energizer bunny has become a contestant in this race to the bottom of the economic ladder. Some of the workers who used to make these products were members of our union like the men and women who manufactured Huffy bicycles in Ohio until their employer announced that their jobs will be moving south of the border when their plant closes at the end of the year. But, USWA members or not, all these workers have one thing in common. Theyve all seen their relatively good paying industrial jobs disappear as their companies look for the lowest common denominator in an increasingly global labor market. Two of those workers members of the USWA are with us today, and they will tell you first-hand what it means when your job becomes a permanent casualty to an employers quest for ever-cheaper labor. They are among the more than 7,000 Steelworkers members at more than 30 locations who have been certified by the U.S. Department of Labor as having lost employment because their jobs moved to Mexico, or because of increased imports from factories in Mexico. As of July 9, more than 187,000 U.S. workers at more than 1,500 work sites across the country have been certified under this special government program, NAFTA Transitional Assistance, or TAA. But these workers represent only the tip of the iceberg of job loss. Only workers who produce a product, rather than a service, can qualify for TAA, and only workers whose jobs were directly affected by NAFTA. If you work in a plant or factory that moved to Mexico, you can qualify. But the workers who supplied parts and material to your factory are out of luck. So are the people who worked in the stores, restaurants and other businesses in your town that are forced to close because the factory is no longer there. To make matters worse, only workers who actually apply can receive assistance. So when Guess jeans moved more than 60 percent of its production to Mexico, Peru and Chile, and over 1,000 workers in Los Angeles lost their jobs as a result, not one single job was counted in the NAFTA totals because none of these workers applied for assistance. But the trade numbers speak for themselves. As a direct result of NAFTA, imports of goods into the United States from Mexico have more than doubled, vastly exceeding any increase in exports from the United States to Mexico. The U.S. trade balance with Mexico has gone from a $1.7 billion surplus in 1993 to a $14.6 billion deficit in 1997. At the same time, the U.S. trade deficit with Canada has grown from $10.7 billion in 1993 to $16.4 billion in 1997. Overall, our trade deficit with the NAFTA countries has increased by a factor of 243.3 percent. As a labor organization, the USWAs primary purpose is to negotiate collective bargaining agreements with employers agreements that improve the wages, benefits and working conditions of our members. And we are intimately familiar with what NAFTA means to workers who try to improve their lot in life. Time after time, when we sit down to negotiate with employers, they tell us, "We know we can afford to improve wages and benefits, but we just dont want to. In fact, if you dont agree to work for less, well simply move this plant." Thats what happened at  Huffy bicycles largest plant in Celina, Ohio. Instead of dealing fairly with the workers whose labor helped to build the company, Huffy purchased a bicycle production plant in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. We will not stand for this race to the bottom. Instead, we want a trading system that recognizes workers as central to the economy and allows people to earn enough to actually buy the goods they produce. NAFTA has never lived up to the promises made by its supporters, and the sad fact is that workers in all three countries are the losers. It is in defense of working people in all three countries Canada and the United States, where we have members, and Mexico where we do not that we take this action. We believe we will succeed and, as a result, NAFTA will be off the books. When that day comes, we will work with Senators from both parties to fashion a hemispheric economic treaty that will serve the interests not just of Wall Street and the bond market, but of workers, their families and communities throughout the North American continent in Canada, Mexico and the United States. ##### <a href="../index.htm">HOME</a> | <a href="../organize.html">ORGANIZE</a> | <a href="../news.html">NEWS</a> | <a href="../services.html">SERVICES</a> | <a href="../uswa.html">MAP</a> | <a href="../rapid.html">RAPID RESPONSE</a> | <a href="../newusers.html">HELP</a> | <a href="../feedback.html">FEEDBACK</a> </body> </html>